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Our rules say that if an officer resigns and there's a vacancy, we should hold a special election at the next meeting immediately following the announcement of the vacancy. Our rules also say that the Nominating Committee must present their report at the meeting before the election, or it is invalid and all candidates must run from the floor. This makes sense during a normal election, but clearly in this scenario where the special election must take place so soon, it does not allow the Nominating Committee time to fulfill this request since they would've had to deliver the report at the same meeting as the announcement of the vacancy. When organizations hold a special election to fill an officer vacancy like this, is it common that there will be no Nominating Committee report and all candidates will run from the floor? Thank you!

Thank you!

Just so we're all on the same page, Zoom is teleconferencing software that allows participants to vote electronically during the virtual meeting via a poll. Our rules allow for these virtual meetings. Are the following correct? A vote should not be conducted via an anonymous Zoom poll unless the assembly votes to do it that way or the bylaws call for voting by ballot. If an anonymous Zoom poll was used to vote, it would be valid unless someone objects to it. If someone objects to it, the vote should not be conducted by anonymous Zoom poll unless the assembly votes to do it that way or the bylaws call for voting by ballot. Without a decision or bylaw rule to conduct the vote via ballot, by default the votes aren't supposed to be secret and any member could call for division of the assembly to closely see how each member votes. Thank you!

Thank you!

Our executive committee consists of the president, several VPs, secretary, treasurer, sergeant at arms, and former president. The organization's constitution gives each of the VPs a rank (second ranking officer, third, fourth) and none of the other roles listed specify a rank. Is it possible to create an org chart of the executive committee or is it not appropriate in this scenario? The reason I'm having trouble with this is because it doesn't say anywhere in the rules that anyone specifically reports to the president. Also, the president isn't really granted much special authority. The other positions are elected by the general membership, not appointed. The president can't simply choose to fire another member of the executive committee. The president's vote weighs the same as any other member of the executive committee. For this reason, I'm not sure an org chart with the president on top is appropriate.

Thank you!

For example, would it be improper or inadvisable for the secretary to move to approve the meeting minutes they wrote? What about the secretary nominating someone during an election? Are there certain motions a parliamentarian should avoid? What about the chair? From what I understand the chair has a duty to remain impartial, so they usually would try to avoid making motions if it would make them seem impartial, but it's not strictly against the rules for them to do so?

Thank you!

The chair attempted to pass a motion by unanimous consent. One member proposed that we have a vote on this item (this was the language they used; it wasn't any more formal than this). I assume this is considered objecting to unanimous consent. However, I also heard someone else consider this to be a "division". However, I'm not sure this exactly fits the definition of "division". Is it objecting to unanimous consent or division or is it both of those? Thanks

Very interesting. Thank you!

I heard someone say that the maker of the motion gets to speak 3 times in debate and the maker of the motion gets to speak first and last, however I can't find anything in RONR to back that up. I know the maker of the motion gets to speak in debate first. However, I feel that counts as one of their two allowed debate speeches. Also, does it say somewhere that the maker of the motion gets to speak in debate last? It's hard to prove a negative.

So let's say we have a small board and there was no motion to formally adopt the small board rules. What if someone is speaking in debate a 3rd time (this process is usually kind of informal in small board), and someone raises a point of order trying to block it? What is the appropriate ruling? Or what if this happens with one of the other special small board rules (e.g. a second to the motion is skipped and someone raises a point of order saying it must be seconded)?

What if there's a dispute as to whether we're following those rules or not? For example, what if a member tries to speak in debate more than twice, and one person argues it's ok since we're following the small board rules, and the another person argues we're not following those rules? There are many other possible examples also, such as whether the motion needs to be seconded or if informal discussion is permitted. This seems to be complicated even more by the fact that the language sets the cutoff as "about a dozen members present" instead of a hard exact numerical cutoff.

From your experience, is this very frequently done? Or in practice, does the new Executive Committee approve the minutes most of the time?

