Absentee voting

[kayandbud]

Recently our president conducted a telephone vote on an issue of importance. It is my understanding that RONR does not permit absentee voting in any form, so that the organization's bylaws must specifically allow it. Is this correct?

Our bylaws do not address absentee voting at all. I do not have access to RONR right now and would like to reference this information by page number, Article number or other reference point in order to point out the illegality of this vote. Could someone provide this information? Thanks.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

... would like to reference this information by page number ...

See page 255, RONR 10th edition, 2000.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

Also, page 409-410.

[Gary Novosielski]

Recently our president conducted a telephone vote on an issue of importance. It is my understanding that RONR does not permit absentee voting in any form, so that the organization's bylaws must specifically allow it. Is this correct?

Our bylaws do not address absentee voting at all. I do not have access to RONR right now and would like to reference this information by page number, Article number or other reference point in order to point out the illegality of this vote. Could someone provide this information? Thanks.

And if this "telephone vote" did not take place within the context of a legal meeting, it would not count as a vote of any kind in the first place. It was just people talking on the phone.

[J. J.]

The decision, however, could be Ratified at a properly called meeting with a quorum (p. 119).

[Guest K-guest]

"Quorum" is the operative word here. We seldom have in attendance a majority of the general membership which our bylaws require for the decision in question. Other decisions can be made with a majority of members present. The bylaws need to be amended IMO.

[Gary c Tesser]

"Quorum" is the operative word here. We seldom have in attendance a majority of the general membership which our bylaws require for the decision in question. Other decisions can be made with a majority of members present. The bylaws need to be amended IMO.

Yes, sounds like they do.... Be sure you have a quorum there, eh?

[hmtcastle]

We seldom have in attendance a majority of the general membership which our bylaws require for the decision in question. Other decisions can be made with a majority of members present.

Make sure you're not confusing voting requirements with your quorum requirement. The two are unrelated.

You always need a quorum present, regardless of the vote that might be required on any particular motion.

[Guest K_guest]

Maybe I'm confusing quorum with voting requirements. Our bylaws state that expenses over $100 must be approved by a "majority of the general membership." Other provisions in the bylaws require only a "majority of members in attendance at a meeting---" Recently there was a telephone "vote" in order to get approval from the general membership (of which there was not a quorum present at the meeting) for an expense of more than $100. This is the issue in question -- whether a telephone vote is valid. Apparently, it is not because I am told that RONR does not approve telephone voting and our bylaws are silent on any kind of absentee voting. Other comments welcome. I'm really new at all this.

[hmtcastle]

I'm really new at all this.

Well, you're catching on quickly. The learning curve may be steep at first (mostly due to the nomenclature) but it soon levels off (once you realize that most of what's called for is basic fairness).

RONR In Brief is an excellent resource (so I'm told) and covers the 10% of RONR that you'll use 90% of the time. Later on, if you wish, you can add some letters after your name and focus on the 90% of RONR that gets used 10% of the time.

[Gary c Tesser]

Maybe I'm confusing quorum with voting requirements. Our bylaws state that expenses over $100 must be approved by a "majority of the general membership." Other provisions in the bylaws require only a "majority of members in attendance at a meeting---" ... [snip].

As I see it now (with this discussion thread at Post #10, by Mr Mt), the OP, Guest_K_guest_, might be confusing voting requirements with a quorum, and maybe not. The issue of a quorum really has not been brought up at all, except that with an alleged telephone meeting, without bylaws authorization, there is no quorum, so the the alleged meeting is invalid. Okay, that's settled. The salient issues left, then, are (1) how many members have to be present at a meeting so that business can legitimately be conducted -- that is, what's the quorum? -- and (2) what the vote threshold is for expenses over $100.

1. Be clear that once you have the requisite number of members in the meeting room, and keep them there, the quorum is no issue. So now read the bylaws to see what the quorum requirement is. Often, it's a lot less than a majority of the membership -- but if the bylaws do not state what your organization's quorum is, then, indeed, it is a majority of the membership. Look now. Not later. I'll just stand here tapping my foot.

