Wright Stuff

Thank you so much, Mr. Martin. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to respond. It is extremely helpful. I'm sorry I'm not clearer in my questions, but I'm certainly trying to improve. It doesn't appear that roll-call votes are appropriate for our body since we are a mass meeting and our members are not responsible to a constituency. How can we prevent roll-call votes in the future? (We haven't had success amending bylaws in the last five years. That's another story.) Can the chair call them out of order? I assume that he can't and that we have to vote down the motion each time, but is there a better or more expedient way?

Sorry, I will do my best to answer every question answered. Matters in our organization have become very contentious. "Our" side is trying to keep peace and follow the rules in the interest of fairness. The renegade side is doing everything it can to cause trouble (they were resoundingly defeated in the last election.) However, they still have members on the executive committee. After the initial vote, which was held by secret ballot and is not a subject of this question, there were other votes (I referred to them as "elections" above) to fill vacancies. The contenders for those vacancies were people from each side. People on both sides had expressed concern that they did not want to be identified by name as to how they voted because of fear of retribution by the renegade side. The next vote after secret ballot was to fill a vacancy. It was held by voice vote. One of the troublemakers immediately called for a roll-call presumably for dilatory purposes since the vote was not that close. The chair acquiesced and then called for a roll-call vote. The secretary recorded the vote by name as she is required to do by RONR. As bizarre as it sounds after the fact, it did not occur to the chair that the vote should have been by ballot instead of by roll-call. In fact, even at this late date, the chair doesn't know how she should have handled the situation from the start. It just got out of hand. The short answer is leadership, knowing that the vote would be contentious, had announced that the vote (to expel) would be by secret ballot, and the incorrect assumption was that all of the contentious votes would be held be secret ballot. No organization rule requires that the vote be by secret ballot. I apologize for not giving better answers. I'm trying. I'm learning. Thank you so much for your willingness to help us sort through this mess.

There was a different, earlier vote that was taken by secret ballot. There were no problems with that vote. A member called for a roll-call vote on the next election, which was equally contentious and should have been a ballot vote. During the meeting, because of leadership's lack of expertise with RONR, a member moved for a roll-call vote on the second election. In the heat of the moment, it slipped by. Out of ignorance, a vote was not taken by the body to require a roll-call vote (45:46), but no one objected. I will confess that I have spent time since my last post studying roll-call voting, as it is being used as a dilatory tactic by a faction of the group, and I'm more confused now than before. Based on my reading of RONR, since we have a mass meeting and since the members are not responsible to a constituency, we should not be having roll-call votes. (45:45). The purpose of my question is to seek help to clean up this mess. I'm advocating that we do everything "by the book", but I'm not clear on what the next steps should be. When the motion for a roll-call vote was made on the second election, what action, if any, could or should have been taken to cause a ballot vote instead of a roll-call vote? Is voting down the roll-call vote the only option? This matter will arise again soon.

The vote was not taken by ballot. This reference is not on point in this discussion. The person "who ever (sic) agreed to that" is trying to learn RONR. People who are learning often make mistakes. Not relevant to this discussion. That would throw out the election results. Now we're down to form over function. These harsh comments seem misplaced on this forum. I thought its purpose was to be helpful, not critical. Unless one of the regulars here can offer a possible to solution to rectify the situation, I'll just recommend to leadership that they do what they want and that RONR doesn't have a solution.

I don't see where you've responded to me before. Can you please point me to that? RONR: 45:52 In roll-call voting, a record of how each member voted, as well as the result of the vote, is entered in full in the journal or minutes. The bylaws contain no reference to roll call voting. Therefore, the procedure is defined by RONR, as quoted above. If the names are recorded in the minutes, and the minutes have to be approved by the body, it's obvious that the members will have a written list of how each person voted. That's what we're trying to avoid. The rules (in this case, RONR) say that the names must be recorded in the minutes. The rules (also RONR) also say that the minutes must be approved by the body. Therefore, the question is whether it is possible to Suspend the Rules (still RONR) that the names of the individuals must appear in the minutes. It's obvious that a mistake was made. Mistakes happen. The question is, what is the best way to recover from that mistake? I'm trying to be an advocate for strict adherence to RONR (the rules) to avoid situations like these, but I'm consistently hearing from people that RONR is too complicated and that they are impossible for an organization to follow absent an expert who is not always available. I heard it at three county conventions and one state convention so far this year.

