Can President override majority vote?

[Guest Melody]

We are a private, member owned club. We have taken two votes for a new program and they have both been 4-5 in favor. The president says that it's within his power to deny the motion since it's so close. He considers it a split vote. Can he do this??

[Bruce Lages]

Certainly not according to RONR. Your rules would have to grant such authority.

[Rev Ed]

Ask him to show you where it says he has the power. I bet you he won't be able to show you the rule that gives him that power. Nothing in RONR gives him the power to do this. Double check the By-laws and rules of your organization, with emphasis on the President's role to make sure the President does not have the power (it helps to make sure you are right before confronting the President - then if he says "It's in the By-laws" you can come back with a "Show me where then" response.)

[Guest Edgar]

We have taken two votes for a new program and they have both been 4-5 in favor.

Normally that would be indicated as "5-4 in favor".

As for calling it a split vote . . . uh, no. it's not. It's close but . . . no cigar for this president.

Okay, it actually is a "split" vote, it's just not a tie vote.

Now what the president might have done is, faced with a 5-4 vote, voted "no" to tie the vote at 5-5 (assuming he hadn't already voted of course).

WmMerg

[Louise]

Now what the president might have done is, faced with a 5-4 vote, voted "no" to tie the vote at 5-5 (assuming he hadn't already voted of course).

And if so, then the president isn't actually "overriding a majority vote" at all, but is rather creating (with his single vote) "a tie by voting in the negative to cause the motion to fail."

And doing so would certainly be his right.

I have heard the argument made (likely somewhere in RONR) that a president may sometimes determine that it's better to defeat a motion that is contentious in order to allow more time to bring a larger majority onside. Perhaps that's the case here.

[Trina]

We are a private, member owned club. We have taken two votes for a new program and they have both been 4-5 in favor. The president says that it's within his power to deny the motion since it's so close. He considers it a split vote. Can he do this??

Well, it depends on when he said this -- if this was his (somewhat odd) way to introduce his own vote, bringing the vote total to a 5-5 tie, and thereby defeating the motion, then he's right. In other words, by casting the final vote, the presiding officer does indeed have the power to 'deny' a motion that would otherwise have been adopted by the assembly.

However, he certainly can't make such a decision after the meeting ("Well the vote was very close, so I'll decide to deny that motion."). Also, the president can't 'override' any other flavor of majority vote -- e.g. if the vote on a motion is 33-31 (certainly a very close vote), the president can't do anything about it with his one (1), and only one (1), piddly vote, no matter how 'split' the vote totals look to him.

[Gary Novosielski]

And if the president's vote was already counted among that 5-4 vote, then the motion is adopted. The president does NOT get a second vote, or any other magic power to turn that into a tie, if his vote was already cast.