Richard Brown

RONR contains no rule regarding the length of time for email voting. In fact, RONR prohibits email and all other forms of absentee voting unless authorized in the bylaws or required by state law. It is up to your organization to adopt its own rule on that issue. Similarly, RONR has no rule on identifying candidates as incumbents. The sample ballots and tellers' tally sheets in the book all refer to the nominees simply by name. Your organization may adopt its own rule on that matter or handle it on a case by case basis by adopting a motion to do so on a particular ballot.

Perhaps we are quibbling and being a bit nit-picky, but I don't think that a statement in the bylaws that "only the following people are eligible for election" is the same thing thing as saying that write in votes are prohibited. If write in votes are permitted, write in votes cast for persons ineligible for election are counted. They are not credited to any candidate but are counted and treated as votes cast. Said votes can therefore affect the number of notes needed to obtain a majority vote and to be elected to office. See tinted page 48 in RONR. However, If write in votes are actually prohibited, it is my understanding they are not counted. It would be just like some members trying to vote by mail when mail ballots are not permitted. They are ignored and treated as blanks or abstentions or as votes cast by non-members. It is as if they don't exist. They have no effect on the vote result. If there is a provision in RONR that says when write in ballots are prohibited by the bylaws they are nonetheless counted in the total votes cast, then please point it out to me and I will stand corrected. Otherwise, it seems that if write in votes are prohibited, any such votes should be treated the same way mailed in ballots would be treated if they too are prohibited. They are simply ignored.

Thank you. That seems pretty clear to me!

For openers, please tell us if this "council" is a government body of some sort. If it is, everything changes! Second, it will help if we know just what this "council" is. Is it a non profit organization of some sort? Is it the governing body of a larger organization, like a board of directors? Assuming you are not referring to a governmental entity and that this is an organization comprised of general members, what do your bylaws say about vacancies? Vacancies are usually covered in bylaws and those provisions trump the rules in RONR. If your bylaws are truly silent, then you conduct a special election to fill the vacancy. This would normally be your general membership. If you have an executive board, your board might have the power to fill vacancies. We would need to more about the powers granted to the board in the bylaws. If your rules are truly silent and you have no executive board that can fill vacancies, then the membership would conduct a special election with previous notice to elect someone to fill the vacancy. Previous notice to the members is required unless your bylaws provide otherwise. Edited to add: The following language starting on page 467 of RONR regarding vacancies will probably be helpful: Vacancies The power to appoint or elect persons to any office or board carries with it the power to accept their resignations, and also the power to fill any vacancy occurring in it, unless the bylaws expressly provide otherwise. In the case of a society whose bylaws confer upon its executive board full power and authority over the society's affairs between meetings of the society's assembly (as in the example on p. 578, ll. 11–15) without reserving to the society itself the exclusive right to fill vacancies, the executive board is empowered to accept resignations and fill vacancies between meetings of the society's assembly. For particular vacancies, see page 457, lines 22–30 [page 468] (president-elect), page 458, lines 7–18, and page 575, lines 6–17 (president and vice-presidents). See also page 177 (vacancies in a committee). Notice of filling a vacancy in an office (including a vacancy in an executive board or executive committee) must always be given to the members of the body that will elect the person to fill it, unless the bylaws or special rules of order clearly provide otherwise.

I agree with my colleagues. As I understand your rules, the important number is the number of members who were there at the time of the vote. Any who left early or arrived late should not be a factor. Just out of curiosity, would you mind posting the exact language from your bylaws requiring the 75 percent of members present vote requirement? That is a very unusual provision. Please quote it exactly, don't paraphrase.

