Shmuel Gerber

Yes. So far the only people who have suggested otherwise are keefe and Mr. Brown, and I have no idea where they got the notion that the occurrence of a vacancy in office might change the length of the term of that office. I don't know how a provision that "the church council shall appoint a replacement until the Annual Meeting" could be made any less ambiguous.

You've got to be kidding.

In which case Mr. Huynh's answer might still apply.

Yes. However, this raises the interesting question whether that board member will be counted toward the quorum if he or she is not a member of the organization. I would say yes, but the wording in RONR, pp. 483-4, is not entirely clear on this point (at least it's not clear to me).

I vote for "Unofficial Moneyperson for a Little While."

You probably think that's a joke, but actually it's not. In fact, sometimes after you agree with a post of mine, I'll go back and reread it myself in the hopes of learning something, once I know that it's correct.

In that case, the chair certainly should neither have entertained a motion to adjourn nor taken the vote on such a motion.

Thanks. You too.

Umm, did you actually read my response?

My point was to offer a satisfactory explain as to why an eligibility requirement for nomination is not necessarily the same thing as a requirement for election, which is what I thought you were looking for. But obviously you're not satisfied.

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Obviously such things will depend on the wording, and the placement and context of that wording, in the bylaws. However, some organizations have detailed procedures for being nominated, involving things like submitting statements to a committee, having names printed on the ballot or circulated in a newsletter, etc. So it is not unfathomable that a member who is ineligible for nomination to an office is not ineligible for election to the same office, is it? (Or isn't it?)

Well, if the vice-president wants to preside at the meeting, he or she ought to catch up on how this presiding thing works. I suggest reading the pages that Mr. Mervosh cited, especially this part: "The regular presiding officer, knowing that he will be absent from a future meeting, cannot in advance authorize another member to preside in his place." Just to muddy the waters a bit, what is interesting about this question is that we haven't been specifically told who the officers of Guest Sharon's board are (that is, whether the vice-president has been elected to that office within the board, or merely within the society as a whole). RONR states (p. 484, ll. 14-26): "A board that is not an instrumentality of a parent assembly or membership body is organized … with a chairman or president, a secretary, and other officers as may be needed. In general, such a board elects its own officers if the authority under which the board is constituted makes no other provision as to how the officers are to be determined. A board that is to elect its officers should meet for this purpose as soon as possible after the selection of its members … In ordinary societies having executive boards, on the other hand, the president and the secretary of the society serve in the same capacities within the board (and the executive committee, if there is one), unless the bylaws provide otherwise." But RONR doesn't say anything about the vice-president's role within the executive board. Nonetheless, since one of the president's parliamentary duties is to preside at board meetings, I would think that it is the vice-president's duty to do so in the president's absence.

What grammatical error? Incivility is a lowbrow thug too. And I believe the error that George was referring to was the spelling of "myself," but he ought to know by now that you like to spell it "myslef." (And that you ignore the spell checker because there's no way it can keep up with you anyway.)

Keep in mind that the bulk of this question is not about interpreting Robert's Rules of Order but rather a provision in the bylaws of a particular organization whose bylaws we haven't even read. We haven't even seen the entire article, or even the entire section, or even the entire paragraph(s) of the relevant rules. I'm not saying to discount my opinion (and certainly not Dan Honemann's), but I don't think it would be professionally responsible to rely on it or to say, "Members of the authorship team said that this is what your bylaws mean." Dan already made this disclaimer yesterday, but we never believe him when he says he might not know what he's talking about.

If you go along with this interpretation, sure. He gets the smallest term, since he has no majority, giving him the smallest majority of all. But seriously, as Dan said, In other words, in this case it is a foregone conclusion that the three nominees will fill the three positions, and the balloting needs to be done in a way that facilitates merely deciding who gets which positions. No. "A rule in the bylaws requiring that a vote—such as, for example, on the election of officers—be taken by (secret) ballot cannot be suspended, however, unless the bylaws so provide (see also Voting by Ballot, pp. 412–13)." [RONR, 11th ed., p. 263] "When the bylaws require a vote to be taken by ballot, this requirement cannot be suspended, even by a unanimous vote." [p. 412] The fact that there can be no write-ins is irrelevant, since the purpose of the ballot is to decide who gets which positions.

And presumably not even then.

This is why we don't usually attempt to interpret bylaws provisions on the forum. :-) I had to read through the topic a couple of times to even begin to understand what all the fuss is about and what Dan has been suggesting. Based solely on the language in the bylaws, there is not really any clue as to how the election should be conducted. However, as Dan points out, in this particular scenario, the "election" is not really for the assembly to choose which candidates shall be appointed to the board, but only to choose which two of the three nominees shall be appointed to full terms (or, alternatively, which one shall be appointed to the partial term). Therefore, it would make no sense to take a ballot vote in which members are instructed to vote for up to three candidates. So I would agree that they should be instructed to vote for two. In fact, under such instructions, perhaps a ballot with all three candidates marked should simply be treated as an abstention, since the member has indicated no preference regarding the only thing he or she has been asked to indicate a preference about -- i.e., to choose two out of three.

And don't forget about the law of diminishing returns, which this topic keeps getting better at exemplifying.

But they are, of course, "applicable procedural rules prescribed by federal, state, or local law," and so must be adhered to by the organization as a matter of the common parliamentary law (as embodied in RONR) as well. A reason that I mentioned this (if there was one, other than apparently to annoy Guest D. Llama) is that even when procedural rules come from a "higher source" and must be adhered to because the "law law" says so, the chair enforces them -- and the assembly may appeal from the chair's ruling on them -- in the same way as other procedural rules. (Unlike, say, the laws about bank-robbing, which as we all know by now the chair of a deliberative assembly has no authority to make a decision on. ) Also, I ought to point out that the Introduction to RONR does state [p. xxx]* that "from this country's beginning, it has been an underlying assumption of our culture that what has been authoritatively established as parliamentary law ... [is] binding within all assemblies except as they may adopt special rules varying from the general parliamentary law." It is unfortunate that this type of cultural expectation sometimes gets mixed up in considerations of statutory legal requirements and the workings of our court system, but the fact is that the subject of parliamentary law is a whole lot more than just something that some old general (or some nearly middle-aged major) decided to write in a book, and it is indeed "in the nature of a body of law" (ibid.). (*That's page XXX for you Romans.)

Always glad to be of service. (Or, as they say in French, "service".)

But they are, of course, "applicable procedural rules prescribed by federal, state, or local law," and so must be adhered to by the organization as a matter of the common parliamentary law (as embodied in RONR) as well.

OK, so now you know.

Yes.

I agree. But if for some reason there is no legal requirement that applies to rescinding the motion (and if none of the other usual caveats apply regarding motions that cannot be rescinded), then, as far as the rules in RONR are concerned, it could be rescinded by a majority vote with previous notice.