Gary Novosielski

As @Joshua Katz points out, this motion is for the purpose of asking for information, not providing it. Because this misunderstanding has become so common, the name Point of Information is now deprecated, and the correct name of the motion is now Request for Information. If a member desires to offer information, this is done during normal debate.

It was a correction of the quote of the chair, striking watch and inserting wait. Whether what the chair said makes sense is another matter. If the chair was enforcing the rule requiring previous notice for elections, then it would.

It's not clear what rule you're talking about. Was this intended to be part of some other thread?

Your procedure for "complaints" , "objections", and something called an "appeal" which apparently bears no resemblance to the motion to Appeal in RONR, are rules of your own design, and so are not anything RONR would apply to. Are these rules in your bylaws somewhere? How do they work? They seem to be quite unlike the rules in RONR. Does your organization adopt RONR as your parliamentary authority?

Possibly. It depends on a number of things. Was this a board meeting at which the person was nominated, a board meeting or a membership meeting? Was the body that was meeting the one with the power to fill vacancies, according to your bylaws? In any case, if the member moved to nominate the person, that does not mean a vote will be taken then. It requires previous notice to elect someone to office to fill a vacancy. I'm not sure why the chair did not handle this as a call for nominations rather than waiting for someone to "move" a nomination, but I suppose no harm was done. Nominations do not require a second. If previous notice of this vote was made at this meeting additional nominations and a vote could take place at the next one. But I'm assuming a lot here. What do your bylaws say about filling vacancies?

Well, "complaints" have no parliamentary standing, and "objections" only matter in some narrow situations. But the requirement that they follow the rules applies without regard to their "real interest" in concerns or transparency. The major point is that the leadership can (and will) only get away with what the assembly as a whole will put up with. It is easy to simply ignore a complaint, but less easy to ignore a properly raised Point of Order, and if ruled upon unfavorably a properly seconded Appeal From the Decision of the Chair. [RONR (12th ed.) §23-24] Learn the proper forms, and use them without hesitation. Make sure you have allies in the assembly who are prepared to clamp on and not let go until the rules are properly observed. To quote Frederick Douglass: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them...."

Yes. Although it's possible a rule was violated, this would not invalidate the entire meeting. And since, apparently, nobody saw fit to raise a Point of Order at the time, it's water under the bridge at this point.

Before adopting the agenda for a particular meeting, the contents are open to amendment the same as any other motion. Once all amendments have been made, the agenda can be adopted by a majority vote. After it has been adopted, further changes would require a two-thirds vote. If the agenda is simply voted down (defeated) then the standard order of business would apply: 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.]

Ultimately each society must interpret its own bylaws. Rulings of the Chair are appealable by the motion to Appeal [RONR (12th ed.) §24]. The closest analogous rule in RONR is the calculation regarding days of previous notice: 9:4 In all such cases, to avoid uncertainty about what period in advance is reasonable, the specific number of days’ notice required—which will depend on the conditions of the particular assembly and which each organization must determine for itself—should be prescribed in the bylaws (56:34). Unless otherwise provided in the bylaws, the number of days is computed by counting all calendar days (including holidays and weekends), excluding the day of the meeting but including the day the notice is sent. In other words, whole days count, not hours, minutes, or other fractions of a day. Also, I do not see in your quoted bylaws any requirement that the objection must be received within 10 days. Analogous rules in RONR provide that things must be sent by a particular time. Your bylaws say it must be made. It is up to your organization to decide whether made means sent or received or something else.

Yes, it is incompatible with the idea and ideals of a deliberative assembly. This is why RONR prohibits proxies to the fullest extent permitted by whatever laws and regulations govern your type of society. You may amend your bylaws to use proxies but you'll have to develop the rules for their use. All things considered, you'll be sorry. Good luck.

No. Amending a rule permanently is not the same as suspending it occasionally. If you want to amend the bylaws to eliminate roll-call votes, then you do that once, and you're done. But to suspend the rule that requires a roll-call vote on certain occasions, to allow a ballot vote, you would say: I move to Suspend the Rules and take the vote on this question by ballot. This would require a second, and would not be debatable. It requires a two-thirds vote for passage, and if it succeeds, then for that question a ballot vote will be used. If there was no rule in your bylaws requiring a roll-call vote, it would be simpler; you would only need to say: I move that the vote on this question be taken by ballot. This would only need a majority vote, since no rules are being suspended.

So, if etc means ElecTroniC, the texting must be the old fashioned manual texting, which was very noisy and generated so much dust.

Yes, but as with regular sessions, it is especially advisable to follow the rule that discussion does not belong in the minutes. Only actions taken, for the most part, belong there. The minutes are a record of what was done, not what was said. See RONR (12th ed.) 9:26-27, and 48:1-8.

Just make sure you follow 47:13.

And bylaws provision or not, if the perception is widespread in the organization, the membership simply won't vote somebody into such a situation. Without a bylaws provision they can still exercise judgment on a case-by-case basis.