Yes, the citations you provided are pertinent and are excellent references. Thank you. In fact, almost all of page 39 is pertinent. Those references all indicate that the chair has a duty, at least in some instances, to help a member get a motion into the proper form. Very good! I'm assuming that when you say "I'm curious about the previous suggestion", you are referring to Mr.Katz's suggestion in his post immediately preceding yours that a motion to refer might be in order. I suppose a motion for the previous question made immediately after the motion to refer could hinder the progress of the meeting, but I think the motion for the previous question would be more likely to speed things up since the motion to refer is debatable. This would be especially so if the members seem inclined to want to simply kill the motion and be done with it. In fact, RONR suggests that option on page 173 at lines 4-13. Perhaps I'm not understanding your concern. BTW, welcome to the forum! Please don't hesitate to chime in and offer suggestions or ask questions. I'm curious: Where in Louisiana are you? I live in Kenner and am the president of the Louisiana Association of Parliamentarians. We might have a local unit or some members near you who can help you with your studies of parliamentary procedure.

Davis, welcome to the forum! Unfortunately, your question is one we can't answer. It is more of a legal question and subject to rules such as state law and local city charter and ordinances and rules that are outside the scope of this forum. All of those "rules" supersede RONR.

Guest SAA: Since you asked and this seems like it might be an issue in your organization, I want to follow up with one more point: Regardless of whether the chair has an actual duty to assist a member with proposing a motion or responding to a parliamentary inquiry, he would be subject to a motion of censure or even possibly removal from office if the membership believes he is not properly performing the duties of his office as expected by the membership. I would think (and hope), though, that such action would not be necessary.

I agree with Mr. Novosielski to a point. While the failure or refusal of the chair to provide assistance or answer a parliamentary question is not in and of itself a ruling or appealable matter, such action by the chair could well lead to a member making a point of order that RONR requires the chair to assist members with motions or to respond to a parliamentary inquiry. The chair's ruling on that point of order WOULD be a ruling subject to an appeal. In practice, I suspect that the mere making of the point of order would cause the chair to decide to offer assistance.

Guest SAA: The reference to page 34 that I gave you and the reference to Section 4 that Mr. Novosielski gave you are to the same provision. Same with my reference to page 293 and Mr. Novosielski's reference to Section 33. My reference to page 395 is in Section 43. My reference to page 450 is in Section 47.

The chair may.... and in my opinion should.... assist members with framing motions and with other questions about procedure. Perhaps the statements on pages 34, 293, 395 and 450 will be of some assistance. They all indicate that she chair may or should assist members in such a fashion.

Do your bylaws prohibit write in votes? If not, then it is my opinion, based on the quoted language, that this individual is eligible for election to office and to hold office. In my opinion, he is prohibited only from "seeking" the office by following the bylaw provisions for "seeking" the office. Do your bylaws prohibit nominations from the floor? If not, (though not nearly as clear), I think this person can also be nominated from the floor. I interpret your bylaw provision as only prohibiting "seeking" or running for an office in the manner described. Ultimately, however, this is a matter of bylaws interpretation. That is something only your own members can do through a ruling and possible appeal on a point of order. One thing that does seem clear is that your organization cannot "suspend" that bylaw provision unless they bylaws themselves permit such a suspension. Keep checking back. There might well be other opinions!

Interesting! You seemed to have a somewhat different view one year and twelve days ago in this thread! The bylaw language does seem to be rather clear, though. Edited to add: As you said in the current thread, the devil is in the details.... in this case (and in most such cases), the exact language in the bylaws.

Quietstorm, please quote EXACTLY what the bylaws say about this requirement. Please quote the provision exactly.... don't paraphrase. It is ultimately up to your organization to interpret its own bylaws, but it might well be that your bylaw provision prohibits such a member from RUNNING for office (or perhaps even from being nominated for office), but does not prohibit such a member from being ELECTED to office or from SERVING in that office. It is a very fine distinction which comes up from time to time in this forum. In such cases, it is sometimes possible for someone who isn't eligible to be a CANDIDATE to nonetheless be elected to office as a write in candidate. A search of the forum might locate some of those discussions.

Joanne, you might take a look at the top of page 407 of the 11th edition of RONR. It says the following: ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE. It is a fundamental principle of parliamentary law that each person who is a member of a deliberative assembly is entitled to one—and only one—vote on a question. This is true even if a person is elected or appointed to more than one position, each of which would entitle the holder to a vote. For example, in a convention, a person selected as delegate by more than one constituent body may cast only one vote. (Emphasis added)

I know! The same thing happened one or two days ago when Weldon Merritt and I made almost simultaneous lengthy posts responding to several comments by the original poster. We picked up on the same points and made almost identical comments about them at just about exactly the same time. In that case, I think I posted just a few seconds before him. This time, you posted a few seconds before me. Creepy... but it IS Halloween!! 👻

No. One person, one vote. As one of our members used to say, "you count heads, not hats". The fact that a person might wear two hats does not entitle him to two votes.

