When can motions be made and seconded

[Guest Christie]

Our church administrative board was conducting a vote by email to approve new board members for the coming year. Before the vote was closed, a member made a motion to just keep the board members for the current year. It was seconded. We took a formal in person vote on this at a recent meeting and it passed.  It seems to me that the motion is invalid because it was made during a vote. Which means the in person vote is invalid as well. Thanks for any clarification on this matter. 

[Dan Honemann]

On 1/23/2024 at 7:25 AM, Guest Christie said:

Our church administrative board was conducting a vote by email to approve new board members for the coming year. Before the vote was closed, a member made a motion to just keep the board members for the current year. It was seconded. We took a formal in person vote on this at a recent meeting and it passed.  It seems to me that the motion is invalid because it was made during a vote. Which means the in person vote is invalid as well. Thanks for any clarification on this matter. 

Do your bylaws specifically authorize your board to take votes by email?  If they do not, then it is the vote by email that will be null and void (RONR, 12th ed., 45:56).  

 

[Josh Martin]

On 1/23/2024 at 6:25 AM, Guest Christie said:

Our church administrative board was conducting a vote by email to approve new board members for the coming year. Before the vote was closed, a member made a motion to just keep the board members for the current year. It was seconded. We took a formal in person vote on this at a recent meeting and it passed.  It seems to me that the motion is invalid because it was made during a vote. Which means the in person vote is invalid as well. Thanks for any clarification on this matter. 

For starters, do your bylaws permit conducting business by email? If not, this is not permitted.

If they do, then it will be up to your organization to figure out how that works. RONR has no guidance on that subject.

In an in-person meeting, it’s correct that nothing can interrupt a vote, but it’s not fully clear that’s applicable in conducting business by email.

Finally, the manner in which elections should have been conducted was for persons to vote for persons of their choice for each of the available positions. So I do think the motion to keep the existing board members was improper. It’s not clear from the facts presented whether the election was being conducted properly prior to that motion.