Concept
Robert's Rules of Order
Related concepts (21)
Committee
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more fully than would be possible if the assembly itself were considering them. Committees may have different functions and their types of work differ depending on the type of the organization and its needs. A member of a legislature may be delegated a committee assignment, which gives them the right to serve on a certain committee.
Motion (parliamentary procedure)
In certain countries, a motion in parliamentary procedure is a formal proposal by a member of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take certain action. Such motions, and the form they take are specified by the deliberate assembly and/or a pre-agreed volume detailing parliamentary procedure, such as Robert's Rules of Order; The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure; or Lord Citrine's The ABC of Chairmanship. Motions are used in conducting business in almost all legislative bodies worldwide, and are used in meetings of many church vestries, corporate boards, and fraternal organizations.
Voting
Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, convenes together for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting. Residents of a jurisdiction represented by an elected official are called "constituents", and the constituents who choose to cast a ballot for their chosen candidate are called "voters.
Quorum
A quorum is the minimum number of members of a deliberative assembly (a body that uses parliamentary procedure, such as a legislature) necessary to conduct the business of that group. According to Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, the "requirement for a quorum is protection against totally unrepresentative action in the name of the body by an unduly small number of persons." In contrast, a plenum is a meeting of the full (or rarely nearly full) body. A body, or a meeting or vote of it, is quorate if a quorum is present (or casts valid votes).
Deliberative assembly
A deliberative assembly is a meeting of members who use parliamentary procedure. Merriam-Webster's definition excludes legislatures. In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke described the British Parliament as a "deliberative assembly", and the expression became the basic term for a body of persons meeting to discuss and determine common action. Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised by Henry Martyn Robert describes the following characteristics of a deliberative assembly: A group of people meets to discuss and make decisions on behalf of the entire membership.
Supermajority
A supermajority, (supra-majority, supramajority, qualified majority, or special majority) is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fundamental rights of a minority, but they can also hamper efforts to respond to problems and encourage corrupt compromises at times when action is taken.
Parliamentary procedure
Parliamentary procedure is the accepted rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings of an assembly or organization. Its object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and thus to arrive at the sense or the will of the majority of the assembly upon these questions. Self-governing organizations follow parliamentary procedure to debate and reach group decisions, usually by vote, with the least possible friction.
Voting methods in deliberative assemblies
Deliberative assemblies – bodies that use parliamentary procedure to arrive at decisions – use several methods of voting on motions (formal proposal by members of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take certain action). The regular methods of voting in such bodies are a voice vote, a rising vote, and a show of hands. Additional forms of voting include a recorded vote and balloting. Voice voteRobert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR) states that a voice vote (viva voce) is the usual method of voting on any motion that does not require more than a majority vote for its adoption.
Majority
A majority, also called a simple majority or absolute majority to distinguish it from related terms, is more than half of the total. It is a subset of a set consisting of more than half of the set's elements. For example, if a group consists of 20 individuals, a majority would be 11 or more individuals, while having 10 or fewer individuals would not constitute a majority. "Majority" can be used to specify the voting requirement, as in a "majority vote", which means more than half of the votes cast.
Unanimous consent
In parliamentary procedure, unanimous consent, also known as general consent, or in the case of the parliaments under the Westminster system, leave of the house (or leave of the senate), is a situation in which no member present objects to a proposal. Generally, in a meeting of a deliberative assembly, business is conducted using a formal procedure of motion, debate, and vote. However, if there are no objections, action could be taken by unanimous consent.