Agenda - Council - 09/25/1990 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I VOTING AT OPEN MEETINGS. The Open Meeting Law requires that all votes of members must be recorded in a voting journal and that the journal must be made available for public inspection. The statutory provision requiring the body to record the votes of members likely prohibits the public body from taking secret ballots even if the final overall tally is recorded. In the event that the legislature intended to allow secret ballots where the final vote was recorded, the statute would have provided that the vote (singular) of the members would be recorded. The term votes (plural) suggests that individual votes must be recorded. Nevertheless it may be argued that a secret ballot is permissible in the event the final collective vote is recorded. This argument would interpret the plural term "votes" in "votes of members" as meaning members collectively voting on more than one issue (i.e. the committee votes on two bills). This line of argument would stress that the legislature could have easily drafted the bill to explicitly require that individual votes be recorded in the event that it meant to have individual votes recorded. Note that the last sentence in the Open Meeting Law provides that "the vote of each member shall be recorded on each appropriation of money .." In the event the legislature intended to require that public bodies record individual votes, the term "votes of members" could have easily been drafted as "the vote of each member." This issue has not been litigated through the appellate courts and remains unsettled.