Calculating voter eligibility when several meetings were missed due to no quorum.

[Guest Teresa]

Our by-laws state you are eligible to vote if you "made 8 out of the 12 meetings during the year". We only had 7 meetings in the year; due to not meeting a quorum, 5 meeting were not counted (although we did take attendance via sign in sheet and know who attended the uncounted meetings). According to Robert's Rules, how do we calculate the list of eligible voters using only 7 meetings? Can we use the same percentage or could we count the attendees who showed up for the uncounted meetings? What can we do?

[Joshua Katz]

The point of the rule is probably, in part, to get your meetings to make quorum, so it seems kind of silly to exclude meetings that don't get quorum.  The key here is that you write "we only had 7 meetings this year," but, in fact, the correct procedure when there is no quorum is to call the meeting to order and note the absence of quorum, which avoids your situation and also keeps you in compliance with your bylaws.  As to what to do about it now, that seems like a question of bylaw interpretation, which only your organization can decide.  If I were a member of your organization, I'd want to count all 12 meetings.  People who bothered to show up for those 5 meetings deserve some recognition, don't they, under your rules?  

Edited to add:  Suppose someone only attended a couple of quorate meetings, but every inquorate meeting, while someone else attended 5 quorate meetings but only a couple inquorate meetings.  If the inquorate meetings are excluded, one of these people gets to vote and the other doesn't, purely because other people didn't show up at certain meetings.  That seems illogical.

Edited January 9, 2017 at 01:43 PM by Godelfan
Added final paragraph

[Hieu H. Huynh]

Perhaps the bylaws could be amended to address this matter.

[Richard Brown]

Even if a quorum is not present, the proper procedure, as noted by Godelfan, is to call the meeting to order, note the absence of a quorum, and then adjourn, unless action is going to be taken to obtain a quorum or to schedule an adjourned meeting.

You technically still hold the meeting. You are simply limited as to what actions you can take at such a meeting.

[Dan Honemann]

2 minutes ago, Richard Brown said:

Even if a quorum is not present, the proper procedure, as noted by Godelfan, is to call the meeting to order, note the absence of a quorum, and then adjourn, unless action is going to be taken to obtain a quorum or to schedule an adjourned meeting.

You technically still hold the meeting. You are simply limited as to what actions you can take at such a meeting.

Suppose the reason that a quorum is not present at a meeting may be because, in determining the number of members who must be present to constitute a quorum, members who may not have attended "8 out of the 12 meetings during the year" are being counted. Would it be in order to raise points of order concerning the eligibility of such members to vote, and thus perhaps reduce the number of members who must be present to the point where a quorum is present? 

[Richard Brown]

10 minutes ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

Suppose the reason that a quorum is not present at a meeting may be because, in determining the number of members who must be present to constitute a quorum, members who may not have attended "8 out of the 12 meetings during the year" are being counted. Would it be in order to raise points of order concerning the eligibility of such members to vote, and thus perhaps reduce the number of members who must be present to the point where a quorum is present? 

You've obviously had your necessary amount of coffee to think clearly, but I ain't there yet. Off the top of my not yet fully functioning head, I don't see anything in your post that I can argue with unless just to add that this might be a bylaws interpretation question as to whether such members should be counted for quorum purposes since they aren't voting members.

Wish I had thought of the question you raised. Hmmm . . . .

[Guest TeresaG]

Thank you very much for the advice. I agree