VOTING

[Guest June]

A resolution requiring a 3/4 vote was put forward at an AGM.

There was 2 YEs votes and 4 No votes.

Therefore neither has a 3/4 vote.

Now what? Is the  motion dead?

[Mike Phillips]

I'm not good a RONR yet, but I am good at math. The motion required five votes to pass. It got two. It fails. It's dead. 

Edited April 4, 2023 at 06:52 PM by Mike Phillips

[Rob Elsman]

What were the results that were announced by the presiding officer?

[Gary Novosielski]

On 4/4/2023 at 2:09 PM, Guest June said:

A resolution requiring a 3/4 vote was put forward at an AGM.

There was 2 YEs votes and 4 No votes.

Therefore neither has a 3/4 vote.

Now what? Is the  motion dead?

A three-fourths vote, or a two-thirds vote for that matter, means there must be that faction in the affirmative to be adopted.  There is no undefined no-man's-land in between.  If it does not succeed, it fails.

So a vote of 2 Yes and 4 No fails.  It does not meet three-fourths, it does not meet two-thirds, it does not even meet a majority.

[Rob Elsman]

Whether the motion was adopted or rejected depends on what the presiding officer announced, notwithstanding a possible error by the chair.

[Mike Phillips]

On 4/5/2023 at 9:41 AM, Rob Elsman said:

Whether the motion was adopted or rejected depends on what the presiding officer announced, notwithstanding a possible error by the chair.

So if a motion fails and the presiding officer announces that it passes, it passes? Please clarify. Thanks. 

[J. J.]

On 4/5/2023 at 10:16 AM, Mike Phillips said:

So if a motion fails and the presiding officer announces that it passes, it passes? Please clarify. Thanks. 

Generally, the announcement of the chair is determinative, especially on a voice vote.   A member may call for a division or raise a point of order that the required vote threshold was not reached.

Edited April 5, 2023 at 02:29 PM by J. J.

[Mike Phillips]

On 4/5/2023 at 10:28 AM, J. J. said:

Generally, the announcement of the chair is determinative, especially on a voice vote. 

That makes sense. If the body disagrees, it can appeal the pronouncement by the chair, call for a standing or roll call vote, and such?

[Richard Brown]

On 4/5/2023 at 9:30 AM, Mike Phillips said:

That makes sense. If the body disagrees, it can appeal the pronouncement by the chair, call for a standing or roll call vote, and such?

Yes, but first a point of order should be raised.  Then you can appeal from his ruling on the point of order if necessary.

[Guest June]

Many questions and comments, which I greatly appreciate.

The Chair indicated that the motion failed...BUT...that the four no votes rule the day...which in this case, means a huge expenditure of funds in a very small Strata complex.

When I got back to my unit, I wrote right away saying I did not agree with the motion's outcome.

There has been huge debate amongst the six owners in regard my comments...which I have said...there was not a 3/4 vote met by either the yeses or the no's..therefore, nothing should occur, unless of course a new resolution is put forward to vote on once again in a future meeting.

I do not understand how 4 could carry through with such an expenditure when they have  nit acquired the necessary 3/4 vote.

 

[Dan Honemann]

On 4/5/2023 at 10:28 AM, J. J. said:

Generally, the announcement of the chair is determinative, especially on a voice vote.   A member may call for a division or raise a point of order that the required vote threshold was not reached.

 

On 4/5/2023 at 10:30 AM, Mike Phillips said:

That makes sense. If the body disagrees, it can appeal the pronouncement by the chair, call for a standing or roll call vote, and such?

 

On 4/5/2023 at 10:37 AM, Richard Brown said:

Yes, but first a point of order should be raised.  Then you can appeal from his ruling on the point of order if necessary.

But certainly a point of order should not be made if a member simply doubts the result of a voice vote as announced by the chair when the only concern is that the chair was in error in his judgment as to the number of votes cast for each side of the question.  In such an instance, the member should call for a division, and following that, if he remains in doubt, move that the vote be counted if the chair does not do so on his own accord.  

[J. J.]

On 4/5/2023 at 11:45 AM, Dan Honemann said:

 

 

But certainly a point of order should not be made if a member simply doubts the result of a voice vote as announced by the chair when the only concern is that the chair was in error in his judgment as to the number of votes cast for each side of the question.  In such an instance, the member should call for a division, and following that, if he remains in doubt, move that the vote be counted if the chair does not do so on his own accord.  

I was considering a point of order that the threshold was not reached, e.g. a 2/3 vote was required and the chair declared the motion adopted by a majority vote. 

[Dan Honemann]

On 4/5/2023 at 1:01 PM, J. J. said:

I was considering a point of order that the threshold was not reached, e.g. a 2/3 vote was required and the chair declared the motion adopted by a majority vote. 

And I was responding to Mr. Brown's response to Mr. Phillips' response.

[Guest June]

Many questions and comments, which I greatly appreciate.

The Chair indicated that the motion failed...BUT...that the four no votes rule the day...which in this case, means a huge expenditure of funds in a very small Strata complex.

When I got back to my unit, I wrote right away saying I did not agree with the motion's outcome.

There has been huge debate amongst the six owners in regard my comments...which I have said...there was not a 3/4 vote met by either the yeses or the no's..therefore, nothing should occur, unless of course a new resolution is put forward to vote on once again in a future meeting.

I do not understand how 4 could carry through with such an expenditure when they have  nit acquired the necessary 3/4 vote.

It was NOT a voice vote it was by secret ballot

 

[Guest June]

It was not a voice vote. It was secret ballot.