You can also move to lift the secrecy of the executive session. Making the minutes public is not quite the same thing as lifting the secrecy of the executive session. If you vote to only make the minutes public, members are still prohibited from discussing any other details of the executive session. By lifting the secrecy of the executive session, members are free to openly discuss what transpired.

Agreeing with the comments by Dr. Kapur, I would add that a request to include someone's statement in the minutes is usually handled by unanimous consent without objection. However, if someone does subject, then the assembly decides whether to include the comment by a majority vote. I would also point out that some jurisdictions, such as Louisiana, have a state law to the effect that a director may receive some protection from liability for actions of the corporation if his negative vote is recorded in the minutes. It has been my experience that that is one of the reasons for directors sometimes asking that their statement and/ or their negative vote be recorded in the minutes. They might also want it done so that their constituency knows how they voted.

I agree with Dr. Kapur. I disagree with Mr. Martin's assertion that there is an ambiguity. We all know... or should know... what a "majority vote" and "two thirds vote" are. RONR is pretty clear about it. In this case the addition of the words "of the executive committee and the organization" are simply identifying the two bodies which.must both approve the removal. Note that the rule quoted in the original post says nothing about "members present". It simply names the two bodies which are to vote on the issue. There is no ambiguity.

Dang, Weldon, were you reading my mind as I was typing???!!! 😉

According to the rules in RONR, summarized on tinted page 48 in the table of rules for counting ballots, the ballots you described should be treated as follows: The blank ballot is not counted toward any candidate and is not counted as a vote cast. It is an abstention. It is essentially discarded and doesn't count for or against anything. The ballots that contain votes for too many candidates are not credited toward any candidates, but each one of those ballots is counted as a vote cast and affects the number of votes that a candidate needs in order to win. Candidates must receive a majority of the votes cast in order to be elected. Those ballots are not thrown out, but they just don't count for any particular candidate. RONR is clear that members may vote for fewer than the number of candidates to be elected unless your own rules specifically provide otherwise. Therefore, per RONR, ballots for less than the number of candidates to be elected are credited toward the candidates who those persons voted for and each such ballot counts as a vote cast. You said that the three candidates with the most votes were elected. Unless your bylaws specifically authorize that, it is not proper unless those candidates also each received a majority of the votes cast. Candidates are never elected by a plurality vote unless you have a specific rule authorizing it. Besides tinted page 48 in the back of the book, see also pages 415 - 419 and Page 441 of RONR .

Guest Christie, while l I agree with my colleagues as to the proper procedure regarding cancelling or rescheduling a meeting, as a practical matter, organizations and their presidents cancel and reschedule meetings fairly often regardless of whether they have the authority to do so. Most organizations are very amiable and understand that there will be situations where the president might think it best to cancel or reschedule a meeting. If he does not have the authority to do that and a quorum of members shows up anyway, they can go ahead and have the meeting. However, as a practical matter, if the president says the meeting has been cancelled or rescheduled, the membership usually quite willingly goes along with it and it is rarely ever a problem. Just keep in mind, though, that the president probably does not have the authority to cancel the meeting and if enough members show up they can have the meeting despite the fact that the president said it has been canceled.

If a motion fails to get a second, it is not before the assembly at all and is not voted on. The motion dies for lack of a second. Btw, there really is no such thing as a "first" to a motion. The proper procedure is that one person makes a motion and if someone else agrees that it is worth being considered by the assembly, then that person seconds the motion. If the motion does not receive a second, it should not be considered any further. However, in small boards and committees seconds are not always necessary.

In addition to the section on decorum already mentioned, you might look at pages 644-648 in Chapter XX.... the chapter on discipline. Those pages deal with offenses committed by a member during a meeting.