Dan Honemann

I apologize for coming late to this party, but it seems to me that 62:12 says that this is an incidental motion to Suspend the Rules.

I'm sure you mean that this is so only if the election is to be by voice vote.

By this do you mean that he does not meet the eligibility requirements set forth in your bylaws?

This is rather unusual, so I assume this is pursuant to your organization's rules. Much depends upon exactly what your bylaws provide in this connection. It may well be that they preclude any question and answer period such as this. If not, the assembly (not you individually) may adopt a rule providing for such a question and answer period. Draft a motion stating exactly what you want this rule to say and arrange for someone to make it (if you are presiding you should not do it yourself). This should be framed as a rule to be applicable during the current meeting only, which will enable the assembly to adopt it by a two-thirds vote without previous notice.

Yes, I understand that the attempt by the nominee to withdraw his nomination, the nominating committee's decision to nominate someone else, and the original nominee's attempt to withdraw his withdrawal all have occurred after the nomination meeting and before the election meeting. My previous response was based upon this understanding.

How so? As best I can determine, if we assume that the withdrawal of the nomination was effective (I don't think it was) it appears that the nominating committee can't propose another nominee until the election meeting. And then why wouldn't this nominee be the committee's nominee?

Well, it appears that the notice of the election meeting is to include the reluctant nominee's name no matter what. "Such notice shall include the names of all nominees approved at the preceding nomination meeting, and, subject to Section 3 above, a statement that these nominees will be voted upon at this election meeting." If it were up to me, I would not consider the reluctant nominee to be "unable for any reason to serve in the office to which he/she was nominated", and so I think his or her name should appear on the ballot. I also think that your nominating committee is under no obligation to "submit, at the election meeting, names of additional nominees for that office". You ask "Does the Nomination committee having filled the spot change things?", but I don't see how this can have been done since it appears that this can't be done until the election meeting.

The answers to these questions must be found in your own governing documents.

My own view of it is that you are moving in the wrong direction. Nothing works as well as in-person meetings for arriving at the best decisions.

Well, I suppose it most closely resembles a motion to Reconsider and Enter on the Minutes, but that's a bit of a stretch.

Such a motion is clearly not in order.

Paragraph 1:4 of the current (12th) edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised reads as follows (pay particular attention to the sentence which I have bolded): "A member of an assembly, in the parliamentary sense, as mentioned above, is a person entitled to full participation in its proceedings, that is, as explained in 3 and 4, the right to attend meetings, to make motions, to speak in debate, and to vote. No member can be individually deprived of these basic rights of membership—or of any basic rights concomitant to them, such as the right to make nominations or to give previous notice of a motion—except through disciplinary proceedings. Some organized societies define additional classes of “membership” that do not entail all of these rights. Whenever the term member is used in this book, it refers to full participating membership in the assembly unless otherwise specified. Such members are also described as “voting members” when it is necessary to make a distinction." This is the rule applicable to your organization's proceedings unless your bylaws, or higher authority such as applicable law, provide otherwise.

Were you a member of this "Panel" that was meeting?

My assumption concerning the facts was that a motion is made and adopted (or rejected) on day one of a two-day session. No motion to reconsider this vote is made on day one. The question is, if reconsideration is desired, must the motion to reconsider be made on day two of the session or, if on day two a date and time is fixed for an adjourned meeting, may the motion to reconsider be made during this adjourned meeting. The answer, of course, is that it must be made on day two.

I think you know the assumption that I made as to the meaning of the facts as stated, and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that my assumption was correct.

The latter.

After a bit of prompting, we are told that the main motion pending was: "I move to adopt the proposed calendar." We have not been provided with this "proposed calendar" which is incorporated by reference into and constitutes a part of the main motion. We are then told that, while this motion was pending, the following motion was made: "I move to eliminate the June 1st meeting." This we are told was a motion to amend the pending main motion, but if so it certainly is not in proper form. Ordinarily, we might be able to put it in proper form, but we simply do not know enough about the pending main motion to enable us to do so. Then we are told that a motion was made to amend the pending motion to amend "by striking the entire primary amendment and substituting to make June 1st a virtual meeting" and are asked if this is a proper form of secondary amendment. It is simply not possible to answer this question prior to being provided with the facts needed to put what has been purported to be the proposed primary amendment in order.

I think what we need to see is what the "proposed calendar" looked like.

We certainly are in agreement on this point.

I think Mr. Novosielski has this right. Although we are still a little short on facts, it would appear that the motion to amend the main motion was a motion to strike out a paragraph from the main motion (more detailed facts may prove otherwise). If so, this opened the paragraph that would be struck out to improvement by secondary amendment (see 12:51).

Is this supposed to be an example of a subsidiary motion to amend a main motion? Doesn't look like one to me.

Why can't a point of order be raised when one of these resolutions is offered at the convention?

I am in full agreement with what Dr. Kapur has posted here, but would also note that, when these bylaws refer to a "mailbox ballot", they seem to be referring to a vote that is more of a vote by mail than it is a ballot vote. It appears that the object of taking such a vote is more to broaden the base of voters than to enable voters to keep how they vote a secret. Perhaps the bylaws contain some sort of definition of "mailbox ballot" which may shed additional light on the question now under consideration. This is interesting because, ordinarily, adoption of such a motion would result in a ballot vote being taken at the meeting, and also because the quoted bylaw provision regarding votes to be taken by "mailbox ballot" appears to mandate such a vote under designated circumstances. I suppose the motion "for a ballot vote" as described here is really a motion to declare that such designated circumstances exist.

The third suggestion should be enough assuming the undesired motion is an original main motion. Changing the rules in any respect just because of this nuisance seems to be overkill.

A rule requiring previous notice cannot be suspended. What, exactly, do your bylaws say concerning their amendment?