Gary Novosielski

Per RONR, however, a person who is elected, if present at the meeting, may decline if it is done immediately.

RONR does not mention Installing Officers, and prohibits proxies to the maximum extent allowed by law. So if the rules in RONR apply, I'd have to say No. Your rules may have some provisions that would allow it, and if so, that answer could change. Perhaps you could describe the situation more fully which might fit some analogous situation in RONR.

RONR does not address "operations committees". In RONR there are two types of committees, Standing and Special (or Select). A standing committee is one that continues in existence and usually is assigned a particular class of business, and may have multiple items under consideration. A special committee is one that is created to deal with one particular question. When it rises and reports its recommendations to the parent body, it ceases to exist.

A new election would allow for adding new nominees.

No, the next highest vote getters would not be eligible unless they had support on a majority of ballots, which is unlikely since the membership was restricted from voting for more than 13 spots. I believe a special election would be required. Here's an idea that was not done, but I'd be curious to hear others' reactions: I think it would have been possible to allow the members to vote for up to 15 persons, in the anticipation that the board might be expanded in the near future, with the understanding that only the top 13 vote getters would be elected (presuming they had a majority) and the next two (presuming they had a majority) would only be seated if and when the size of the board was increased.

I don't see where the bylaws prohibit write-in votes. Is that in some other part?

It should be emphasized, I think, that none of these informal gatherings are, in fact, meetings, within the meaning of RONR. No actual business in the form of motions or votes can be done at these gatherings, and no formal decisions can be reached on behalf of the organization.

A non-member may be permitted to address the board with its permission by a majority vote, except that, A non-member may only be permitted to participate in debate (discussion) on a motion by a 2/3 vote, Suspending the Rules.

The procedure to change the bylaws is usually contained within the bylaws. I can't easily think how that procedure could be objected to. Was it by a Point of Order? If so, the chair should probably rule the point not well taken.

That sounds like a germane amendment, to add a public hearing before signing the contract, but you'd need to be quite specific about what effect, if any, the public hearing was going to have. If you simply add language for holding a meeting prior to signing, then no matter what happened at the meeting, when it was over the contract would be signed. It is non uncommon and not improper to amend things so as to delay their execution. And although there is no parliamentary "trick" to forbid the amendment, the normal method to defeat it is to debate against it and vote it down.

I think that this would be categorized as a "correction" to the draft minutes, and as such would require a majority. A "correction" is effectively a motion to Amend, and would share its characteristics.

You can allow non-members to comment (but not in debate¹) by a majority vote at any meeting without any rule. If you want to make it a rule, then you can pass it as a Special Rule of Order, and it becomes one. Or you can write it in the bylaws, and it becomes a bylaw. __________ ¹ Although the rule against non-members speaking in debate is suspendible.

Some organizations have rules against a board member having a business relationship with the organization. Some don't. RONR itself does not have such a rule. Your bylaws would be the place to look. Also there may be state regulations regarding non-profits that addresses the question. And of course the board could simply vote against approving any contract with a board member, should such a question come before them. RONR does say that a member with a pecuniary interest not in common with other members should not vote on questions regarding that interest. But it does not outright prohibit such a vote.

To achieve a 2/3 vote, a candidate must have approval on 2/3 of the ballots cast. Since voters may, in this case, vote for all the candidates, this is not difficult to achieve.

It would seem that the lack of a No choice would assure that every candidate achieves unanimous approval, even without the improper all-or-nothing instruction that was originally proposed, so long as everyone got at least a single vote.

While the main motion is pending, a member, obtaining the floor, can move That the vote on this motion be taken by ballot. The motion requires a second, is not debatable, and needs a majority vote to be adopted. See RONR 12th ed. §30 for more details.

Then how do you distinguish a No vote from an abstention?

Yes, but the OP iseemed to indicate that their structure did not include a VP. Beyond that I'm unwilling to speculate, having not read their bylaws.

As others have noted, the answer will ideally be found elsewhere in your bylaws. If not, the default rule in RONR is that when vacancies occur, filling those vacancies does not change the ending date of the term. Since it appears that in your rules this is the case for filling the office of president, there is good reason to believe it would apply to the office of president-elect.

A motion to Amend is a proposal to change the language of the pending motion, and nothing more. It assumes nothing about whether the pending motion should be adopted or not. In fact, amendment is sometimes used tactically by opponents of the pending motion to make it less acceptable. Such an amendment is known as a "poison pill" and although I personally find it a disagreeable practice, it breaks no rule in RONR.

That's quite correct. I'm "guilty" of doing that myself. During a term as a union president, I found that the Rep. Council was quite distressed if they did not have a copy of the "agenda" at the monthly meetings. Under the principle of picking one's battles, I handed out copies of the standard order of business, with such optional features as had become customary. The body then did nothing with it I referred to it as the order of business, and everyone else referred to it as the agenda, but they were no longer distressed.

There is no problem as far as RONR is concerned. If this is a public body, subject to the Sunshine Laws in your jurisdiction, there may be tighter requirements on who and how many can meet outside of the context of a proper meeting. Bit in an ordinary society it violates no rule in RONR.

I don't see where a member would be prohibited from telling details about charges. It would not change the obligation of others to keep the details confidential.

In the case of Approval of Minutes, taking a vote on approval is improper (but used when there are disputed corrections). Minutes are simply declared approved when there are no (further) corrections.