Voting procedure

[Guest Beverly Grissom]

Recently, at a women's club meeting, there was a vote taken on the motion to raise the organization's dues.  The vote was by show of hands.  Only the no votes were taken.  The president did not ask for a show of hands of those who were in favor of the motion.  Is this vote legitimate/valid?  Should there be a written ballot vote on financial questions?  Under what conditions MUST paper ballots be used?

 

Thanks.

[Richard Brown]

Paper ballots must be used only when your bylaws or some other rule or a motion regarding voting requires their use.  Someone could have moved to take the vote by ballot.  It would take a majority vote to adopt such a motion.

 

The method of taking the vote was improper.  The chair should ALWAYS ask for both the yeas and the nays regardless of the method of voting.    However, if she declared the result of the vote and nobody raised a timely point of order, it is too late to object on that ground now.   With a few exceptions, errors in conducting or announcing the result of a vote must be objected to immediately with a point of order or the error is waived.

 

Edited to add:  This is assuming that the provisions of your bylaws for raising dues were followed.

[Guest Beverly Grissom]

Thank you.