Guest Guest Posted July 16, 2015 at 06:29 PM Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 at 06:29 PM If a council member is not present at roll call to establish a quorum, can they still call in for the sole purpose of voting on a hot topic? We have a 7 person board, 4 people were present and established a quorum. Then the vote would have been split 2/2 but a 5th board member was texted when it was time to vote. Is this legal? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Mervosh Posted July 16, 2015 at 06:30 PM Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 at 06:30 PM If a council member is not present at roll call to establish a quorum, can they still call in for the sole purpose of voting on a hot topic? We have a 7 person board, 4 people were present and established a quorum. Then the vote would have been split 2/2 but a 5th board member was texted when it was time to vote. Is this legal? No, unless the bylaws authorize voting that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Brown Posted July 16, 2015 at 07:06 PM Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 at 07:06 PM You referred to this as being "a council". If it is a public body, such as a city council, then you quite likely have rules on the subject which are superior to RONR and would trump RONR. If not, and if RONR is the controlling authority, then voting by phone or text or any other method of absentee voting would be inappropriate, as Mr. Mervosh pointed out. However, unless you are subject to a superior rule requiring that a majority of the entire council vote in favor of a motion in order for it to be adopted, getting a fifth vote was not necessary because pursuant to RONR, a motion fails on a tie vote. It isn't left hanging, undecided.... it fails just as surely as it would if the vote was 2 to 3 against passage. Just as an aside, if voting by phone was proper (and I seriously doubt that it was), why was only one other council member contacted to vote via phone? Why not all three of the absent council members? Might they have voted differently? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgar Guest Posted July 16, 2015 at 07:14 PM Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 at 07:14 PM . . . the vote would have been split 2/2 . . . There's nothing wrong with a tie vote. It just means that the motion was defeated. Just as if the vote had been 1/3. And the defeated motion can be made again ("renewed") at the next meeting when, hopefully, more members will show up to vote on this "hot topic". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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