Gary Novosielski

While "old business" is a term that is not defined anywhere and is therefore deprecated.

If the rules in RONR apply, only the membership (not the board) can make decisions on what votes are to be counted and other election-related matters, so the board should not be involved. A member in good-standing is one who has not had any rights suspended by due-process discipline procedures. If your bylaws have different conditions for being in good standing, use those conditions. But unless they say that voting is limited to those in good standing, or otherwise have rules limiting voting, those members may not be deprived of the right to vote.

Or (in Windows) just load (add) the United States International keyboard driver. It's on your system already. It also lets you type all the accents and such, as in déjà vu and naïve. Or in Win-11, press Win+; (Windows + semicolon) for all sorts of goodies, including §¶°±€÷⟦⟧ and such.

Well it was that or bite my tongue.

Yes. Yes. Members can vote.

1. Discussion implies that there has been a motion made, and a vote on that motion would certainly be in order. 2. After the member jots down a vote, the ballot would actually have to be "cast" in order to be counted. How is that done in your assembly? In any case, once the vote is cast, the member may depart. 3. Minutes are not read and approved during Special Meetings, unless the meeting was called for that purpose.

Ed! Long time no see. Howdy.

Then virtual meetings do not occur. See [RONR (12th ed.)]: 9:30 Extension of Parliamentary Law to Electronic Meetings. Except as authorized in the bylaws, the business of an organization or board can be validly transacted only at a regular or properly called meeting—that is, as defined in 8:2(1), a single official gathering in one room or area—of the assembly of its members at which a quorum is present. <emphasis in original>

If the rules in RONR apply, non-members have no powers at all, let alone the power to make a motion, put the question, count the votes, and implement the results, all without so much as a meeting having taken place. Do your bylaws grant this power to the general manager? If not, the action creates a continuing breach and is subject to a Point of Order (at an actual meeting) that the action was improper and, to the extent that the breach continues, the action should be ruled null and void.

I know that is the usual process for some public bodies to which Sunshine Laws apply, but in an ordinary private society I know of no rule in RONR that would require it. Even so, it would be nice if the minutes of the open session noted the time of adjournment, which would suggest returning from executive session first.

Yes. The rules in RONR specify that no votes are allowed by proxy, ever. See: [RONR (12th ed.) 45:70-71]

No. Under the rules of RONR, members may speak no more than twice in debate on a given question, and for no more than ten minutes per speech. The mover has the right to claim the floor first. No member may make a second speech until all members who desire to make a first speech have done so. These general rules may by modified as needed by the motion to Limit or Extend the Limits of Debate [RONR (12th ed.) §15]

It would be amusing to see such chaos at a small dog club, but the implications of a political party with little interest in democracy is troubling.

If you need more flexibility than is afforded by the use of an agenda, which is quite common, then you should be using the Standard Order of Business, which provides the appropriate balance of structure and flexibility.

Jill: And if the answer is: They're elected, then the question is by whom?

Not only is it allowed, it is assumed by default In RONR the terms "ballot" and "secret ballot" are synonymous. There are uncommon situations where signed ballots are called for, but this is not the usual case. If you just see the word ballot, you can assume that it means an anonymous vote.

Yes, if people will vote for him.

And just to be certain, the President gets, at most ONE vote. There is no President vote and another tie-breaker vote.

I don't see anything in 2:13 that says anything about special rules. It just says new members need a copy of the bylaws. Regardless, it is not disputed that bylaws supersede special rules of order. They do. But the suspensibility of rules in the nature of rules of order applies to both SROs and bylaws, and did, even before bylaws were called bylaws. I don't see a problem.

And then, in all likelihood, someone makes a motion to censure the president for abandoning his post.

No, it is not safe to say. When interpreting bylaws there is an assumption that everything there was put there for a reason, and an interpretation that assumes some language is meaningless is an interpretation that must be rejected.

It does not deal with bylaws because Cushing's does not deal with bylaws at all, at least in early editions. Bylaws at that stage were nothing but a collection of special rules, so the suspension provision applied equally to all of them--as it does today.

There is no reason that "No" should have appeared on the ballot in the first place. Elections with Yes and No choices are not proper. If an unopposed candidate appears on the ballot, and your bylaws do not permit election by acclamation in that case, then that single name appears on the ballot (presumably with a check box next to it). In addition, all offices on the ballot should contain sufficient write-in spaces to allow writing in the names of any eligible candidates. For single offices this would be one write-in line. For multiple offices where, say, three director seats were open, and the instructions would say "Vote for not more than three", there should be as many names as there are nominees, and also three write-in lines. So anyone who did not approve of an unopposed candidate could still write in another eligible name. Then, an elected candidate would require a majority of the votes cast (that expressed a preference). I am left to wonder why, if a majority did not want this candidate, there was nobody else nominated from the floor to run against that person. If you know why please let us know. But the rule is: Any vote which does not express a preference is treated as an abstention. The only proper way to vote against a candidate is to vote for someone else.

Fair enough, but if they cannot speak or vote, why are they considered to be a member? Quite often committee chairs or other persons attend for reporting or other purposes, and of course they do not vote or make motions, unless they are also members of the board itself. In the vast majority of ordinary societies, the secretary and treasurer are members, but there are certainly many where this is not the case. You are free to arrange matters to suit the special requirements of your organization, but since these rules are not in RONR, we can't interpret them here. If they are ambiguous, they should be amended to make their intent clear.