Voting on a motion by email in lieu of a meeting

[Guest howard burdett]

Under what circumstances and with what special rules can a motion be considered and acted upon as a result of a solicitation from a committee chair?

[Chris Harrison]

Voting outside of a meeting by email is not permitted unless the bylaws specifically provide for it (RONR p. 2 footnote, pp. 408-409). If the bylaws don't allow for email voting (or any other method of absentee voting) only business conducted in a properly called meeting can be valid.

[Rob Elsman]

Under what circumstances and with what special rules can a motion be considered and acted upon as a result of a solicitation from a committee chair?

Voting by email violates a fundamental principle of parliamentary law that voting is limited to members who are actually present at the meeting when the vote is taken, so the society's bylaws would have to specifically authorize it, and the society would likely need to adopt special rules of order to regulate it. See RONR (10th ed.), pp. 408, 409.

[hmtcastle]

If the bylaws don't allow for email voting (or any other method of absentee voting) only business conducted in a properly called meeting can be valid.

I don't know if it was Mr. Tesser or his alter-ego, Nancy, who broached this subject but can we please put the hyphen back in "e-mail"?