If I may, the requirement that the Secretary report the names of the roll call vote is from RONR. There is no similar requirement in the bylaws. As the time for the meeting is approaching, I'm still trying to make sure there is not an overlooked solution. Here's what I considered. Before the minutes are presented, would it be possible to have a motion to suspend the rules that require the minutes include the names of the voters? (The vote count is there.) "I move that we suspend the rules that require inclusion of the names of the voters in this matter." We can probably attain the 2/3 majority required to pass. Is that procedure possible?

Thank you for all of the answers!

Thank you for your answer. Since I'm new here, if you have some suggestions as to how I can make my questions easier to understand, I'm all ears. Is the quoting of the sections helpful or distracting? Are there better ways to ask? It's hard to know what you don't know.

We are a political party. While some votes are mandated by our bylaws, some are controlled by RONR and are not addressed in our bylaws. Our Executive Committee is made up of 52 members who are entitled to vote. There are another 200 or so Precinct Chairs who are members of the Executive Committee but are not entitled to vote. I'm trying to determine who comprises the "entire membership" of our Executive Committee for certain motions. For example, in §36:4(7), regarding a vote to Discharge a Committee: In seeking clarification, I found this information in §1:16: This section clearly describes the voting membership of a convention, but is that definition applicable for our Executive Committee? Maybe I'm having trouble determining what type of body our Executive Committee is under RONR. We almost always have a super majority of the members present at meetings. To my knowledge, we have overlooked the situation in which a vote of the majority of the entire membership may satisfy the requirement for a motion that also allows a 2/3 vote. My understanding is that the Executive Committee of 52 members can approve a motion that requires (a) a two-thirds vote, (b) a majority vote when notice of intent to make the motion has been given at the previous meeting within a quarterly time interval or in the call of the present meeting, or (c) a vote of a majority of the entire membership with 27 votes. However, I defer to the experts here.

Would this committee be a "special" committee?

Our political party calls for the appointment and approval of a general counsel in our bylaws. Because of the limited amount of time that most lawyers have for free work, the board would like to add the position of Assistant General Counsel. The Assistant would not be a member of the board or the Executive Committee and would not have the right to vote (unless he or she is otherwise a member of the Executive Committee.) The bylaws do not address this situation except to say that the chair can appoint committees as necessary for specific purposes. The inclination is just to give him or her the title and be done with it since the "creation" of the position is not offensive to anyone and does not usurp any rights or privileges of the body. Is there a more appropriate way under RONR to create the position? EDITED TO ADD: The bylaws can only be changed at the annual meeting, which just occurred. So the solution sought is one that can be implemented between now and the next convention.

I had not thought about the minutes not being approved yet. Thanks for correcting me on the President versus the Secretary. That's a silly oversight. I'm not sure where we go from here.

Our organization held a vote to remove a member. The vote did not achieve the required two-thirds threshold. A friend of the accused called for a roll call vote, which was done. There was not a vote on whether to hold a roll call vote. The troublemakers are now demanding a list of the voters and how they voted. With a roll call vote, I think they are entitled to it. However, up to and since the meeting, there have been threats leveled against some of the members who voted to remove. Even though he will be in violation of RONR as he understands them, the President has decided not to provide the names to the bad guys. While he is very much a by-the-book guy, he thinks the personal safety of the members is a higher priority than providing the list. The argument could be made that the other side already has the names, but they're still requesting the list. Maybe they missed a few. Is there any way that this matter can be handled other than the President ordering a violation of the rules? The vote was supposed to be by secret ballot, but I'm not sure what happened. This situation is admittedly bad and poorly handled. What's the best solution under these unfortunate circumstances? (To be clear, I'm on the President's side.)