reintroduce defeated motion...

[Guest Yale Kanter]

Motion requiring 2/3 active membership was defeated because there was a 20% absentee vote without a proxy.  Bylaws require absentee votes to be a negative vote unless represented by proxy..  The motion was to give the Board authority to make the condominium building a smoke free residential building.  How can this be reintroduced?  Can a recall vote be done with appointed tellers collecting a new ballots from all active members?  How are the active members informed there will be a new vote after the prior vote was announced as defeated?

ykanter@aol.com

[Guest Nancy N.]

Some three or four questions bundled here....

 

1.  As far as Robert's Rules is concerned, a defeated motion can be introduced again at any subsequent session.

 

2.  What's a "recall vote"?  But if you're asking about sending someone -- tellers? -- around the condominium to collect ballots from the individual units, that looks to me to maybe be in violation of a fundamental principle of parliamentary law, or two, despite its vague, remote resemblance to a mail vote (p. 424 ff) or a vote in which the polling place is somewhere other than at a meeting (p. 439); so it would have to be authorized in the bylaws (or, of course, in a law, such as maybe your local condominium law).

 

3.  Somebody makes the motion, at a meeting.

[Guest Nancy N.]

On the other hand, what's so bad about it.

[jstackpo]

The last question asked was...

 

  How are the active members informed there will be a new vote after the prior vote was announced as defeated?

 

They show up at the next meeting when the motion is renewed.  Members who don't go to meetings get what is coming at them.

[Edgar Guest]

How are the active members informed there will be a new vote after the prior vote was announced as defeated?

 

And just so we're clear on the nomenclature, there will be a new motion made after the previous motion was defeated. There is no "re-call" and there is no "re-vote". If you're the one that will be making the motion it would behoove you to encourage as many supportive members as possible to attend the meeting.

[Guest Nancy N.]

I'm dubious about my reply to question 2, even leaving aside what a recall vote is, so should anyone care to chime in, I'll appreciate it please.

[Guest Yale Kanter]

Thank you for your answers.  I still have a dilemma for the wording on introducing the motion again, but will try to work it through.  Nancy the difference it makes is the effect of second hand smoke on the health and welfare of the  occupants of the building.

[Dan Honemann]

Thank you for your answers.  I still have a dilemma for the wording on introducing the motion again, but will try to work it through.  Nancy the difference it makes is the effect of second hand smoke on the health and welfare of the  occupants of the building.

 

It's easy. You just make the motion as if it had never been made before.

[Guest Yale Kanter]

The only problem JDSTACKPOLE is the no shows will be counted as a no vote and the motion must be passed by 2/3 of the active members voting for it.  Hence the thought of collecting ballots from all active members.

[jstackpo]

Are you speaking of soliciting (absentee) ballots or soliciting proxies for the next meeting?

 

They are not the same thing at all.  Either would have to be authorized separately in your bylaws.  Are they?

[Gary c Tesser]

...  Nancy the difference it makes is the effect of second hand smoke on the health and welfare of the  occupants of the building.

 

Did anybody say anything pumping up the health benefits of second-hand smoke?  My handlers at Liggett & Myers and Winston-Salem warned me sharply a while ago about appearing so gung-ho, and I've thought I've been careful enough.

 

And Nancy's remarks were plain parliamentary.  All pro-tobacco mind-clouding meticulously hidden.

[Guest Yale Kanter]

To JDStackpole...It was not my intent to solicit votes or proxies, but to collect the ballots from all residents on or before a specific date.

[Guest Nancy N.]

Are you speaking of soliciting (absentee) ballots or soliciting proxies for the next meeting?

 

They are not the same thing at all.  Either would have to be authorized separately in your bylaws.  Are they?

 

To JDStackpole...It was not my intent to solicit votes or proxies, but to collect the ballots from all residents on or before a specific date.

 

Yale, you do see that these would be absentee ballots, do you not?

[Guest Yale Kanter]

I guess I do not understand the difference.  Is there a difference between putting the ballot in a ballot box and someone appointed to collect them personally from the active members to ensure all active members have a voice in the final decision.  The bylaws do not specify how the ballot is to be received..  Am I missing a point here?

[jstackpo]

Try it this way:  Voting takes place at meetings;  if you are not at the meeting at the time the vote is called for, cast, or taken, you don't get to vote on the issue.  Exceptions to this rule must be spelled out in the bylaws.