[Josh Martin]

On 4/5/2023 at 1:40 PM, Guest June said:

The Chair indicated that the motion failed...BUT...that the four no votes rule the day...which in this case, means a huge expenditure of funds in a very small Strata complex.

Please explain further. What was the motion at issue?

On 4/5/2023 at 1:40 PM, Guest June said:

There has been huge debate amongst the six owners in regard my comments...which I have said...there was not a 3/4 vote met by either the yeses or the no's..therefore, nothing should occur, unless of course a new resolution is put forward to vote on once again in a future meeting.

No, that is not how that works. If a motion requires a 3/4 vote for adoption, then if there are fewer than 3/4 in the affirmative, then the motion is not adopted. It doesn't mean that you need a 3/4 vote in the affirmative to adopt the motion and a 3/4 vote in the negative to defeat the motion and the motion is left in some sort of limbo if neither of these occurs. That would be a bizarre rule.

But in the ordinary case, when a motion is defeated, nothing happens. It is generally only an affirmative vote which causes things to happen. So I'm puzzled as to why a negative vote "means a huge expenditure of funds in a very small Strata complex."

Edited April 5, 2023 at 06:53 PM by Josh Martin

[Richard Brown]

@Guest June, if a motion fails  to achieve the number of votes necessary for passage, it fails. It is not “in limbo”, but it fails just as surely as if the vote was 1 yes vote and 5 no votes. 

[EricS]

@Guest June, if it's your opinion that the motion/resolution failing will lead to a large expenditure in the future, that's a different subject - you can continue to lobby for passing your resolution in the future if it wasn't successful this time.

Without us knowing more about the resolution it's hard to understand what really is going on, but the way I read this is that nothing has happened at all. Your assembly had a proposal to do something, that proposal failed to pass, so you are in the same situation as before the vote. You wrote "nothing should occur" and that's literally what's happening.

Or was the resolution that failed trying to prevent or change a previous resolution to spend money?

[Gary Novosielski]

On 4/5/2023 at 2:40 PM, Guest June said:

Many questions and comments, which I greatly appreciate.

The Chair indicated that the motion failed...BUT...that the four no votes rule the day...which in this case, means a huge expenditure of funds in a very small Strata complex.

When I got back to my unit, I wrote right away saying I did not agree with the motion's outcome.

There has been huge debate amongst the six owners in regard my comments...which I have said...there was not a 3/4 vote met by either the yeses or the no's..therefore, nothing should occur, unless of course a new resolution is put forward to vote on once again in a future meeting.

I do not understand how 4 could carry through with such an expenditure when they have  nit acquired the necessary 3/4 vote.

It was NOT a voice vote it was by secret ballot

 

As I explained once already, a 3/4 vote means it requires 3/4 to vote Yes, in order to pass.  It does not require 3/4 voting No to defeat it.  Anything more than 1/4 voting No will defeat the motion.

Of course it is the case that when a motion is defeated nothing should occur.  Things remain as they were before the motion was made, since the motion was not adopted.

I do not understand about the expenditure of money.  If a motion to expend money is defeated, the money is not spent.  You can't cause money to be spent by defeating motions to spend.

Please explain clearly what the motion said.

[Guest June]

The motion that was made was  to waive the requirement for a depreciation report.

A depreciation report will cost our Strata thousand of dollars. Because the vote was 4 opposed, the ruling was made that the Strata will now proceed to obtain a Depreciation Report.

All of these resolutions or motions require a 3/4 vote.

[Atul Kapur]

With 6 total votes and a requirement for 3/4 that motion required 5 or 6 affirmative votes to be adopted. It received 2, so the motion was defeated and the requirement was not waived.

The 3/4 requirement only applies in one direction. There is no "grey zone." Anything less than 3/4 in favour means the motion is defeated.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 4/10/2023 at 11:09 PM, Guest June said:

The motion that was made was  to waive the requirement for a depreciation report.

A depreciation report will cost our Strata thousand of dollars. Because the vote was 4 opposed, the ruling was made that the Strata will now proceed to obtain a Depreciation Report.

All of these resolutions or motions require a 3/4 vote.

You seem to be unable or unwilling to understand that the 3/4 vote requirement only means 3/4 voting Yes.  That is how much it takes to adopt the motion. Anything less and the motion fails  That is all it means. Full stop. Period. End of sentence. 

A motion that gets 2 Yes votes and 4 No votes obviously fails.  It has only 1/4 approval.  That is less than 3/4 approval (in fact it is not even a majority) so the motion fails. The requirement for a depreciation report is not waived.  

Whether it costs a million dollars, a thousand dollars, or is free, the rules for counting votes do not change.  The amount of money may very well affect how people vote, but it has no effect on how the votes are counted.

[Gary Novosielski]

Correction: not 1/4, but 1/3.

[Josh Martin]

On 4/10/2023 at 10:09 PM, Guest June said:

The motion that was made was  to waive the requirement for a depreciation report.

Do the organization's rules or applicable law require that a depreciation report be completed, unless that requirement is waived?

[Richard Brown]

On 4/11/2023 at 5:53 AM, Josh Martin said:

Do the organization's rules or applicable law require that a depreciation report be completed, unless that requirement is waived?

I’ve been wondering the same thing. I’m not at all convinced that it’s possible to waive the requirement. 

it will also help us if Guest June  will tell us exactly what the rule says and what document it is in (Is it a bylaw requirement?) and what, if anything, the provision for waiving the requirement says if there is a provision for waiving it.