Ben Lambert Posted December 23, 2018 at 02:42 PM Report Share Posted December 23, 2018 at 02:42 PM I apologize for not quite understanding material posted in FAQ. I am curious about the affect of abstentions on quorums. A committee of 5 votes: 2 Y, 1 N, 2 A. The motion passes, because there is a majority of present members who voted Y. BUT what if a committee of 5 votes: 2 Y, 3 A? The motion has a majority of voting members, but there is not a quorum voting. Does the motion pass? Can abstentions affect quorums? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jstackpo Posted December 23, 2018 at 03:00 PM Report Share Posted December 23, 2018 at 03:00 PM Under the standard (i.e., RONR) definition of majority vote, what matters is that there be more "Yes" votes than "No" votes for a motion to carry (including the possibility of zero "No" votes) and abstentions do not count (and need not be counted AT ALL). The only "quorum" requirement is that there be enough voters -- members -- present even though some may not vote at all. "Enough", in a committee, is commonly more than half of the membership. Abstentions have no effect on the quorum. So in both your examples, the motion carried. Check your bylaws for possible departures from these standards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Honemann Posted December 23, 2018 at 03:02 PM Report Share Posted December 23, 2018 at 03:02 PM 18 minutes ago, Ben Lambert said: I apologize for not quite understanding material posted in FAQ. I am curious about the affect of abstentions on quorums. A committee of 5 votes: 2 Y, 1 N, 2 A. The motion passes, because there is a majority of present members who voted Y. BUT what if a committee of 5 votes: 2 Y, 3 A? The motion has a majority of voting members, but there is not a quorum voting. Does the motion pass? Can abstentions affect quorums? Yes, the motion passes. No, abstentions have no affect at all on a quorum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Brown Posted December 23, 2018 at 03:02 PM Report Share Posted December 23, 2018 at 03:02 PM (edited) Abstentions have no effect on whether a quorum is present. A quorum is based on the number of members who are present. A majority vote, two-thirds vote, or any similar threshold is based on the number of members present and voting. If an organization or a committee has 50 members with 26 as a quorum, and a quorum is present, a motion will carry with a vote of 1 to 0 with 25 abstentions . Note: check your bylaws and your own special Rules of Order to make sure they do not provide for a different threshold Edited December 23, 2018 at 03:04 PM by Richard Brown Corrected math error Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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