How a Meeting Runs Under Common Parliamentary Rules

A practical, plain-English guide to common parliamentary rules — enough to take part in your first organizational meeting, understand the classes of motions, and know how each one works.

By Bandy LLC · Last updated July 16, 2026 · Based on common rules of order

What parliamentary procedure is

Parliamentary procedure is a set of rules that lets a group of people make decisions together, fairly and efficiently. This body of rules is called parliamentary law — defined by Merriam-Webster as "the rules and precedents governing the proceedings of deliberative assemblies and other organizations," a term in use since about 1850. The common rules of order followed by most clubs, boards, and associations rest on a few enduring principles:

• One question at a time. The assembly considers a single main question until it is disposed of.
• The majority decides — but only after the minority is heard through debate.
• Every member has equal rights to make motions, speak, and vote.
• The rights of absentees are protected — which is why changing adopted rules takes more than a bare majority on short notice.
• The membership chooses — and can overrule — its leaders. Officers serve the assembly: it elects them, can reverse a presiding officer's ruling on appeal, and can remove an officer from office.

Where these rules come from

Deciding questions by debate and vote is ancient, and the invention of no single culture. As early as the 6th century BCE in northern India, the city of Vaishali was the capital of the Licchavi republic, whose people were renowned for a government in which a general assembly of the heads of the leading families deliberated and decided together. The Licchavis and neighboring tribes formed the Vrijji (or Vajjika League), an aristocratic republic, and Vaishali later hosted the Second Buddhist Council, convened to settle rules of conduct. The Buddha is said to have modeled the organization of the monastic order — the sangha — on the government of the Vrijji, and the sangha endures today as one of the world's oldest continuous traditions of decision by assembly. In the following century to the west, Thucydides, in his History of the Peloponnesian War (5th century BCE), records the citizens' assembly of Athens settling questions of war and policy by vote.

Councils that deliberate before they decide recur across history. In early medieval England, the witenagemot — a word in use before the 12th century, and in Merriam-Webster's definition "an Anglo-Saxon council made up of a varying number of nobles, prelates, and influential officials and convened from time to time to advise the king on administrative and judicial matters" — gathered to counsel the crown. In North America, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy — formed, by various accounts, sometime between the 12th and 17th centuries — governed itself through a Grand Council under the Great Law of Peace, an oral constitution with detailed procedures for reaching agreement among its nations; in 1988 the United States Congress passed a resolution acknowledging the Confederacy's influence on the development of American democratic government.

By the sixteenth century the English Parliament had developed working procedures of its own. In De Republica Anglorum (1583), Sir Thomas Smith described the House of Commons — including its use of committees, a small group chosen by the larger body to work out the details of a complex decision and report back. The handbook Lex Parliamentaria (1689) set out principles still in use today: take up one question at a time; alternate between the opposing sides in debate; decide by comparing the number in favor with the number opposed; keep debate on the question and never personal; and divide a complicated question so that each part can be considered on its own. John Hatsell's Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons (1781) gathered the practice of the Commons into a systematic reference.

When the United States took shape, Thomas Jefferson adapted English parliamentary practice — drawing chiefly on Hatsell — for the new republic in A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States (1801).

Ordinary clubs and societies, though, are not legislatures. In his Manual of Parliamentary Practice (1847), Luther S. Cushing argued that a private organization should not be bound by the rules of whatever state legislature it happens to meet in, but should instead follow a single common set of rules suited to ordinary assemblies.

Influenced by Cushing's small manual, and motivated by the disparities between the rules of the two chambers of Congress, Henry Martyn Robert published the Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies — with the shorter cover title Robert's Rules of Order — specifically to provide a complete set of rules for private organizations. In its many editions it has become the standard manual on parliamentary procedure in the United States. The fourth edition, Robert's Rules of Order Revised (1915), was the first complete reorganization of the manual and the last edition published in his lifetime; it entered the public domain in 2011 (see Encyclopædia Britannica, "Henry Martyn Robert"). Bandy continues the tradition with self-regulating meetings that are fully text-based and can be synchronous (members participate at the same time) or asynchronous (members participate at their convenience).

Key terms in 30 seconds

Assembly

The members meeting together to act as a body.

Board

A body of directors, trustees, or managers charged with administering an organization's affairs. A board is itself a deliberative assembly and meets under the same rules.

Chair

The member presiding over the meeting (usually the president). "The chair" also refers to that authority.

The floor

The right to speak, granted by the chair to one member at a time.

Motion

A formal proposal that the assembly take some action or position.

Second

A second member's signal that the motion is worth the assembly's time. It is not agreement.

Quorum

The minimum number of members who must be present to do business — set by the bylaws.

The chair stating the question

Once a motion is moved and seconded, the chair states it; only then is it before the assembly for debate and a vote.

Boards within a society, and boards that stand alone

A board is itself a deliberative assembly: it meets, debates, and decides by motion and vote like any other body. But not every board sits in the same place in an organization, and the difference settles a basic question — who the board ultimately answers to.

