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Recently, an organization I belong to was called upon to vote on a replacement for a resigning director of the board. In this particular organization, there are a number of affiliated clubs - each having the option of electing or appointing a club representative who can attend board meetings and vote on any issues at hand. After our most recent election, one of the newly elected directors also happens to be a representative of an affiliated club. Our president suggested that this individual could actually vote TWICE on issues brought before the Board - once as a director, and once as an affiliated club representative. I heartily disagree. I say that the newly elected director must relinquish their position as club representative and have that club elect or appoint a new representative. The director should have ONE vote only on issues brought before the Board. I could not, however, find a specific reference to this issue in RRO. What say you?

A director from the 5 member Board resigned early right after the election of two new directors. The remaining four will be appointing a new director. Two board member want to appoint the 3rd candidate in the recent election and she has accepted. The other two director want to appoint a new member who they think will work better as a team member than the candidate. What do you do with a tie vote?

Okay, I was wrong. I'm not finished with my questions. And quite honestly, the more I read here, the more questions pop into my head. Fortunately, I can also usually find the answer as well if I keep reading. (And I'm now halfway through the Complete Idiot's Guide to Robert's Rules, which has been very helpful in understanding my (brand-spanking new) copy of the 11th edition of RONR.) I am trying to figure out what exactly we have as our "majority" in our bylaws draft. It reads, "All resolutions shall require a simple majority vote, except for the following special resolutions...[A, B, and C] require a two-thirds majority, and [C and D] require a three-fourths majority." Is this too ambiguous? Someone suggested that we use, "All resolutions shall require a simple majority vote of those eligible to vote at a validly called meeting, except for the following special resolutions..." To me, this latter suggestion gives us what we *don't* want. We (presumably) don't want to be constantly counting voters at various points in each meeting to determine what the majority will be for any given vote, which is why we (so far) haven't included the italicized portion. But have we acheived our desire with the wording we used? It seems to me that, according to page 400, lines 8-12 of RONR (11th ed.), that our wording as we have it does just that...but I'd like to be certain now, *before* we have our bylaws meeting. Wow. That was long. I apologize for being so verbose. Louise

At a recent meeting where a vote was taken by the Board of Directors of an Association there were 8 members present which constituted a quorum. Two of the members do not have a vote by virtue of their office: Chairperson (who is VP by in the position of chair because the President elect died), and the past president who also does not have a vote. Therefore, only 6 members voted on an issue. My question is how is a simple or 2/3 majority decided on - based on the 6 people eligible to vote or the 8 people (two without a vote) who were present? It seems strange to me that 2 non-voters could have a huge impact on the outcome of a vote which in this case was a serious one - the reinstatement of a board member after an automatyic suspension for missing some board meetings. The Board argued that quorum was 8 despite the fact that 2 people could not vote and that the majority would be calulated based on 8 people present, not the 6 people voting? Which is correct? Cheers, and thanks

Is it allowable under Roberts Rules to have four (4) votes under one motion - as an example, there was a motion to take action on A, B, C & D reuiring 4 y/n votes - ie. y,n,n,y.

Our congregation holds its annual meeting in January 2012, notice was sent to all members of meeting and topics to be discussed. At the annual meeting this year, the agenda was formally accepted with two items of business to be dealt with: 1. election of new board members 2. approval of the budget for the new year- and no other business was on the agenda. Business was dealt with according to the agenda, and then when we were about to close, an individual rose and was recognized by the chair. The individual made a motion that the congregation reverse a very controversial action taken in the annual meeting in January 2010's meeting. (This action had been handled "legally" the 2011 meeting in that it had been in the notification for 2011 meeting that the issue would be voted on). This year it was not on the agenda, and it had not been publicized that it would be discussed. Prior to the adoption of the agenda, this was not even mentioned, which would have been the appropriate time to add it to the agenda. The chair allowed the vote to occur although caution was given that it should not be, since it was not on the agenda. Many individuals who had great interest in that topic would have been there had there been notification of it's coming to the floor for a vote. The chair allowed the vote and it passed by 16 votes to reverse the action in prior years meeting. Many people are upset that this was allowed to occur. Was this action out of order or not and if so, what is the remedy? Thanks

If the bylaws call for a 51% majority and that turns out to be a fractional number, how is the fraction treated? For example, 51% of 145 voting members = 73.95. Does it require 73 or 74 votes to pass?

I have looked into the 11th edition of RR and tried to find the answer to this. Our Board is trying to negotiate a settlement in a lawsuit. The lawyers asked us to go into closed session to discuss our offer to settle. We went into executive session. We took a vote in the closed session on our next steps. Now a member is telling us that the actual vote should have been taken in open session. Even though we can keep the topic of the motion confidential. This seems unreasonable, and basically useless. But I thought I'd ask here. May the Board take a vote in closed/executive session without recording the results of the vote in the minutes of the open meeting? OR do the votes stay in the minutes of the executive session. Thanks