Gary Novosielski

If your bylaws require a ballot vote, then you must hold one even if only one person is nominated. However, the ballots would not be a yes/no choice. They would have the name of the single candidate and, like all ballots, a space for a write-in vote. If the rules in RONR apply, the only way to vote No on someone's candidacy is to vote for someone else.

Whoever normally presides at non-election membership meetings. If the chairman of the board is also the chairman of the general membership, then that's who presides, whether or not he happens to be a candidate in the election. I'm presuming that the election is taking place at a general membership meeting, but the answer would be the same if the election takes place among the board alone.

Normally, quorum requirements are related to voting eligibility. Quorum is normally specified as either a number or a fraction of those members who have the right to vote; i.e., people without a right to vote do not count towards a quorum. However, like others, I'm having trouble seeing how the language in your bylaws relates to this concept, as the terminology is unclear to someone unfamiliar with the organization.

Well, when the motion for the Previous Question is taken up, it becomes the immediately pending question, while the question upon which debate is to be closed becomes, you should pardon the expression, the previous question.

This is the heart of the matter. Interrupting someone who has the floor is prohibited except in a small number of specific circumstances, and this is true even if the interruptor is a member. If the chair does not put a stop to it, and the manager attempts to interrupt, the member who has the floor, or any member, should raise a point of order that the interruptor does not have the floor, and should do so before he gets five syllables out.

intentionally left blank

Not a chance.

And use your left hand.

No rule in RONR would prevent it. But the devil is often in the details. What sort of a board is this, and do you have any local rules that might require different handling?

No, that provision only applies when ALL members of the committee are absent: i.e., when there is no meeting.

I'm not sure I fully understand, but let me describe how this matter would ordinarily be resolved under the rules in RONR, and you can see how closely it matches what your organization does. The general assembly determines that that it would be beneficial to terminate the contract with the current vendor and assigns the task of finding a new vendor to a committee. The committee undertakes a search and reports its progress back to the assembly on a regular basis, saying that it has not yet arrived at a final recommendation. This is not quite the same as "remaining on the agenda" but it does mean that the matter comes up each meeting as an unresolved item. The committee arrives at a decision. It votes to rise and report its recommendation to the assembly. At the next assembly meeting, the reporting member of the committee moves to enter into a contract with the new vendor. The assembly adopts, amends, or rejects the motion, which is then entered in the minutes, and if approved a new contract is executed. The matter is resolved and would not appear on a future agenda. What seems to be missing from your description is the last step, where the assembly takes action. From reading your description it sounds like the committee makes the final decision and the assembly hears about it informally, and doesn't vote to approve, amend, or reject the recommendation. That would indeed leave the matter hanging.

If your bylaws require 30 days previous notice before voting on bylaws amendments, then it's pretty clear that 28 days does not satisfy that rule.

Yes it does. Any change to the bylaws requires that the amendment process be followed. And what you refer to as a clean-up is not appreciably cleaner than the original.

If the rules in RONR apply, the election is the business of the general assembly, not the board, so it should be handled by the assembly. The board would have no authority to "figure it out", and probably no authority to implement whatever they figured out. (Your bylaws may provide for exceptions.)

Whether you achieve a 2/3 vote or not depends not only on how many people voted Yes, but also how many voted No. If there are twice as many (or more) Yes votes than No votes, a 2/3 vote has been achieved. So a vote of 4-2 would be a 2/3 vote, but a vote of 3-2 would not be. Now, if two people abstained, a vote of 3-1 would be. If the rules in RONR apply, the president's vote is not treated any differently from anyone elses. Under small board rules, the president would vote normally, along with other members.