Most boards are subordinate. A society with a general voting membership creates a board in its bylaws to manage the organization's affairs between meetings of the full membership. Its powers are delegated, and what the membership delegates it can also withdraw: the assembly elects the board, may instruct it, may rescind what it has done, and may amend the bylaws that define it. The membership stays sovereign, and the board reports back to it.

Other boards are sovereign in themselves, because no membership stands above them. A nonprofit corporation may have no general voting members at all, in which case its board of directors is the highest body in the organization. The same is true of many boards of trustees, school boards, and library boards. Such a board's authority comes not from a superior assembly but from the instrument that created it — articles of incorporation, a charter, a trust, or a statute. Its directors may be elected by an outside electorate, appointed by an official, or chosen by the board itself; but once seated, they answer to no larger body of members meeting in assembly.

Where the board is the organization, several familiar rules land differently:

• There is no membership to enroll, so none of the machinery for admitting members applies.
• The board fills its own offices. Officers are elected from among the directors, by the directors, and are accountable to the board they serve.
• The bylaws are the board's own. It adopts and amends them itself, within whatever limits its charter or governing statute imposes — and those limits, rather than a membership, are what bound it.
• Protecting absentees does more work. With no superior body to correct a hasty decision, the requirement of previous notice before adopted rules are changed is often the only safeguard the absent directors have.

Boards of both kinds are usually small, and the ordinary rules of debate are relaxed in a small body. Those relaxations are the same either way: what differs is not how a board meets, but whom it answers to.

How to run a first organizational meeting

When people come together to form a new club, board, or association, the founding ("organizational") meeting follows a well-worn sequence. Each numbered step is itself carried out by motion and vote:

1. Call to order. Someone acting as temporary convener starts the meeting and confirms a quorum is present.
2. Elect a temporary chair ("chair pro tem") to preside until permanent officers exist.
3. Elect a temporary secretary to record the minutes.
4. Form a bylaws committee. The assembly adopts a motion to create a committee and refer the drafting of bylaws to it.
5. Recess so the committee can meet and prepare its proposed bylaws.
6. Adopt the bylaws. The committee reports; the assembly debates, amends, and adopts the bylaws — article by article — by a majority vote.
7. Enroll members. Those who subscribe to the adopted bylaws become charter members.
8. Elect permanent officers under the new bylaws. The officers take office at once — and the new president takes the chair.

A board that is the organization organizes without the enrollment step. Where the articles of incorporation name the first directors and provide for no voting membership, there are no charter members to enroll: that board meets, adopts the bylaws it is empowered to adopt, and elects its officers from among the directors (see boards that stand alone).

What a group's bylaws cover

Bylaws are a society's own written constitution — the rules it adopts for itself that no ordinary motion can override. Common parliamentary practice recommends organizing them into a handful of standard articles, each covering one area of the society's structure:

• Name and object. The society's name and the purpose for which it was formed.
• Membership. Who is eligible to join, how new members are admitted, any membership limit, and how dues are set and paid.
• Officers. Which offices exist (typically at least a president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer), how each is elected, the length of a term, and any limit on consecutive terms.
• Meetings. When regular meetings are held, when the annual meeting (for elections) is held, how special meetings may be called, and the quorum required to do business — since parliamentary law leaves all of these to each society to decide for itself.
• Executive board. If the society has one, when it meets and what authority it holds between meetings of the full assembly.
• Committees. Standing committees the society maintains (a nominating committee to propose candidates for office is especially common), how members are chosen for each, and what each reports and when.
• Parliamentary authority. The manual of rules the society will follow on any point its own bylaws and special rules don't cover.
• Amendment. The procedure for changing the bylaws later — typically a two-thirds vote, often paired with a requirement of previous notice (see How votes are decided), so the rules can't be rewritten by a bare majority on short notice.

Where the board is the organization and there is no voting membership, two of these articles change. A Board of Directors article takes the place of the Membership article — fixing the number of directors, the length of a term, and how a vacancy is filled — and the separate Executive board article falls away, since the board is not a subset of some larger body but the whole of it.

Everything within these articles — meeting schedules, quorum size, committee sizes, term limits, and so on — is left to each society to fill in for itself; parliamentary procedure supplies the framework, not the numbers. Once adopted by the assembly, the bylaws bind everyone, including the officers, until amended by the process the bylaws themselves prescribe.

The five classes of motions

Common parliamentary rules sort motions into five classes. The first four have a fixed order of precedence: while one motion is pending, only motions of higher rank may be made. This is what lets an assembly handle urgent business without losing track of the main question.

1. Main motions

Bring a new item of business before the assembly (for example, a resolution). A main motion is in order only when nothing else is pending.

2. Subsidiary motions

Act on a pending main motion — to change it or dispose of it. Examples: amend, refer to a committee, postpone, limit debate, or close debate (the previous question).

3. Privileged motions

Urgent matters unrelated to the pending question that take precedence over everything else — such as a recess or to adjourn.