 

One such exception is "absentee voting" in which all the members are somehow informed of the issue to be decided and can vote (often by mail, sometimes e-mail, or by some other specified method) even though they are not at the meeting when the issue is to be decided, or the results announced.

 

In a proxy vote only people present at the meeting can vote.  Some of them, the "proxy holders", can vote more than once because they have been legally (yes "legally", p. 428) granted a power of attorney to cast a vote on behalf of some other person who is not at the meeting.  Clearly the absent person is not himself actually voting.

 

Sound to me like your first option ("putting the ballot in a ballot box") is taking place at the meeting, with the "putter" casting his personal vote there and, if he is carrying a proxy, casting a proxy-vote on behalf of someone else as well.  The proxy holder is the absent member's personal agent, and must (in bylaws, or law) be given the authority to serve as an agent.  Usually, the agent is free to decide the issue for himself and cast (both of) the ballots as he, the agent, sees fit, without regard for how the absent member might have felt (after hearing the debate at the meeting).

 

Your second option ("someone appointed to collect them personally from the active members") describes a method (not the only possible one) of just collecting votes from people who are clearly absent (or plan to be) from the meeting where the votes are to be cast.   The collectors of those votes don't even have to be at the meeting either just as long as the votes get delivered to the tellers for counting. These votes were not "cast" at the meeting; they were cast when the absent person made his decision, marked his ballot, and sealed it in an envelope, say.  No personal agent (at the meeting) is involved.

 

Each of these departures from the standard system ("one person-one vote", and "voting takes place at meetings") have difficulties  -- not all the same ones  --  which we could go into some other time.

 

Hope this helps.  If not, please try again to re-express your difficulty!

[Guest Yale Kanter]

Thank you JDSTACKPOLE for your explanation which I appreciate and understand.  The situation that I would like to avoid is  to not have the absentee member votes that were not cast to be counted as a negative vote which would then defeat the motion again or for that matter any motion requiring 2/3 of the active members vote to pass the motion.  I trust this explains my thought adequately. 

[Bruce Lages]

  The situation that I would like to avoid is  to not have the absentee member votes that were not cast to be counted as a negative vote which would then defeat the motion again or for that matter any motion requiring 2/3 of the active members vote to pass the motion.

 

Then it looks like you should try to get those bylaws changed.

[Gary c Tesser]

....  The situation that I would like to avoid is  to not have the absentee member votes that were not cast to be counted as a negative vote ...

 

Are you absolutely, completely, categorically sure that this is what the bylaws absolutely, completely, categorically say?

[Guest Yale Kanter]

Gary yes..."Either a Board or Association members may propose a resolution adopting a proposed amendment.  At least sixty-seven percent (67%) of the undivided interests in common elements and facilities computed in accordance with Exhibit "B" must approve the proposed amendment before it is adopted."  Exhibit B lists each unit square feet and the unit owners % of vote.  Thusly an abstained vote has been counted as a negative vote.

[Gary c Tesser]

Gary yes....

 

Um.

OK....

[Gary c Tesser]

... One such exception is "absentee voting" in which all the members are somehow informed of the issue to be decided and can vote (often by mail, sometimes e-mail, or by some other specified method) even though they are not at the meeting when the issue is to be decided, or the results announced.

 

...Your second option ("someone appointed to collect them personally from the active members") describes a method (not the only possible one) of just collecting votes from people who are clearly absent (or plan to be) from the meeting where the votes are to be cast.   The collectors of those votes don't even have to be at the meeting either just as long as the votes get delivered to the tellers for counting. These votes were not "cast" at the meeting; they were cast when the absent person made his decision, marked his ballot, and sealed it in an envelope, say.  No personal agent (at the meeting) is involved....

 

It occurs to me that this is not all that different from a mail vote: there is no difference in principle between everybody's trooping ourselves out to the mailbox to drop their ballots into it, and an obliging (and, hopefully, well-tipped) postal worker trooping around and collecting the mail door-to-door.  Or any volunteering neighbor.  Or a hireling.  Or elected official. Or hireling.  Or did I say that, or was it redundant.

_______

N.B.  Disclosure: former postal worker, generally under-tipped.

[Guest Yale Kanter]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts.  As a board member I will have some convincing to do and I will have  the proof to back me up.  Thanks