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Trustees clarify abstention rule in draft bylaws
Summary
The board revised bylaws language to state that an abstention removes a trustee's vote from the final count but does not change the number of affirmative votes required to pass a motion; trustees agreed to add a footnote citing the source of the rule.
The board of trustees discussed and clarified how abstentions affect votes in their draft bylaws. Chair said a trustee's abstention "removes the trustees vote from the final vote count, but does not change the number of votes required for the motion in question," and the group agreed to add that wording under the voting article.
Trustees debated whether to include reasons for abstaining in the bylaws; the chair recommended removing prescriptive reasons and instead adding a footnote citing the Robert's Rules source. The draft change will appear in Article 1.2 and trustees said they will present the revised language when the bylaws are circulated to the full board.
