Gary Novosielski

Then it appears that you do not have interim members after all.

It appears based on what you have posted that only in-person and proxy voting are allowed. I see no mention of absentee voting, and I therefore suspect that it is prohibited. If that's the case then absentee members may not vote, except by giving a proper proxy to someone who does attend.

Only the chair can make rulings. Parliamentarians give advice. But the parliamentarian may have given the correct advice. You say "we allowed" absentee votes. Who is "we" and how did "we" do that? If your bylaws do not contain a rule regarding absentee voting, then it is prohibited by RONR. Was that part of the basis of the parliamentarian's opinion? "Members were asked" by whom? And on what authority? Was this a decision of the assembly, or a directive from the chair based upon.... well, on what? The assembly itself is the final arbiter of whether a ballot is valid or not. If there is a question raised by the tellers, it is referred to the assembly, not to the chair the parliamentarian, or the bartender. Failure to properly record a vote for one office may not be used to invalidate an entire ballot that contains other, valid votes. (It is inconceivable that a parliamentarian would not know that.) These members who "are objecting"--how are they doing so? Grumbling and complaining to each other? If members were improperly prevented from exercising their right to vote, and if that number could possibly have affected the outcome of the vote, then the vote is null and void and a member should formally raise a Point of Order to that effect at the next meeting. and be prepared to raise an Appeal if the ruling is unfavorable. A new election is the only remedy I can see.

RONR only recognizes "members" and "non-members". How do your bylaws define "interim" members?

No, that's not what it says at all. The quotation marks are misleading and inappropriate. That section clearly refers to societies that have regular general business meetings of the membership, one of which is designated the Annual Meeting. It says nothing about boards. In fact societies that follow that procedure are less likely than others even to have boards.

No. The minutes are a record of what was done, not what was said. And the assertion isn't even close to being over the line with respect to decorum in a meeting. Sounds like a tempest in a teapot.

A meeting of the membership is not a meeting of the board. Board members may attend membership meetings as members, if they are members, but not as "board members", since the board is not in session.

No, you haven't voted twice on the same subject at all. When you vote on amendments, the subject is, "What should the motion that we're considering actually say?" When you vote on the motion, the subject is, "Should the society do what the motion (now) says, or not."

I think you would do best to make a greater effort to use the time-tested language in RONR and not attempt to "improve" what over a century of triial and error have proven to be optimal. As a small example, the second item of business should be called "Reading and approval of minutes". As written, the minutes are read but apparently not approved, and should there be more than one set of minutes to be approved, you will apparently only be able to approve the most recent one. Suppose, for example, there are one regular and two special minutes to be approved (OOps. I mean read but not approved.)

You cannot have an executive session after the meeting is adjourned. Executive session may occur near the end of a meeting, but within the meeting. And going into (and coming out of) executive session, whether "scheduled" or not, requires a motion, second, and majority approval by the assembly. The president acting alone cannot do so.

Presumably that means that the motion was adopted, but I doubt that you could move to Reconsider, if the meeting has already been adjourned. You can use the motion to Amend Something Previously Adopted.

Yes.

In general, but not never. Rules that are clearly in the nature of rules of order (i.e. pertaining to the orderly conduct of business within a meeting) are suspendible even if they are included within the bylaws. That's what prompted the discussion above about whether this rule was or was not in the nature of a rule of order.

Your custom rules supersede those in RONR, so RONR does not address this situation. If you have no rules on the subject, it may be time to add some.

The quorum is five in either case.

Right, then it's even less well-defined. I wish them luck, in any case.

I'd say the latter is clearly a vote that requires 2/3 of the entire board whether present, or voting, or not. The former is unclearly worded and ambiguous. I lean toward considering it as an ordinary 2/3 vote, specifying, arguably without necessity, the body in which the vote takes place. However it can be argued that bylaws language should always be presumed to be there for a reason rather than for no reason. What that reason might be, however, remains unclear. Other things might be argued just as well. One interpretation is that a normal 2/3 vote is needed, but the entire board must be present for the vote. Unclear language should be replaced with clear language so that we don't have to guess.

I think Tom was foolish not to vote. Until his right to vote is removed by discipline (which had not yet happened) he retains that right. If he was prevented from voting, rather than abstaining voluntarily, then the result of the vote is null and void. If he simply abstained, then the vote is apparently correcgt.

I believe that this rule is in the nature of a rule of order, not an eligibility requirement, and may be suspended. The motion to suspend the rules normally does not name the rule being suspended, so a more correct form might be "I move to suspend the rules and (re)open nominations for the office of _____". As such it would require a 2/3 vote to pass, where the motion to reopen nominations normally requires only a majority vote, but it appears this was not an issue in your case.

And that would ordinarily be at the meeting during which the secret ballot vote was held. Presumably the Elections Officer will make the announcement at the meeting at which the secret ballot vote wasn't held, which is a little less well defined.

Business that was not included in the call of the meeting may not be taken up. Whether it is in executive session or no is not relevant.

Apparently the nomination process does not even occur in the context of a proper meeting, so the Election Officer will have to figure out where and when to make this declaration.

i'm not sure what you mean by "called to question'. I presume you mean it was voted on. If nobody raised a Point of Order at the time that the chair announced it as adopted, then it is too late to question it now.

If previous notice of the motions has been already been mailed, it is not in order to remove them. The chair can advise members at the meeting that the proposers no longer intend to make the motions, or the proposers can request leave to make that statement, or they can simply not move them. However, since proper notice was given, there is nothing to prevent someone else from making the same motions, should they wish to do so.

An inquiry from the chair as to the reason for the motion can also help to weed out some of the most common misuses of the motion and allow the chair to decide whether to rule it out of order or to suggest a correct motion to achieve the desired result.