Bruce Lages

Does your organization have a rule requiring committees to keep minutes of their meetings? Normally, committees do not keep minutes since their report to their parent body reflects the results of their work. In lieu of minutes, the committee chair usually makes and keeps notes of the committee's deliberations (RONR, 12th ed. 50:24). It seems to me that if this suspected fraud is to be mentioned to the whole body it would have to be as part of the committee's report.

To the extent that your rules for disciplinary action against members differ from those in RONR - and there appear to be some differences - your organization will have to sort out how to proceed with this situation based on those rules. The following is based solely on the rules in RONR, 12th ed., Section 62. First, the accused member is not allowed to be present during the penalty phase of the trial under RONR, and thus can never vote on his own penalty. But that is what happened in your case and nothing can be done about that now. If - and that's a critical if - you have a clearly established rule that the accused member cannot vote on the motion for his own penalty, then under RONR you have a vote cast by a person ineligible to vote, which is not to be counted in the vote totals. However, from what you say this illegal vote could have, and in fact did, affect the outcome of the vote. In that case, raise a point of order at the next meeting that the election is null and void and needs to be redone. Then vote again, making sure that the accused member is not permitted to cast a vote. And as to the question in your first post - every member who is eligible to vote and who is present at the time the vote is taken again gets to cast a vote.

I agree - more information is necessary. For starters, can you quote the exact wording of the motion that you were voting on?

Most points of order must be raised promptly at the time the infraction occurs, and once any further business transpires it is too late to 'go back' to raise the point of order. There are a few exceptions in which a point of order can be raised at any subsequent time if the breach of the rules is still ongoing (RONR 23:5-6). The replies to your original post all agree that, even if the proper words were not used, the objection raised by the member should be considered as a point of order. So a timely point of order was indeed raised and should be included in the minutes. It is not too late to amend the minutes to include the member's point of order and the chair's response. In fact, it is never too late to amend the minutes, no matter how much time has elapsed. You use the motion to amend something previously adopted, which requires a majority vote if previous notice of the motion is given, or a 2/3 vote, or a majority of the entire membership. I assume the minutes of that meeting have been accepted by now? As Mr. Novosielski has stated, the chair does not get to accept or reject amendments to the minutes. Make the motion, have a second ready, and make sure the assembly gets to vote on the amendment to include the point of order and the chair's response in those minutes.

It seems to me that the member, in 'protesting' the attempt by the chair to appoint delegates and calling the chair's attention to a previous decision of the assembly that delegates would be elected by the membership, was in fact raising a point of order, i.e., calling the chair's attention to a violation of the assembly's rules. While the procedure described in RONR for a point of order (12th ed. 23:12) - rising without waiting to be recognized and stating "point of order" or "I rise to a point of order" - was not strictly followed in this case, I think it is clear what the member's intent was. What you can point to in RONR is that all points of order and the ruling by the chair or by the assembly on appeal are recorded in the minutes (RONR 48:4). The reason for this is that these rulings are considered persuasive if similar issues arise in the future (RONR 23:10).

As far as I can tell, nothing in your latest post changes any of the answers you received above. In particular, you should read Mr. Martin's comments about board members in attendance at committee meetings again. As he has made clear, committee meetings can not become board meetings just because there is a number of board members present which would constitute a quorum for board meetings, whether they are committee members or not.

Well yes, organizations can put almost anything they want into their bylaws, but I strongly suspect that most, if not all, of the regular responders here would not endorse messing with the bylaws for such purposes.

As Mr. Elsman suggests you can raise a point of order at the next meeting that because the vote was not taken by the bylaw-mandated ballot method, the election itself is null and void. However, based on your description of your president's actions, if you really want to resolve this situation it would be wise to speak to some of your fellow members beforehand, and line them up for what would seem like an inevitable appeal when the president either refuses to acknowledge your point of order or rules it not well taken. You need a second for the appeal and you need a majority to overrule the decision of the chair. If the president refuses to acknowledge your point of order or your appeal, you can conduct both yourself from the floor (see RONR, 12th ed., 62:8-9).

No. If a member does not raise a hand for a show-of-hands vote then they have not voted at all - they have abstained. Abstentions are not counted as for or against votes, they are not counted at all. If you are using RONR's standard voting definition - more than half (or some other defined percentage such as 2/3) of the votes cast by members present and eligible to vote - then abstentions have no effect on the results of the vote. If you are using a different basis for voting - such as some defined percentage of the members present - a member abstaining would affect the result by counting towards the number of members present but not towards the for or against totals. In this case, an abstention has the same effect as a 'no' vote, but it is still not counted as a vote.

