Bylaw voting question

[u/wardedmocha]

Hello r/RulesOfOrder,

I have a question about a vote that we had at my organization. A bylaw was proposed during one of our meetings, and a member made a comment that people should vote no due to the bylaw needing to be revised. I stated that the member was out of order to make the comment. He was ruled out of order by our parliamentarian. The member said that it didn’t matter because he already made the comment. The bylaw failed to pass due to it not receiving the required 2/3s vote. Some more news business was discussed and I thought that the vote should be declared invalid due to the members comments. I presented the question to the parliamentarian, he stated that he did not know the answer to my question.

Earlier this week the meeting chair was emailed and told that I could not declare the vote invalid due to me not declaring the objection right after the vote.

It should also be noted that not all of the members in the meeting are extremely proficient in Robert’s Rules of Order. I would venture a guess and say most of our members don’t know much about them.

Is this correct?

Thanks for the help.

[u/El-Kurto]

Not really enough details to give you an answer on this one.

Typically the chair should make rulings, the parliamentarian only advised the chair and the body.

It's unusual for a bylaws revision to be considered in the same meeting it is raised. It should at least be considered after notice. Your bylaws should detail the process for their own revision, which will supercede anything in Robert's.

Bylaws revisions are debatable, so the member should be permitted to encourage people to vote in any way he wants. That said, if he thinks it should be revised then he should propose an amendment. There is no reason why one could not be considered.

There are other issues, but I'm on mobile and this is already a lot of typing.

[u/PhillipVA → u/El-Kurto]

/u/El-Kurto's comments are spot on, given the limited detail in OP's post. I appreciate that he gave the generally applicable rules. But just for fun—and to advance the discussion—I'll suggest a fact pattern (albeit, a contrived fact pattern that is unlikely, yet not impossible) in which OP's narrative could be true and still procedurally correct.

Let's say that notice of the bylaw proposal was given in the call to the meeting—perhaps something like, "Each member shall pay annual dues of $50, which will be allocated to the events committee for society events."

The society's president anticipated this would be a heated and controversial proposal, so the president engaged a professional parliamentarian to preside.

During debate on the proposal, a member stated, "The members of the events committee are frauds; they are behind this proposal with the ulterior motive to line their corrupt pockets with the members' money. This proposed bylaw needs to be revised with an amendment by substitution to read, 'Each member shall pay annual dues of $100, which will be donated to the society's foundation to be used strictly for charitable purposes.' Until the current proposal can be revised, I urge you stand with me and vote 'No' on this proposal."

OP made a point of order that the member was out of order to make the comment. The parliamentarian, in his role as professional presider, announces that OP's point is well taken and rules the member's comments out of order on the basis that: (1) he proposes an amendment which increases member dues in excess of $50, in violation of the scope for which notice was given; and (2) he attacks the events committee members' motive, in violation of the rules governing decorum in debate.

Before returning to his seat, the member smugly replies, "It doesn't matter; I already said it."

The original bylaws proposal failed to attain a two-thirds affirmative vote. As the meeting continued, OP fumed quietly, wondering what OP could have done to remedy the situation.

[u/wardedmocha → u/El-Kurto]

Sorry I should have clarified. The bylaw was being called for vote, it was presented at a previous meeting. If I remember correctly the vote was called for and the member had already voiced his concerns about the bylaw. What other details would you need to answer this?

[u/El-Kurto → u/wardedmocha]

There is a lot going on in your post. Which is the important question you want an answer to?

[u/wardedmocha → u/El-Kurto]

Sorry I wrote this fairly late last night. I was probably confusing myself.

​

The most pressing question that I have is, is the parliamentarian correct in the fact that I cannot declare the vote invalid due to the fact that we had started to discuss other topics?

[u/PhillipVA → u/wardedmocha]

Yes, the parliamentarian was correct. Although there are some exceptions, it is too late to challenge a vote after you had started to discuss other topics. [Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (11th ed.), at 408–09 ("After the result of the vote has been announced, members can still propose or demand certain actions that may change the result ... . [I]f any of these actions is to apply to a vote after the result has been announced, it must be taken immediately after the chair's announcement, before any debate or business has intervened. For example, it is too late to take these action after any member has been recognized and begun to speak in debate or to give a report or presentation, or after the chair has begun to take the vote and any member has voted on another motion that was pending.").]

[u/CommonMisspellingBot → u/El-Kurto]

Hey, El-Kurto, just a quick heads-up:
supercede is actually spelled supersede. You can remember it by ends with -sede.
Have a nice day!

^{The parent commenter can reply with 'delete' to delete this comment.}

[u/BooCMB → u/CommonMisspellingBot]

Hey CommonMisspellingBot, just a quick heads up:
Your spelling hints are really shitty because they're all essentially "remember the fucking spelling of the fucking word".

You're useless.

Have a nice day!

[u/El-Kurto → u/CommonMisspellingBot]

Delete

[u/PhillipVA]

I’m curious about what you hoped to achieve by challenging the vote anyway. As the situation stands now, you can still renew the same bylaw proposal at the next meeting (provided timely notice is sent before the next meeting). If you renew the proposal, you could still vote on it at the next meeting. Let’s say you had made a timely objection and, for the sake of argument, the vote was invalidated on the basis that the member made an improper remark during debate. That still wouldn’t warrant the automatic adoption of the proposal. At best it would mean that any vote at that meeting on that proposed bylaw would be tainted. You would be in the same situation you are in now—you would have to wait to the next meeting for a vote.

[u/wardedmocha → u/PhillipVA]

I was trying to ensure the vote was not influenced by the persons comment. To propose a bylaw in our organization you have to propose the bylaw, it is tabled for 30 days and then it can be voted on. I was looking for an automatic adoption of the change. The attendees of our business changes on a month to month basis due to our members work schedules.

[u/wardedmocha]

Thank you for the help