Robert's Rules: Voting or division and contention but in a good way

You’ve got your agenda, you’ve made a motion, had it seconded and amended, now what?

We, as in the royal we, are going to assume that you know what percent or exact number your vote needs, that is the most important thing to know. If you have your copy of Robert’s Rules or a nice little chart you should be able to figure things out very easily. Just remember anything that is different in your bylaws [e.g. “all motions must be passed by ¾ majority”], well your bylaws always win.

Now you know what you need and the question has been called. How do you vote?

Voice vote, vote by division, roll call, ballot votes and then when you’ve got that covered you’ve got to make sure that your absentee ballots or votes by proxy are covered.

Say the vote is something that is very uncontroversial, something like approving the minutes of the last meeting. The chair of the meeting can simple ask for a voice vote (everyone’s favorite “All in favor say ‘aye’. [pause] All those opposed ‘nay’.”). If anyone in the meeting is unsure, if it is close, if you want names on record of who votes which way etc then you can call for division.

You can call for a division lots of ways “Division!”, “I call for division”, “I demand division”, or “I doubt the results of the vote.”

The next step is a rising vote. This is where people stand up to vote. This can get controversial (I know, standing…) especially when you have anyone in a wheelchair, in this case you tell those people that they can authorize a proxy to stand for them (someone from the opposite side just stands up twice, but once is for the wheelchair person. (Get the chair to mention this right away to clear things up or it can become a dramatic item.) So you stand up and the chair makes a decision (it’s obvious), or the chair and others count the number of people standing (it’s not so obvious).

You can do a roll call vote. This records for the minutes, for the official record, how each and every person votes (you’ve only got 3 choices: Yes, No, Abstention). Your bylaws should have a percent of the minority that is required to call for a roll call vote. If they don’t it defaults to a majority of the body, but having a minority such as ¼ of the body is a good idea, then you can get an on the record vote for a controversial issue and protect the rights of the minority.

You can do a ballot vote. This is a secret vote. Write on a slip of paper how you vote and you get tellers to tally the votes and then that tally is entered into the record. This lets you have your vote stay secret; this is used especially in elections. Your bylaws may have a provision for all elections to be secret ballots. Why? So that the person who gets voted in doesn’t retaliate against those who voted against him.

So you’ve got your vote and it’s in the record. Next? Repealing, revisiting, or rejecting!