Are members of city councils and boards of county commissioners permitted to vote by telephone or by proxy?
In my opinion, the vote of a council member or commissioner participating in a meeting by telephone or proxy would not stand up if tested in court, because there is simply no statutory authority for the practice. The Open Meetings Law mentions meeting by conference telephone call, but that law is not an enabling statute — it only supplies rules that must be followed if a board is otherwise meeting properly under the general city enabling or county enabling laws (see G.S. Chapter 160A, Article 5, and Chapter 153A, Article 4, respectively). The enabling statutes establish detailed rules for holding city council and county board of commissioner meetings, but they do not mention meeting by phone or proxy, in contrast to the statutes for private corporations, which allow for proxy voting and the like.
On the other hand, I see no reason not to allow a board member to participate in the discussion, as long as the two-way hook-up allows him or her to hear everything that is going on in the council chambers and allows those at the meeting to hear the member. The clerk could also record how the member would vote if he or she were physically present at the meeting, and she or he could put this “telephone vote” (noted as such) in the minutes. Similarly, you could allow an absent member’s purported “proxy” (their opinion) to be entered on the record. The bottom line is that I would not want to rely on such a vote to decide a case.
Boards that do not have detailed statutory rules of procedure, the list of which includes most other local government boards, might be able to use telephone or proxy voting, if they have specifically provided for it in their own internal rules of procedure. However, the answer to this question is unclear.
Make sure that you consult your local attorney in all situations involving “unusual” voting, and make sure that you follow the attorney’s advice closely. Courts are quick to invalidate actions if improper procedures were used, so it is essential for the attorney to guide you every step of the way.