No. I agree with @Josh Martin that this rule cannot be suspended, but if it could be, then as usual the motion to Suspend the Rules would require a two-thirds vote. Since the requirement for a roll-call vote is in the bylaws, and since it protects the rights of non-attendees (who cannot consent) to know the way each person voted, holding a secret ballot would eliminate that protection. Such rules cannot be suspended even by a unanimous vote. Although I believe this to be the case, I would be more comfortable if RONR said so explicitly. Although it does say that a rule requiring a ballot vote cannot be suspended even by unanimous vote, it does not explicitly say that this applies equally to other voting methods. I think, with respect to roll-call votes in particular, it should. Just as a bylaws provision for a ballot vote is presumed to be placed there for an important reason, a provision mandating a roll-call vote seems, to me, to deserve equal protection.

RONR has no prohibition against a person holding two offices, although common sense would dictate that certain combinations are absurd, such as being both the president and vice president. RONR does say that a person cannot be elected to two positions on a single ballot. In other words, if all those positions are voted on individually, i.e., their is a vote for Captain, and once the results are announced, there is a vote for 1LT, and after that result is known, for 2LT, and so on, a person can be elected to more than one position (although I question if any of the combinations from that list would make sense, especially since Secretary and Treasurer are already combined.} With separate ballots, the voters are able to decide whether a person, or one person in particular, should be elected to two offices. But if the voters cast one ballot with separate sections for each office, then although a candidate's name could be listed (or written in) for more than one office, if he received a majority for more than one, he would have to choose which one of them he would accept election to. Then, since the election for the other office(s) would be incomplete, an additional round of balloting to fill it would be required. And yes, he would be eligible to run on the second ballot. Note well that for any office he did not choose, the second-place candidate would not be elected automatically. Since they did not have a majority on the first ballot a second ballot would be required.

The General agrees: 46:11 Nominees. Although it is not common for the nominating committee to nominate more than one candidate for any office, the committee can do so unless the bylaws prohibit it. It is usually not sound to require the committee to nominate more than one candidate for each office, since the committee can easily circumvent such a provision by nominating only one person who has any chance of being elected (see also 56:25).

Ah. Better yet.

If there is unanimous consent, the motion is adopted, just as if there were a vote. The minutes should reflect the fact that it was agreed to by unanimous consent. The agreement was binding right then, as soon as the chair made that announcement. But understand this—approving the minutes, including any necessary corrections, is proper of course, but it has no effect on whether the agreement is binding. What makes it binding is that it was duly adopted by unanimous consent.

In the usual case, nominating committees nominate one name per position, and in some cases this is required in the bylaws (check yours). If not, though, it would be up to the nominating committee to decide whether to include more than one name. Nothing in RONR would prohibit the practice. In any case, after the nominating committee presents its report to the assembly, the chair must call for additional nominations from the floor, if any.

You don't seem to be missing anything. If the Previous Question is moved and seconded, it is not debatable. Deciding whether to stop debating by debating about the advisability of further debate would quickly descend into absurdity. The way to register opposition to ordering the Previous Question is to vote against it. But if two thirds vote in the affirmative, which is the required threshold, it's unlikely that an argument to keep debating would have been successful anyway.

What matters is whether or not it was truly an agreement. A unanimous consent request can be adopted without a vote if the chair calls for objections and none are heard. It's a binding agreement and belongs in the minutes. But something that was not, in fact, agreed to, cannot be made valid by a vote on the minutes. The only valid vote on corrections to the minutes are those that cause the minutes to record what actually happened. They can't ratify something that was improperly done. They can only record the improper action that actually occurred. (There is a motion called Ratify that can be used in some cases, but that's à different motion entirely.)

The problem here is that "the way your bylaws are written" is what you must comply with. The fact that you don't like how they are written does not figure into it, unless and until you successfully amend them. So it is not correct that your only choice is to follow the or alternative—in fact, your only choice is to follow your bylaws the way they are written. The way I read the bylaws, they specify a fixed term. I think neither the and nor the or alternative applies here, specifically because the word until does not appear. In best-practice bylaws, terms end after a given time plus additional time until successors are in place. But your bylaws say that terms last for two years. Although they mention successors, they do not say that the fixed terms continue until the successors take over. They say that successors will take over "at that point". What point is that point? The only point mentioned is the two-year point. Saying that the successors take over when they take over is a tautology. Of course they do. But the bylaws say that happens at the two-year point; full stop. What happens if they don't? I see nothing to suggest that the current officers stay in office. Presumably there would be no officers at that point, as is the case with fixed terms. Yes, it could be argued, as @Atul Kapur has done, that your bylaws are equivalent to the and (first) alternative, and while I have a different view, I believe that no matter which of us is correct, you're stuck using the discipline process outlined in Chapter XX of RONR

"In the wrong order them you have." --Yoda