How to Correct A Mistake?

[Secretary Mistake]

How do you correct a mistake on a motion that was made and written into the minutes.  The Secretary stated that a motion did not pass, even though it did with 4 in favor, 1 opposed, and 1 abstained.  Thus a different motion was made, and the secretary stated it did pass with 6 in favor.  Now that the minutes have been made, how do you note the mistake in the minutes and which motion do you go off of?

[Bruce Lages]

If I understand the situation correctly, a motion was made at a previous meeting, was voted on with a majority in favor, but was declared as defeated by the secretary. Based on that declaration, another motion was offered, and declared as adopted, again by the secretary.

First, secretaries should not be declaring motions as adopted or defeated, only the chair has that authority according to RONR. Generally, in this case, if a motion is erroneously declared as defeated, a point of order would have to be raised immediately, or the declared result stands. Thus, it is too late to correct the mistake now. The minutes, however, should reflect exactly what happened at that meeting, regardless of the whether the actions were valid or not. The wrinkle here may be whether a declaration of pass or fail by the secretary, rather than the chair, must stand as a valid statement of the result. I'm not sure of that, and perhaps others will weigh in. I suppose a point of order could be made at the next meeting that the announcement of the result was not valid, and the chair, or the assembly via an appeal, could decide the issue.

In any event, if the assembly is not happy with the second motion, it can be rescinded at the next meeting. This requires a 2/3 vote, a majority vote of the entire membership, or a majority vote if previous notice of the intent to rescind is given. If the first motion is determined to be lost, it can be made again at the next meeting.

[Richard Brown]

4 hours ago, Secretary Mistake said:

How do you correct a mistake on a motion that was made and written into the minutes.  The Secretary stated that a motion did not pass, even though it did with 4 in favor, 1 opposed, and 1 abstained.  Thus a different motion was made, and the secretary stated it did pass with 6 in favor.  Now that the minutes have been made, how do you note the mistake in the minutes and which motion do you go off of?

Agreeing with Mr. Lages, can you tell us what actually happened?  In other words, was there actually a second motion made which was adopted or did the secretary just make that part up?  As Mr. Lages said, the minutes should accurately reflect what was actually done at the meeting.  I'm confused as to what actually happened.

[Atul Kapur]

Piling on to the other comments.

You say that, "The Secretary stated that a motion did not pass". Was it actually the Secretary who made that declaration or was it the Chair who said it and the minutes just record that declaration?

As has been stated earlier, the minutes record what happened, whether what happened was correct or incorrect. So if the minutes are inaccurate, then they should be corrected.

However, if the minutes accurately record that the first motion was incorrectly ruled to have failed and the second motion was adopted, then your problem is not with the minutes. If that is the case, then follow Mr. Lages' advice.