SUO: Chair Ruling on Point of Order
Bob,
The point of order is not accepted because,
a. RRO applies to in-person meetings. Since SUO does all its business
via email, we must do our best to interpret and apply RRO. I interpreted
that a quorum does not apply to email letter ballots, and stated so in the
ballot. The purpose of the quorum rule is to make sure at least half the
members have a chance to vote, but has nothing to do with how many people
actually do cast votes. In our case, ALL voting members are sent ballots,
plus a concerted effort was made to reach people who did not acknoweldge
receipt of their ballots. This is the widely accepted interpretation
throughout the standards community.
b. The reference to quorum in the ballot made no attempt to change any
rules, only to interpret existing rules.
c. A point of order must be made at the time of infraction. You did
raise this issue during motion discussion, but there was no consensus for it
in the SUO P&P subgroup, and it was denied. As this ballot has been
released, I believe this action is no longer timely.
Jim Schoening
Chair, SUO
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Grayson Spillers
To: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
Sent: 8/13/01 2:17 PM
Subject: SUO: Point of Order
Jim,
I make the point of order that the motion before the SUO (on the SUMO)
is out of order in that it declares a quorum unnecessary.
Robert's Rules of Order state that
(1) "In the absence of a quorum, any business transacted ... is null and
void." (Robert' s Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR) 10th edition
October 2000, ISBN 0-7382-0307-6 page 336 lines, lines 26 -28).
(2) "The prohibition against transacting business in the absence of a
quorum cannot be waived even by unanimous consent..." (RONR page 337,
lines 14-16).
Bob
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