Gary Novosielski

It's gibberish. Nepotism and favoritism are not allowed to serve? Nepotism is a subset of favoritism, and favoritism is a state of being, not a person. Only persons may serve on a board, so although the intent of this language may be to prevent family members and presumably friends from serving on the board together, it fails miserably in fulfilling that intent. Fortunately, only your society can interpret what your bylaws say. RONR has no such rules; it assumes that voters will be familiar enough with the candidates to decide whether they can be trusted to serve without fear or favor in the office to which they aspire.

Check between 47:11 and 47:13. 😇

Then the society should amend the bylaws.

No, it's not. Any result of that vote is null and void.

Since the Membership is the highest ranking body, the membership can establish rules for the executive committee, but not the other way around. Any standing rules governing the membership would have to be moved and adopted in a meeting of the membership. Be careful to distinguish between Standing Rules and Special Rules of Order, since the rules for adoption are different.

No, none of this changes anything. He is still a member. (Check your caps lock key, it seems to be on.)

No, it is somewhat different. If the three offices are identical, it is one section on the ballot, with the instructions: Vote for up to three. Then, when counting the ballots, you count the number of ballots that express at least one choice, and that total becomes the "number of votes cast". Ballots that express no discernable preference are ignored, as are blank ballots. Write-ins are counted the same as other votes. Ballots with votes for more than three are counted as one illegal ballot cast, but add one to the total. The number required to elect is a majority, i.e. more than half, of the votes cast. Candidates who receive fewer votes than that are not elected. Even if the bylaws prohibit nominations from the floor, write-in votes are permitted, and there should be sufficient spaces on the ballot to accommodate them.

Perhaps Guest John will enlighten us about the nature of this motion.

If the rules in RONR apply, you don't. Attendance is not recorded in the minutes, other than to state whether a quorum is or is not present. Do your bylaws contain some attendance rules that you believe need to be documented in the minutes?

All members have the right to vote unless it's been abridged by disciplinary action; there is no way to "permit" or prohibit voting otherwise. Everyone votes. Normally motions have of two possible votes: Yes, or No. You seem to be running this one like an election, but if that were true, you would not drop any choices before re-voting. The two leading competing choices might be able to agree on the third one, so I don't think that "plan" is ideal. But the proper method of dealing with two or three choices in a motion is to use Amendments to decide which choice the assembly prefers, and then when the language id is perfected, vote Yes or No on the motion as amended. If there are more than about three choices, the method of Filling Blanks [See RONR (12th ed.) 12:92] can be useful.

While Secretary/Treasurer is a common combination, and sometimes is officially one office, combining the roles of President and Treasurer is comparatively rare. I suspect that's experience talking.

Not OK at all. When the committee chair or other reporting member gives the report, and the report contains recommended actions, the reporting member should not "look for" a motion, he should move it himself. And the chair should handle it normally.

I do believe that RONR says or implies that in more than one place, but it's always bothered me as it apparently is a way to introduce a main motion without a second—unless by "in the regular way" we mean waiting for a second.

Depending what you mean by "carry". With all the proper assumptions about divisibility satisfied, and the question properly divided, then Postpone Indefinitely would be immediately pending on both of the resulting motions. Well, I guess immediately pending on only one of them but also pending on the other.

The Standard Order of Business comprises the following headings: 1) Reading and Approval of Minutes 2) Reports of Officers, Boards, and Standing Committees 3) Reports of Special (Select or Ad Hoc) Committees 4) Special Orders 5) Unfinished Business and General Orders 6) New Business In organizations that have adopted RONR as their parliamentary authority, that hold their regular meetings as frequently as quarterly, and have not adopted a special order of business, this series of headings is their prescribed order of business. [see RONR (12th ed.) 41:5 ff.]

The option heading "Good of the Order" that typically occcurs just prior to adjournment would usually involve no decision-making, and so would generate no minutes entries, if the rules in RONR apply. In come societies, motions relating to discipline are made under this heading, and those would be included. Since the Board is being asked in the passive voice, it's hard to tell who is asking, and what relationship they hold in the scheme of things.

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If small-board rules are in use, yes. Although there aren't many motions that require a vote. All sorts of things can happen to a motion, many of them not involving a vote.

It appears to me that all requests are accepted (i.e., considered) by the board, but that does not imply that they are automatically granted. Deciding whether to grant the request would presumably require a vote. A vote can have two outcomes, neither of which is disallowed. If the motion is rejected, the member is not excused from the fines.

I would assume that these county boards have their own legal counsel to advise them on drafting such resolutions if the members themselves do not have enough experience to do so.

No, that would be a breach of decorum. You can't go around accusing people. If you have suspicions that someone may be stealing, all you can do is move to form an investigative committee. See 63:9 for an example. The resolution merely refers to "allegations which, if true..." would justify discipline, but the resolution does not assert that the allegations are true. That can only be done by the report of that committee.

Since a resignation is a request to be excused from a duty, I don't think it is technically possible to complete a resignation before there has been an opportunity for the request to be granted or refused. There are situations (admittedly rare) where a resignation would not be accepted, such as a member attempting to resigning while still owing past dues.

Well, there's no question that your Board has the power to fill vacancies, but I'll leave it as an open question to others whether the Membership can instruct the Board whom to select. I think an argument could be made that this is possible but the timing would be a problem unless a Membership meeting could be called before the Board acts. In the usual course of business under RONR, a Membership can Rescind a decision of the Board, but only if the motion has not yet been carried out, and once the Board fills a vacancy, that action has been completed. It's just an idea. However from your bylaws, the Membership does have the power to remove officers. And of course there's always the normal election process for removing dead wood. If the membership seems unwilling to go that route, you have three choices: Give up; Vote with your feet; or Organize!

That looks like the applicable one, since this person was apparently not removed involuntarily. So the Board (not the president alone) has the right to fill the vacancy. Previous notice to all board members of intent to fill the seat is required in advance of that meeting. Chapter numbers are not used in citations. Section number and Paragraph number are used. So you're talking about 44:12, and the rules there apply to votes in any context. A majority is defined as more than half the votes cast, and since a tie (half) is not more than half, the motion fails, just like any motion that does not have majority support. The only exception is noted in the following paragraph 44:13, which notes that on Appeal votes, where the question is: Shall the decision of the chair stand as the decision of the assembly?, a majority in the negative is required to overrule the chair, so a tie vote would sustain the chair's ruling. But in this case just as with the others, the chair might well vote to create a tie, and tip the balance in his own favor, if that one vote could change the outcome. But in no situation does anyone ever get two votes.

Before you elect a new one, remember to accept the resignation of the present one.