Gary Novosielski

It has been my understanding as well (although I've been "corrected" on that from time to time). Still, I think DH's suggestion for what to do when an election cannot be completed makes practical sense. I agree that there cannot be a typical vacancy in this case. If an officer's term, has expired, but the election of a successor was not completed, and there is no "or until" clause, then there is no unexpired term to fill, so nobody can be appointed to fill it. But there is an office that is vacant--one that may be quite essential--and electing a president pro-tem, say, at each meeting may just not do the trick as that affords no administrative powers. It makes sense to me that the board, if it has the power to fill vacancies, could appoint someone to the office, not for a full term, but only until the election can be completed. In the case of the president in particular, if there is a duly elected VP, the VP would not become president, as would occur with a true vacancy, but could perform the duties "in the absence" of a president, until one was elected.

If notice was required and in place, then the motion to raise the fee might have exceeded the scope of the notice.

Yes, but that just creates the opposite problem.

Well, wouldn't the vice president be in the same pickle as the president?

Now you know.

Maybe they don't know they're no-nothings because they think they're know-nothings. In any case, I think it's unlikely this recommendation will change in the 12th edition.

It's a tempest in search of a teapot.

E-mail voting is prohibited by RONR. So, if your bylaws don't authorize it, it can't happen.

RONR does not deal with recusal. It does say that a member should abstain from voting on a matter in which he has a personal or pecuniary interest, not in common with other members. But it's a "should" rule, not a "must" rule, so the member cannot be prevented from voting. Nothing needs to be recorded in the minutes. The member simply doesn't vote.

It surely is not correct. The debate is optional, but the vote is not if the motion was moved in the normal way as you described. There is an alternate method of passing a measure by unanimous consent which would not require a vote, but the chair must ask for objections, to give dissenters (if any) an opportunity to object, and if none, he must state that the motion is adopted "without objection". If there is even a single objection the question is handled in the normal way and now we're back to voting. But "everyone" who told you that a motion and second were sufficient to pass something is just flat wrong.

There, I fixed that for you. :-) For cases like this, you should try to anticipate the skulduggery and be prepared to use the Appeal process to overturn such blatant violations when they occur. See RONR §24.

In my experience, "central" or "steering" committees are actually in the nature of boards.

Reopening of Nominations may occur after any round of balloting and requires only a majority vote. Closing nominations requireds a 2/3 vote, or may be declared by the chair when no (further) nominations are offered.

I rise in opposition to the amendment. Shouldn't the fact that the name hasn't changed in the last hundred years and that the current authors have recommended this exact language indicate to us that at least as strong "hint" has been leaked that the title is unlikely to change? What if there were to be multiple works that claimed (erroneously, of course) to be successors? I suggest that the sources of possible dispute would be magnified, not reduced; there are already too many books out there with "Roberts Rules" in the title. Only a work with the precisely correct title should be adopted.

I hope you mean a majority vote, and not a 50% vote, which is less than a majority. Frankly, I hope you mean a 2/3 vote which is normally the minimum for removing anyone from anywhere. Apparently you have a board and an "executive". But since executive as a noun means a person, I assume that here, the executive is a group. So the question is executive what? board? committee? washroom? What is the relationship between it and the board and the general membership?

These two statements are in direct conflict. And if the second is accurate, the question in the first is obviously answered, making much of this thread a waste of my and others' time. OUT.

That definition seems fine. A Past President is, ex-officio, a member of the board by virtue of an office held, viz. President--in the past.

I think it could look impartial if moved "at the direction of the committee".

Without a meeting as well? And by whom? P.S. This was stuck in the buffer. If it appears to suffer from asynchronicity, it does.

From RONR as cited by Mr. Harrison: As noted, a motion to Accept a report is an error. If it is moved and fails, it has no effect, the same as if it had never been moved. Instead, after a report is read, the chair should simply announce that the secretary will place the report on file.

If the President has not yet appointed someone, then what is the mechanism by which the position would be assigned to another officer? It seems to me that any procedure like this would have to be in the bylaws, and would have to state who decides on the temporary assignment. If it's the President, what's the point of such a two-step process?

Ooh, well, I certainly agree that a suspension of the rules is not sufficient and that a bylaws provision is required. I've even argued that the bylaws provision need not be explicit as regards ineligibility. But I don't think that a rule that merely drops someone ought to be considered sufficient without some evidence of additional intent, such as restricting write-in votes. It would not surprise me to learn that some bylaws drafters would believe that dropping a candidate from the ballot would make him ineligible, but I think we have the right to assume that diligent drafters would be familiar with the rules in RONR, would know that dropping and ineligibility are not necessarily equivalent and would make clear their intent if, in fact, it was to make the person ineligible. Or would this only be true in a perfect world?

Exactly my point. RONR is clear that merely dropping someone from the ballot does not make them ineligible for election. But if write-ins are in fact prohibited on subsequent ballots (I say if because I don't know what "provided for" means) then that makes anyone who is not on the ballot ineligible for election. It makes no sense to insist that a person is eligible for election if there is no way that any legal votes can be cast for that person. Eligible means not only that if elected they may serve but also that it is possible to elect them.

I agree that dropping the lowest candidate is not equivalent to making him ineligible. But I think prohibiting write-ins on the second and subsequent ballots (if that is indeed what the bylaws provide) would amount to the same thing. Making a candidate ineligible, as distinguished from invalidating any votes for that candidate, is a distinction without a difference. Again, the rule in RONR seems to require only a provision to that effect, not a specific or explicit one.

Indeed, that would also win, as the two are exact opposites. The award was named after the Sky King TV show, wherein niece Penny would use wretched procedure on the radio to Uncle Schuyler's plane. E.g. "ROGER WILCO, OVER and OUT, Uncle Sky!" That one would have earned her three awards simultaneously: one for the ROGER WILCO, as noted, but also one for the OVER and OUT, plus one for saying anything whatsoever following either.