If an Executive Committee has the last meeting of their term, then new Executive Committee members are elected, is the standard process that the newly elected Executive Committee (at their first meeting) approves the minutes from the last meeting of the previous Executive Committee? It seems a bit odd to me since how can they offer corrections to a meeting they didn't attend. What do the official rules say about this? Thanks

Agreed. Though sometimes you're not totally sure if it violates the bylaws or not and would prefer to ask a question about it. Or sometimes you need clarification on how the bylaws pertain to this situation.

I agree it likely doesn't matter too much. But my question would then be - where do we draw the line between Parliamentary Inquiry and Request for Information? I understand the previous example wouldn't directly be a violation of the bylaws since the comment was only made in debate. However, if it were a motion that potentially violated the bylaws (which would be out of order, correct?) and I want to ask about it, then that would clearly be on the side of Parliamentary Inquiry? For example, someone tries to make a motion to have an event in December, but I think that might violate the organization's bylaws, then I would raise a Parliamentary Inquiry and ask "doesn't the motion violate the bylaws since it states this event must be held in October?"

Also to clarify, Parliamentary Inquiry doesn't necessarily need to be a procedural question, it could be any question about the bylaws and how it relates to the business at hand, right? For example, someone could make a Parliamentary Inquiry saying "A member stated in debate that perhaps we could hold the event in December, but don't the bylaws state that the event must be held in October?"

If there's a pending motion on the floor, and someone says they plan on doing something that might conflict with the bylaws, is it more appropriate to raise a Parliamentary Inquiry or a Request for Information? Or are both completely appropriate for this? RONR 12th 33:3 says “A Parliamentary Inquiry is a question directed to the presiding officer to obtain information on a matter of parliamentary law or the rules of the organization bearing on the business at hand.” I ask this question because whenever I read about Parliamentary Inquiry, they always give examples of someone asking something like "is it in order to move xyz right now?" or some other procedural question answered in Robert's Rules of Order, but they generally don't give an example where someone asks about the organization's bylaws. Even here for example Robert's Rules for Making a Parliamentary Inquiry - dummies "You may have the sense that something isn’t being done according to Robert’s Rules..." but they don't mention anything about using Parliamentary Inquiry for something that potentially violates the organization's bylaws.

Thank you!

I understand the book says you sit down when you're done speaking in debate, but many of us are conducting virtual Zoom meetings nowadays. After you're done speaking in debate is it appropriate to say "I yield the floor"? I see this term sometimes mentioned in RONR. I understand this does not yield any unexpired portion of my time to another member or reserve it for later (RONR 12th 43:10).

Got it. Thanks guys.

I've seen this happen in two different situations (in different organizations), there were high conflict situations and the president basically just handed the chair position over to the parliamentarian so the parliamentarian could run the meeting. No motion for it or vote taken at all. In both situations, the president had a conflict of interest that prevented them from being neutral. One point of concern is whether this is acceptable if the parliamentarian is not a member of the assembly. What are the rules on this and how does this change things? I'm pretty sure just handing the chair over to the parliamentarian without a vote isn't the appropriate procedure? Though I assume if nobody complains, then it's acceptable by unanimous consent? Citations would be helpful. Thanks!

Thanks everyone!

If the chair gives the wrong answer to a parliamentary inquiry (or perhaps incorrectly states a rule in some other situation), is it reasonable to immediately raise a parliamentary inquiry (or perhaps a request for information) to correct the chair? Of course I would try to word my correction in the form of a question. For example, in a very simple situation, perhaps the chair is asked "how many members need to vote in favor for this motion to pass?" and the chair answers "if everyone votes, 5 members" (which is incorrect). Is it appropriate to raise a parliamentary inquiry and say something like "Since this is a majority vote, and there are 11 of us, if everyone votes, doesn't that mean 6 people would need to vote in favor?" While my simple situation might sound quite reasonable, do you think it's also reasonable to do it if the situation was more complicated and required citing rules? Should I raise a point of order directly after the chair's incorrect response to the parliamentary inquiry? What do you think the best thing to do is?