2. This requirement for spending over $100, "a 'majority of the general membership,'" might mean what it looks like -- a majority of THE ENTIRE membership -- or it might not, because it is not standard terminology, as it leaves out the word "entire." Ordinarily, I would say that "entire" is implicit. But as an argument for ambiguity: Does your organization really want to require that more than half of the membership be present to authorize spending $100? (Were these bylaws written when $100 was a decent week's pay, when it's now an upper-middle-class hourly wage?) Ask yourselves what the bylaws say verbatim about this, and if it's at all ambiguous, decide by a vote, and then amend the bylaws to say exactly and unambiguously what you want them to say.

Oh, and ..

3. ". Other decisions can be made with a majority of members present." Really? That's what it says? The standard, a majority vote, not good enough? You sure?

[Guest K_guest]

OK, Gary c Tesser with tapping foot, bylaws in hand, here I go:

(1) The word "quorum" does not appear anywhere in our bylaws. The phrases "prior approval of the general membership" and "requires a majority vote of the members in attendance at a posted meeting presided over by an Officer" and "Bylaws may be amended by a majority vote of Auxiliary members present at a meeting presided over by a member of the Executive Board" are used. I assume a "quorum" is a simple majority of the entire membership? If that is the case, then we seldom have a quorum at a called meeting, so I further assume that nothing can be accomplished at these poorly attended meetings.

(2) "Expenditures exceeding $100.00 shall have prior approval of the general membership" governs the amount the treasurer can spend,donate, etc. In order to do this, a telephone vote was conducted in order to facilitate the motion which carried unanimously at the meeting which was without a quorum. Still with me? The telephone "vote" was illegal so we still can't spend more than $100 -- agreed?

(3) The other decisions I refer to are: "The adoption of a motion requires a majority vote of the members in attendance at a posted meeting presided over by an Officer" and "A majority vote of the paid members present shall be required for election of all officers." Only the money amount is tied to "approval of the general membership."

It appears that unless we can increase the attendance at called meetings in order to have a quorum, we cannot spend more than $100 on any one project, at least not at once. The other option would be to amend the antiquated and ambiguous bylaws.

Comments? Suggestions?

[Gary Novosielski]

Our bylaws state that expenses over $100 must be approved by a "majority of the general membership." really new at all this.

(2) "Expenditures exceeding $100.00 shall have prior approval of the general membership"

Both of those have quotation marks around them, and yet they say completely contradictory things--which makes this an exercise in futility.

The first one would require more than half of the entire membership to approve.

The second one requires only a majority vote of those present and voting at a general membership meeting at which a quorum is present.

Are you reading from two different sets of bylaws, or did you not think it important to quote them accurately, or are you just making this up as you go along?

[Guest K_guest]

Both of those have quotation marks around them, and yet they say completely contradictory things--which makes this an exercise in futility.

The first one would require more than half of the entire membership to approve.

The second one requires only a majority vote of those present and voting at a general membership meeting at which a quorum is present.

Are you reading from two different sets of bylaws, or did you not think it important to quote them accurately, or are you just making this up as you go along?

[Guest K_guest]

Both of those have quotation marks around them, and yet they say completely contradictory things--which makes this an exercise in futility.

The first one would require more than half of the entire membership to approve.

The second one requires only a majority vote of those present and voting at a general membership meeting at which a quorum is present.

Are you reading from two different sets of bylaws, or did you not think it important to quote them accurately, or are you just making this up as you go along?

[Guest K_guest]

Gary N - I don't make things up as I go although I plead guilty of misquoting the first. Reading directly from the bylaws: "Expenditures exceeding $100.00 shall have prior approval of the general membership."

If "quorum" means a simple majority of the entire membership, then we seldom have a quorum at a meeting. As I posted earlier, I'm new to this forum and a beginner at parliamentary procedure. I welcome helpful advice.

[Gary c Tesser]

[snip]

Comments? Suggestions?

Some thoughts.

(A ). (BTW. This enumerating system is really useful, like when a sensible and obliging OP like K_guest_ responds to the corresponding points, but whew, it needs tinkering.) I'll first say that the suggestion that the guest might be making stuff up was uncharacteristically uncharitable, and I advise charitably disregarding it. I suspect that the poster was ruminating about bears eating chairmen, brought up on another discussion thread, and just got too worked up. Or built up an appetite. Or, come to think of it, maybe complimenting K_guest_ for emulating Indiana Jones' planning technique.

