Chris Harrison

Before handing out the blank ballots I would suggest you (re)open floor nominations. Hopefully there will be a few people nominated which will help give the members a better idea as to who is willing to serve (write-in votes are still permitted of course).

I would suggest you all contact the parent organization to get guidance to make sure whatever you all end up doing is what they actually want. Perhaps another organization has already done what has been asked and you can request a copy of their Bylaws in order to see how they did it. All that said, I wonder if an option would be to add an Article or Section to the Bylaws specifying the organization is bound to any rules that the parent organization or any applicable laws require they be bound to. That way you won't have to make changes whenever they change (or create) something.

Now that you are President of the Board you should refuse to conduct any votes by email until the Bylaws actually authorize it. You can cite RONR p. 251(d), p. 263 ll. 15-22, and pp. 423-424. Even though the Board may be subordinate to the General Membership I would strongly argue that the breach cannot be healed just by the Membership deciding the Board can use email voting since absentee voting can't be authorized even by a unanimous vote unless the Bylaws authorize it. I can't promise you won't get significant push-back from the Board and Membership for refusing to allow email voting even though the Membership said it was OK. However, I would hope that after you provide them the citations they will recognize you were correct in your ruling.

The same thing happened to me. Glitch in the system that somehow showed up in the forum??

The motion to Amend itself stretches over 38 pages (RONR pp. 130-168) and the request to Withdraw is located on pp. 295-298.

Ultimately I think it will depend on a thorough examination of any applicable laws and a close reading of your Bylaws and Constitution which is something you will probably need to hire a local parliamentarian and/or lawyer to do. In short, it may be as simple as voting to remove him from office or as complicated as having to hold a full-fledged trial to remove him or it may be totally out of the sphere of RONR or any other parliamentary procedure.

See RONR pp. 305-310. However, before you all do anything you should determine what (if anything) has been done to execute the prior motion to approve the health benefit package and what legal or financial implications may be involved with backing out of it.

A single member probably can't do much. However, the membership (as a whole) should look into what options they have to rein in the Executive Committee and Chair. Is there a way to remove some or all of the Executive Committee members from office and elect people who will follow the rules?

My original thoughts are that there wouldn't be any harm in consolidating all the elections into a single ballot. However, I do wonder how pp. 274-275 ( MOTIONS THAT MUST BE DIVIDED ON DEMAND) might factor into this?

No (RONR p. 591). However, if the Board has the authority to remove one of their own for other reasons they may be able to use that authority to remove him for excessive lateness. While adopting a rule codifying it might not be allowed they may be able to say, "Mr. X has been at least 30 minutes late 5 out of our last 6 meetings and we'd like to have people here who are temporally responsible" and use their discretion to remove him.

Stay tuned for other thoughts but from what you have told us so far it sounds like the General Membership has no mechanism for electing a Board member at their upcoming Annual Meeting. The next time the Board meets they should accept the resignation and fill the vacancy until the next Annual Meeting.

The ballot marked as "abstain" should be counted and treated as an abstention (RONR p. 415 ll. 28-31).

Two questions: 1) Has the Board already accepted the resignation? If so, then 2) By "we" do you mean the nominating committee and is there enough time for you all to meet and submit your nominee to the Membership prior to the Annual Meeting?

Just to verify, you have already adopted the amendment providing for mail-in ballots for dues with a lowering to a majority vote? If that is the case then while I understand you feel like this member pulled a fast one on the members the change was pretty clear. I hate to say it but even if the member was trying to sneak it in the fault ultimately falls on the members for not catching it. It would have just taken one member to notice the change and moved to strike "a simple majority (more than half)" and insert "two-thirds" and then argue for the amendment in debate and the issue would have been resolved one way or another. Also, the member was incorrect in that a mail-in ballot cannot be secret. There are ways to keep the votes secret while ensuring only members voted. See RONR pp. 424-425.

I can't speak about the 30 days because that rule doesn't exist in RONR and (if the rule indeed exists) those details would likely be located in the club's bylaws or applicable law. As for the incumbents staying in office that may or may not be true depending on how the bylaws define their terms of office (RONR pp. 573-574). Also, the law regarding a Director not voting when having a "conflict" might not be applicable in elections (RONR pp. 407-408).

If they weren't a member at the time of the meeting then they weren't a member at the meeting.

Since we are talking about two different classes of membership and the proposed amendment was changed from bestowing privileges on Class A to giving those privileges to Class B only I would say such amendment would not be within the scope of notice.

Board should approve minutes from Board meetings. General Membership should approve minutes from General Membership meetings (RONR pp. 473-475). It is true that if the Membership met less than quarterly they could delegate the authority to approve their minutes to the Board or a Committee. However, with the GM meeting twice a month I see no reason for the Board to get involved.

One of the main purposes of using ballot voting is to ensure each member's vote is kept secret. If you aren't supposed to know whose ballot belongs to who then how do you know that the person's ballot who it's supposed to belong to isn't actually them? In other words, how is it so obvious?

I don't see why the Chair couldn't just announce that he needs to step out momentarily and the VP will be presiding. If he couldn't wait until there was a lull in business before making the announcement I suppose he could 1) ask someone sitting close to him to grab the VP, or 2) let someone sitting close to him know he was stepping out momentarily and to summon the VP when there is a lull in business or someone inquires where the heck their presiding officer vanished off to. Of course, having the VP know as soon as possible is preferable so you don't have a situation where someone raises a Point of Order and the VP has no clue what was happening because he was busy playing Candy Crush on his phone.

When the "vote" is to take place at the next meeting a Point of Order should be raised that the original vote was valid and if there was a question about how the vote was conducted it needed to be raised at that point (RONR pp. 250-251). That being said, in the future the members should take a look at RONR pp. 408-409 regarding when and how a member can change their vote/decide to vote.

Sure, assuming your Bylaws permit absentee voting (RONR pp. 97-98 and pp. 423-424).

Yes (RONR p. 435 ll. 10-15).

That depends on the circumstances. Can you please provide more details such as for what reason do you believe a re-vote is warranted?

You will need to ask a lawyer who is familiar with Connecticut law. That being said the default RONR position is that absentee voting (which would include e-mail voting) is not allowed (RONR pp. 423-424).