George Mervosh

A point of order needs raised at a meeting that the person who was elected was not eligible according to the bylaws and that ruling needs sustained. If it is, a new election for the position is held. See RONR (11th ed.), pp. 444-446 "CONTESTING THE ANNOUNCED RESULT OF AN ELECTION." The runner up was not elected, so he does not ascend to that office by virtue of what happened.

There is no such rule in RONR where that would apply at a regular meeting. If the society follows the standard order of business (p. 353), elections mandated by the bylaws will typically fall under special orders, which is the 4th item of the six items that comprise the standard order of business.

No. Motions need not be seconded in a committee. So if a motion is made, it must be considered unless it is out of order for some reason. A tie vote defeats the motion.

Yes.

This sounds like an improper use of the motion to lay on the table. See RONR (11th ed.), pp. 215-217 "MISUSES OF THE MOTION." Oh, and if you're asking because you saw this on TV this morning like I did, they don't follow RONR in the House.

i'm not a fan of the subsection "Giving Notice of Amendments " (p. 596) being treated as simply helpful advice.

That, fact, in and of itself does not change the requirement that previous notice of a motion to amend the bylaws must be properly given.

"Whenever a meeting is being held in executive session, only members of the body that is meeting, special invitees, and such employees or staff members as the body or its rules may determine to be necessary are allowed to remain in the hall." RONR (11th ed.), p. 95

Whether substantive or exact, Scott, if the distributed motion does not indicate that it is a proposed amendment to the bylaws, I'm not inclined to think it can be validly adopted as one, but I may be a lone wolf on this. Most members have no clue what their bylaws say so not indicating it's a proposed amendment, to me, defeats the purpose providing notice of their amendment.

If this is strictly an informational report from staff and nothing is meant to be adopted, he may not read from it if someone objects. A motion can be made to decide the matter (by a majority vote) if an objection is raised and he or someone else would like to see him continue.. See RONR (11th ed.), pp. 298-99 for the section on "REQUEST TO READ PAPERS" for full details.

I remember your opinion on this matter from a couple/few years back in response to an opinion rendered by the parliamentary research team (which I was a member of back then) in the National Parliamentarian and have been quite content to accept it ever since. The discussion of this matter was quite illuminating.

For the future, unless your governing documents require it, members should not resign from their current office when seeking election to another office, since no rule in RONR requires them to do so.

If a 2/3 vote (p. 401) was required, it's too late now to raise a point of order. See this Official Interpretation by the RONR authors, particularly the second paragraph of their answer https://www.robertsrules.com/interp_list.html#2006_18

Absolutely not. RONR (11th ed.), p. 263

I think the portion of the thread title that says new class of membership is quite accurate. It seems this type of membership has a finite term, unlike the regular members, and a dues structure different from the regular members. How is this not a new "class" of membership?

In my opinion this requires nothing short of a bylaw amendment for it to have validity.

Having had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Brown in New Orleans and elsewhere, I would have transcribed what he really said pretty much like the dictation app, but I'm not in the mood to test the goodwill of our un-wrathful moderators any longer with this.

You might want to ditch the dictation app or the Nawlins accent, whichever is easier.

"TIME AT WHICH AN ELECTION TAKES EFFECT. An election to an office becomes final immediately if the candidate is present and does not decline, or if he is absent but has consented to his candidacy. If he is absent and has not consented to his candidacy, the election becomes final when he is notified of his election, provided that he does not immediately decline. If he does decline, the election is incomplete, and another vote can be taken immediately or at the next meeting without further notice." RONR (11th ed.), p. 444 If you did not consent to your candidacy and don't want the position you need to immediately decline by informing the Secretary.

Here is what RONR says - "As indicated on page 21, a quorum in an assembly is the number of members (see definition, p. 3) who must be present in order that business can be validly transacted. The quorum refers to the number of members present, not to the number actually voting on a particular question. " RONR (11th ed.), p. 345 Here is the definition on page 3 - "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."

You might be able to get it in there via the amendment process if a stand alone motion is going to be out of order, but I'm really bad at examples and you haven't provided any facts about what is pending.

I'm not sure I understand all of what you wrote or your desired outcome but see RONR (11th ed.), p. 103, Standard Descriptive Characteristic #2 - "Can be applied to no other motion" So, no, tacking it on as some sort of secondary motion is not going to work.

It is always a main motion, yes. "Since the motion to ratify (or to censure) is a main motion, it is debatable and opens the entire question to debate." RONR (11th ed.), p. 125.

Anytime up until the voting actually began nominations could have been opened again by a majority vote, yes. Members could have also written in the person's name without nominating them. I can't tell from your facts if any of the members were already in the process of voting. "When for any reason it is desired to reopen nominations, this can be done by a majority vote. " RONR (11th ed), p. 289

I don't know of any rule that would prohibit it, however, the member on the phone may NOT vote unless your bylaws expressly authorize it.