(B ). I'll also emphatically second Mr Mountcastle's excellent suggestion that poster K_guest_ -- and everyone else, for that matter -- acquire a copy of RONR - In Brief, and read it at once. (-- while, perhaps, some intemperate ruminant stands there tapping his foot, if necessary. The first reading won't take long enough for anyone's feet to ache. A few weeks ago, a physician testified that he read it in a day, standing up between patients' appointments. There might even have been a reference to the observer's standing on one foot, but I might be thinking of the Talmud instead.) This advice holds for all neophytes, by the way.

(C ). In summary, yes, the bylaws need amending, both to remove the gibberish (what fascist sneaked in the bit about an Officer or a Member Of The Executive Board needing to be present at a meeting of the membership??), and most importantly, to include a quorum requirement (fixed number or percentage, whichever will work better) that is realistically in tune with attendance at meetings.

Now, back to the numbers.

1. Of course, bylaws cannot be interpreted without their being read in their entirety, which is beyond the scope of this forum. With that said, I'll venture that:

1 (a ). ... "prior approval of the general membership" would probably require only a standard majority vote. That is, more Yes votes than No votes. But not over the telephone. And not having to count every member in the room. And yes, with a quorum present.

1 (b ). ... something that "requires a majority vote of the members in attendance at a posted meeting presided over by an Officer" might really be a requirement for a majority of the members present in the room -- or might be a standard threshold of a majority of the votes cast, with the wording regrettably dressed up in superfluous and misleading plumage. If there's any doubt, and I personally hope there is, the organization will need to decide what the ambiguous language really means (by a majority vote -- RONR, p. 570), and then amend the bylaws, to fix it.

1 (c ). "Bylaws may be amended by a majority vote of Auxiliary members present at a meeting presided over by a member of the Executive Board" is a just plain monstrosity.

2. Agreed. Get a quorum at a meeting. Carrot and stick: offer refreshments. Pizza and beer (in limited amounts until the meeting is over, except for your, um, trusted advisors). Or, announce that the organization will open a crocodile petting zoo for area children. Big draw: crocodiles love petting children, why do you think they smile so much, raw wildebeest is tasty? Then do your important stuff at that meeting: fix the quorum, get the fascism out of the bylaws, reduce or eliminate the gibberish. Such as ...

3. ... say, "a majority vote of the members in attendance" -- unless, by "in attendance," you mean to specifically ban telephone votes. In which case, good idea, but badly executed. Similarly, with the wording about elections, unless the organization wants to adopt the custom of cheerily kicking out of the room everyone who intends to abstain ... but talk about fascism!

3 (a ). That "not at once" seems like maybe a dubious dodge.

[Edited so my carefully-crafted letters-in-parentheses don't come out looking like emoticons.]

[Gary Novosielski]

Gary N - I don't make things up as I go although I plead guilty of misquoting the first. Reading directly from the bylaws: "Expenditures exceeding $100.00 shall have prior approval of the general membership."

If "quorum" means a simple majority of the entire membership, then we seldom have a quorum at a meeting. As I posted earlier, I'm new to this forum and a beginner at parliamentary procedure. I welcome helpful advice.

Well, what we see here is that words, and their precise arrangement, can have significant effects.

If your bylaws are silent, then a quorum is a majority (avoid "simple") of the enrolled members. Without a quorum present at the meeting, you cannot conduct business. Whether they vote or not has no bearing on whether they're present.

But once you achieve a quorum, getting approval for expenses is easier than you said earlier. In RONR, the "approval of" a body, if not otherwise specified, is expressed by a majority vote. Not a majority of all those who are present, but only of those who voted. Therefore, abstentions do not hinder passage.

It seems like your quorum requirement is hindering your ability to conduct business. So you need to start looking at your bylaws amendment process and its voting requirement, and figuring out what is a reasonable number of members that can be expected to be on hand under normal to mildly unfavorable circumstances.

But before you can vote in any new quorum requirement, you'll need to figure out how to get the old quorum requirement present at a meeting. I suggest serving food, or offering door prizes. Stirring exhortations about summer soldiers and sunshine patriots often works too, but not as well as food.

[Gary Novosielski]

Some thoughts.

I'll first say that the suggestion that the guest might be making stuff up was uncharacteristically uncharitable, and I advise charitably disregarding it.

So do I.

(sorry)

[Guest K_guest]

To both Garys - I shall charitably disregard the suggestion that I was making things up. Further, I thank you both for your interest in and your helpful suggestions for our bylaws problems.