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Maine Alliance for Road Associations

How to vote on proposed by-laws ammendments

  • 24 May 2025 7:03 PM
    Message # 13503019

    Our annual association meeting is at the end of June.  There are many proposed changes to our by-laws.  Is there a procedure associations use to vote on proposed changes?  For example, is each proposed change voted on one by one or does the membership vote on all the proposed changes in a single vote?  If both methods are acceptable, are there pros/cons to one method over the other ?  Are there any other methods to pass proposed amendments?  Our association uses Robert’s Rules of Order to run meetings.  Thanks in advance.

  • 25 May 2025 12:06 PM
    Reply # 13503137 on 13503019
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Check your existing bylaws to see if they give any guidance.  Our association's bylaws merely require that members be given 30 days notice of any proposed changes before they are voted on.  We just approved several changes to our bylaws, and we did them all in one vote - but they were mostly minor changes, nothing controversial.

    If your bylaws don't specify any particular procedure, my recommendation would be if any of the changes may be controversial, vote on them separately.  If you don't expect any real controversy, perhaps make a motion to approve them all together, and then if it turns out in discussion that there seems to be disagreement, amend the motion to address them one by one.  

    Does that make sense?  Or does anyone else have different suggestions?  Again, check your bylaws to see if they say anything about how to make changes.

  • 25 May 2025 2:45 PM
    Reply # 13503155 on 13503019

    Yes, it does make sense.  I apologize, I should have mentioned that while our bylaws have a section on amending the bylaws it doesn’t  spell out a specific procedure for voting on proposed bylaws. Thanks for your input.  Will still welcome any other thoughts/suggestions on this matter.

  • 25 May 2025 2:53 PM
    Reply # 13503158 on 13503019

    We always vote on each amendment individually unless they are dependent upon one another. Because we allow absentee ballots, we keep to the rule that we can't vote on anything not on the absentee ballot, so there is no flexibilty to change things at the meeting. There are good points and bad points about absentee ballots... 

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