Basket Absentee endorsement

[Guest Lorri Romain]

Can 'Basket Absentee Endorsement' be used in a non-profit organization Board of directors meeting to obtain quorum?

[Joshua Katz]

The only reference I found to this term defined it as an absent member telling the secretary that he wishes to vote with the majority on all matters, and claimed that such a member would count towards quorum.  (How, I wonder, does this person vote if there's a tie...but that's not material.)  It was in a supposed write-up about RONR which was riddled with misstatements.  In any case, under RONR, no such procedure is appropriate at all, since absentee voting of any kind is prohibited unless authorized in your bylaws.  If your bylaws do authorize absentee voting, the details of how it works will depend on what your bylaws say about it.  For such a procedure to count towards quorum, your bylaws would need to explicitly say that.  So far as RONR is concerned, none of it is permissible (unless your rules say otherwise).

[J. J.]

On 4/13/2018 at 6:43 PM, Guest Lorri Romain said:

Can 'Basket Absentee Endorsement' be used in a non-profit organization Board of directors meeting to obtain quorum?

If proxies are permitted, it would be possible to give a proxy to a member or secretary with the instruction to "vote with the prevailing side."  The bylaws would have to specify that proxies are permitted, which is unlikely for a board meeting.

The bylaws would also have to specify that a proxy would count toward a quorum.