Voting Procedures

[Matt Schafer]

In my organization, we have two classes of members. The bylaws and other governing documents specify that, to adopt certain questions or motions, a certain number of members of each class must vote in the affirmative; but for other questions, a plain-old vanilla majority vote is sufficient. In the current circumstance, the number of members of Class C is significantly less than the number in Class R.

My questions below don't relate to the interpretation of the statements above (since I know we can't do that kind of thing here). I'm looking for guidance on how to conduct and announce results of votes.

1. Should the chair, on his own initiative, always take a rising vote when putting the question on a motion that requires votes from each class?
   
2. When the assembly orders a counted vote (or the chair decides to count the vote on his own initiative) and the chair is announcing the results of the vote, should he (a) always enumerate the votes cast in each class of members or ( only announce the count of votes cast in each class when the question requires votes from each class? (I'm going to assume that however the chair announces the result is what the secretary records in the minutes.)
   
3. When the assembly orders a roll call vote, should the secretary announce the count of votes cast in each class (a) always or ( only when the question requires votes from each class?
   

I'm going to try to answer my own questions to see how well I understand the underlying concepts.

Let's start with (1). I think that for the members to have confidence in the results of votes as stated by the chair, these kinds of votes should never be done by voice. There's no way that someone in the back of the hall can hear the three members saying anything in the front of the hall. So these kinds of votes should always be rising votes. However, even if the chair takes a voice vote, any member can demand a Division if the result seems odd, so this isn't a serious problem in practice.

And now for (3). Since it is the judgment and ruling of the chair as to what the threshold must be to adopt any motion, the secretary should always announce the numbers of each class of votes (and perhaps the counts in aggregate?), then allowing the chair to make the proper determination when announcing whether the motion is adopted or lost. If the secretary only gives aggregate counts, but the chair needs them broken down by class, it should be a simple thing to sort that out, since the entire vote is already written down.

I'm not sure where to go with (2). On one hand, by always counting and announcing the results by class, all members can hear the full results. On the other hand, if only the aggregate count is given, and a member believes that the question requires class voting, he can make a Point of Order to that effect. (I don't believe he can make a motion to take another vote with the counts broken down by class. RONR (10th ed.), p. 273, l. 33-35.) If the count was ordered by the assembly, the motion should state that the count shall be broken down by class; that would avoid this issue.

What do you think?

[jstackpo]

I think your rule about two-class vote requirements is not found in RONR, so you are on your own in figuring out how to implement it.