Voting

[Guest Larry Haynor]

We recently held a ballot vote open to all members of the Association. Presuming the rules were all met regarding meeting notification and vote notification. Is there any requirement that says 2/3's of the membership of a group must cast ballot's and that there must be a majority vote of those members for it to be valid.

Exact example: We have 32 members, only 18 members bothered to cast a paper ballot that was open to all members and the vote was 10 to 8 in favor of the motion. Is this a valid vote.

Thank you.

[hmtcastle]

Is there any requirement that says 2/3's of the membership of a group must cast ballot's and that there must be a majority vote of those members for it to be valid.

No. The quorum is all about members being present, not voting.

A majority vote is the affirmative vote of more than half the members present and voting. For example,a 1-0 vote (with all other members abstaining) constitutes a majority vote (and a two-thirds vote as well).

[Josh Martin]

Is there any requirement that says 2/3's of the membership of a group must cast ballot's and that there must be a majority vote of those members for it to be valid.

Exact example: We have 32 members, only 18 members bothered to cast a paper ballot that was open to all members and the vote was 10 to 8 in favor of the motion. Is this a valid vote.

There is no requirement in RONR that a minimum number of ballots must be returned in order for the vote to be valid, and the default requirement for a motion's adoption would be a majority of the ballots cast. So yes, the vote in question is valid and the motion was adopted, unless some rule of your organization suggests otherwise.

[jstackpo]

Hmm...

The question sounds as though the vote in question did not take place during an actual meeting.

That, as far as a strict reading of RONR goes, is out of order, and, indeed, is a violation of a "fundamental principle" - p. 408. Thus any rules allowing the practice -- setting up a polling place that was open "at the association office", say, for a day or so, for any member to drop in and vote -- would have to be in the bylaws, and any questions about whether the vote was proper or not (due to low turnout?) would have to be in those bylaw rules.

But perhaps I am misreading the question. Mr. Haynor?

[J. J.]

Hmm...

The question sounds as though the vote in question did not take place during an actual meeting.

That, as far as a strict reading of RONR goes, is out of order, and, indeed, is a violation of a "fundamental principle" - p. 408. Thus any rules allowing the practice -- setting up a polling place that was open "at the association office", say, for a day or so, for any member to drop in and vote -- would have to be in the bylaws, and any questions about whether the vote was proper or not (due to low turnout?) would have to be in those bylaw rules.

But perhaps I am misreading the question. Mr. Haynor?

I do not believe that such a setup would have to be in the bylaws (p. 425), as your 2001 experience would indicate.

I'm not thrilled with the wording on p. 408, but this clearly is not the type of absentee voting described on p. 409.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

We recently held a ballot vote open to all members of the Association. Presuming the rules were all met regarding meeting notification and vote notification.

Is there any requirement that says

Q1. 2/3's of the membership of a group must cast ballots

and

Q2. that there must be a majority vote of those members for it to be valid.

A1. No. - No minimum number of returns, or rather, "1" is the minimum for adoption. A vote of 1-0 is valid, even if the other 99 members present abstain.

A2. No. - The "majority vote" requirement is based on "votes cast", not "potentially the maximum number of votes which could have been cast."

Exact example:

We have 32 members,

only 18 members bothered to cast a paper ballot that was open to all members

and the vote was 10 to 8 in favor of the motion.

Is this a valid vote?

Yes.

A return of 1-0 is a valid adoption.

A return of 0-1 is a valid rejection.

There is no minimum.

[jstackpo]

But...

P. 425 speaks explicitly to the situation in a convention or in a "large meeting" for which, I agree, a case can be made (with a little stretching).

Neither situation appears to apply to Mr. Haynor's question. He made no mention of a convention and 32 members is hardly "large".

[Guest Larry Haynor]

Thank you for all of the replies. Our by-laws do not specifically address the voting issues other than at meetings we require a quorum to conduct business and a quorum is considered 60% of the body or the presence of 3 board members. The only other mention of specific procedures is that in the by-laws it says we follow Roberts Roles of Order.

[hmtcastle]

Our by-laws do not specifically address the voting issues other than at meetings we require a quorum to conduct business and a quorum is considered 60% of the body or the presence of 3 board members.

Each organization is certainly free to establish the quorum requirement that works best for its particular situation but, for what it's worth, that sounds like an unusually high requirement on the one hand (nearly two-thirds of the membership) and an unusually low requirement on the other (just three board members). You either need an awful lot of members or hardly any members at all.

[jstackpo]

And I'm still a little curious...

Did the voting take place during a meeting or at some poling place between regular (or after) the meetings.

[Gary Novosielski]

Thank you for all of the replies. Our by-laws do not specifically address the voting issues other than at meetings we require a quorum to conduct business and a quorum is considered 60% of the body or the presence of 3 board members. The only other mention of specific procedures is that in the by-laws it says we follow Robert[']s Rles of Order.

If your bylaws do not specifically address voting other than at meetings, then you are prohibited from voting except at meetings.

You cannot do mail votes, absentee votes, e-mail votes, phone votes, skype votes, chat votes, proxy votes, or anything other than show-up-and votes