Recording votes

[Jon Bosak <bosak@boethius.eng.sun.com>]

At the last PAC meeting it was asserted that names needed to be
recorded in votes.  I demurred but couldn't quote chapter and verse,
so I agreed to research it.

I am pleased to report that I appear to have gotten this right.
RROR 9th edition (with which I am becoming increasingly irritated)
states on pp. 43-52 the procedure for voting with such
excruciating verbosity that I cannot quote it here, but the 1915
edition (p. 189) gets smartly to the point in question:

   The responsibility of announcing, or declaring, the vote rests
   upon the chair, and he, therefore, has the right to have the
   vote taken again, by rising, if he is in doubt as to the
   result, and even to have the vote counted, if necessary.  He
   cannot have the vote taken by ballot or by yeas and nays (roll
   call) unless it is required by the rules or by a vote of the
   assembly.

In other words, the recording of names in votes is not only 
unnecessary, it is prohibited unless the group votes to have the
names recorded (by adopting a Division of the Assembly).

Jon