4. Incidental motions

Questions of procedure that arise out of the business at hand and must be settled at once — such as a point of order or an appeal from the chair's ruling. They have no fixed rank among themselves.

5. Motions that bring a question again before the assembly

Reopen a question already decided — such as to reconsider, to take a matter from the table, or to rescind or amend something previously adopted.

Common motions at a glance

These are the motions most groups actually use. "Vote" is the threshold needed to adopt the motion.

How votes are decided

Thresholds are calculated on the votes cast, ignoring abstentions:

• Majority vote — more than half of the votes cast. (10 in favor and 9 opposed passes; 9 to 9 fails.)
• Two-thirds vote — at least twice as many in favor as opposed. Required when a motion takes away members' rights, such as closing debate, suspending the rules, or amending adopted bylaws.

A motion to adopt usually needs only a majority. The higher bar exists precisely where a fast majority could otherwise silence the minority or rewrite the rules out from under absent members.

Unanimous (general) consent

Not every decision needs a formal counted vote. For routine or uncontroversial business, the chair may ask, "Is there any objection to …?" If no member objects, the motion is adopted by unanimous consent (also called general consent) and the assembly moves on; if even one member objects, the question is simply put to a normal vote. This long-standing shortcut saves time on matters no one disputes while fully protecting every member's right to a vote — a single objection is enough to require one. (Elections are an exception: they are decided by ballot, never by unanimous consent.)

Preferential (ranked) voting for elections

Ordinarily an officer is elected by a majority of the votes cast, and if no candidate reaches it the assembly simply votes again — repeating until someone does. An assembly may instead provide, by an express provision in its bylaws, that its officers are elected by preferential (ranked) ballot. Each voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. If no candidate is the first choice of a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choices is eliminated and each of those ballots transfers to its next-ranked candidate; this repeats until one candidate holds a majority. Preferential voting can fill an office in a single round of balloting rather than several, which is useful when members cannot easily reconvene to vote again — but because it is a departure from a direct majority vote, common parliamentary rules permit it only when the bylaws expressly authorize it.

Frequently asked questions

What is a quorum?

A quorum is the minimum number of members who must be present for the assembly to act. The number is fixed by the bylaws; if none is set, the default is a majority of the members. For a board, the quorum is a majority of the directors unless the bylaws provide otherwise.

Our organization has a board but no voting members — does parliamentary procedure still apply?

Yes. A board is itself a deliberative assembly and meets under the same rules of motion, debate, and vote. What changes is what sits above it: with no general voting membership, the board is the organization's highest body, answering to its charter, articles, or governing statute rather than to a membership that could overrule it. Its officers are elected from among the directors, and it adopts and amends its own bylaws within whatever limits its charter sets. Because boards are usually small, they also tend to use the relaxed rules for small bodies. See Boards within a society, and boards that stand alone.

What does it mean to second a motion?

A second is one other member's indication that the assembly should consider the motion. It is not agreement — only a signal that more than one member wants to spend time on the question. Most motions need a second before they can be debated or voted on.

Majority vs. two-thirds — what's the difference?

A majority is more than half the votes cast. A two-thirds vote is at least twice as many in favor as opposed. Two-thirds is required for motions that limit members' rights.

Do abstentions count?

No. An abstention is a refusal to vote, so it counts neither for nor against and does not change whether a threshold is met.

Who presides over the meeting?

The chair — usually the president. Because the role is filled per meeting, a vice-president can preside when needed, for instance if a matter concerns the president personally.

How are bylaws changed?

Bylaws are adopted by a majority vote, then amended only by a two-thirds vote with previous notice — so the rules can't be changed by a bare majority on short notice.

What is unanimous consent?

A way to adopt routine or uncontroversial business without a formal counted vote. The chair asks whether there's any objection; with none, the motion is adopted, but a single member's objection sends it to a normal vote. It saves time while protecting every member's right to a vote.

Sources

• The Licchavi republic and the Vrijji (Vajjika League), and the Second Buddhist Council at Vaishali (6th century BCE onward) — an early general assembly and the model for the Buddhist sangha. See Encyclopædia Britannica, "Vrijji," "Vaishali," and "Licchavi."
• Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (5th century BCE) — group decisions made by vote.
• "Parliamentary law" and "witenagemot," Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
• The Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace and Grand Council, Encyclopædia Britannica; and U.S. Congress, Concurrent Resolution 331 (1988).
• Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (1583) — the House of Commons and its committees.
• Lex Parliamentaria (1689) — early principles of debate and decision.
• John Hatsell, Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons (1781) — the main source for Jefferson.
• Thomas Jefferson, A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States (1801) — English parliamentary rules adapted for the United States.
• Luther S. Cushing, Manual of Parliamentary Practice (1847) — common rules for ordinary societies, distinct from a legislature's.
• Henry Martyn Robert, Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies (Robert's Rules of Order, 1876); Robert's Rules of Order Revised, 4th ed. (1915, public domain 2011). See Encyclopædia Britannica, "Henry Martyn Robert."