It can be if your organization wants it to read that way. Personally, I think you could also just use the description of your group that is part of its official name, e.g., the Society, the Club, the Organization, the Association, etc. Since your bylaws as a whole define your organization specifically, I don't think anyone will not know what group that article is referring to if the entire group name is not included.

You are correct, that rule may be suspended because it is clearly a rule of order, i.e., a rule concerning the orderly transaction of business during meetings. Rules that are in the nature of rules of order, even if contained within the bylaws, can, in most cases, be suspended via a 2/3 vote (RONR, 12th ed. 2:14, 21).

That will depend to a certain extent on whether the motion is to postpone indefinitely or to postpone to a certain time (postpone definitely). If it is the latter then A's debate on the motion to postpone cannot delve into the merits of individual B's motion any further than is necessary to support the motion to postpone. Debate on the motion to postpone indefinitely, on the other hand, can include discussion on the pros and cons of the main motion. In neither instance, however, can individual A prevent individual B from responding to A's comments, except by moving the previous question after A's remarks.

Guest Peg made reference to amendments to her organization's constitution and bylaws in the title of her post.

Not necessarily - that will depend to a large extent on whether or not separate amendments are interdependent on each other, on how extensive the changes proposed will be. The options for voting on bylaw amendments range from a single vote on one or more isolated amendments or on a series of closely related amendments where each amendment cannot stand alone, to consideration of and voting on, extensive changes to various parts of the bylaws one at a time. In this latter case a separate vote to adopt all the changes is taken after all proposed amendments have been perfected (see RONR, 12th ed. Section 28, Consideration by Paragraph or Seriatim). RONR covers the question in some detail in Section 57 of the 12th edition. Edited to add last sentence of first paragraph.

Yes to both questions.

Even if the organization has a rule that specifies a nomination period and that period seems to be over?

Try this: "A member of an assembly, in the parliamentary sense, as mentioned above, is a person entitled to full participation in its proceedings, that is, as explained in 3 and 4, the right to attend meetings, to make motions, to speak in debate, and to vote. No person can be deprived of these basic rights of membership... except through disciplinary proceedings." (RONR, 12th ed., 1:4)

Yes, at least to a certain extent. I think of the phrase 'Open Forum' as encompassinges a broad spectrum of possibilities, including the situation Tomm has asked about, i.e., members of the organization raising issues of concern to the board at board meetings. I interpreted the original issue, stated as "member comments will be allowed at board meetings" in this light, as a defined period in which members could raise issues of concern for the board to consider, rather than a situation in which the non-board members would, in effect, be participating in debate. That scenario would indeed require a special rule of order.

RONR in fact provides for optional headings within the standard order of business (41:28), one of which is referenced as Good of the Order, General Good and Welfare, or Open Forum (41:34). This would encompass exactly what you are asking about - i.e., member comments - and therefore does not require establishing a special agenda.

For starters, can you tell us why only two of the three vacant positions were included on the ballot?

You should run the election in your capacity as chair: "The chair, however, should not hesitate to put the question on a motion to elect officers or appoint delegates or a committee even if he is included." (RONR, 12th ed., 47:10)

The organization could agree to a motion to suspend the rules (see RONR, 12th ed.,Section 25) and approve the bylaw amendments without debate or amendment. That would require a 2/3 vote. It would also assume that there is nothing in the amendment procedure spelled out in the bylaws that would preclude suspending the rules for this purpose. If you're asking whether several different changes to various parts of the bylaws can be adopted by a single vote, then yes, that could also be done by suspending the rules, but if those changes are independent of each other that would require unanimous consent. Edited to add the second paragraph.

I don't see how a committee can have anonymous members if those members were elected. Surely whatever body elected the members knows who they are? RONR provides several ways for committees to be formed: they can be provided for in the bylaws; they can be created by a board; or they can be created by the general membership. In each of the last two instances they are created via a motion. That motion can also specify how the members of the committee are selected. There is no method in RONR that I am aware of that allows for a committee to have anonymous members. In the case of a committee created by the general membership, that committee would report to the general membership and not the board. I am not really certain what your question is in your last sentence - how do another committee's chair and the head of the organization relate to this 'anonymous' committee?

If a 2/3 vote (it should not be referred to as a '2/3 majority') was required for the motion to pass, and a 2/3 affirmative vote was not achieved, then the motion is defeated and is dead for the remainder of that session. Although there is a limited means for the motion to be brought up again, there is no mechanism to keep voting until the desired threshold is attained. And as a semantic point - 8 yeas vs 6 nays is in fact a majority, but it is not 2/3 in favor.

You might try reading through RONR, Section 25 which deals with the motion Suspend the Rules, to see the scope of this motion. Pay particular attention to 25:7-13 which describe the rules of order (and other rules) that cannot be suspended. Other than those exceptions, most of the procedural rules in RONR can be suspended.