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§ 308B.555 Voting Rights

Statute text

Extracted from the Revisor of Statutes; first captured here October 15, 2026. Formatting and whitespace are normalized. Extraction can contain errors; the linked official text controls.

Subdivision 1. Determination.

The board may fix a date not more than 60 days, or a shorter time period provided in the articles or bylaws, before the date of a meeting of members as the date for the determination of the owners of membership interests entitled to notice of and entitled to vote at the meeting. When a date is so fixed, only members on that date are entitled to notice of and permitted to vote at that meeting of members.

Subdivision 2. Voting power.

Unless otherwise provided in the articles, bylaws, or a member control agreement, members have voting power as provided in section 308B.545.

Subdivision 3. Nonmembers.

The articles or bylaws may give or prescribe the manner of giving a creditor, security holder, or other person a right to vote on patron membership interests under this section.

Subdivision 4. Jointly owned membership interests.

Membership interests owned by two or more members may be voted by any one of them unless the cooperative receives written notice from any one of them denying the authority of that person to vote those membership interests.

Subdivision 5. Manner of voting and presumption.

Except as provided in subdivision 4, an owner of a nonpatron membership interest or a patron membership interest with more than one vote that is entitled to vote may vote any portion of the membership interest in any way the member chooses. If a member votes without designating the proportion voted in a particular way, the member is considered to have voted all of the membership interest in that way.

History: 2003 c 105 art 1 s 49

Notes & interpretation Not part of the law

Verified against sources: October 15, 2026Last edited: October 15, 2026

In plain language#

  • Record date. The board may fix a date, not more than 60 days (or a shorter period set in the articles or bylaws) before a members' meeting, to decide who gets notice and who may vote. If it does, only members on that date get notice and may vote.
  • Voting power follows § 308B.545 unless the articles, bylaws or a member control agreement provide otherwise.
  • People who are not members (a creditor, a security holder, another person) may be given a right to vote on patron membership interests if the articles or bylaws say so or say how it is done.
  • Joint owners. Membership interests owned by two or more members may be voted by any one of them unless the cooperative receives written notice from any one co-owner denying that person's authority.
  • Splitting a vote. An owner of a nonpatron interest, or of a patron interest with more than one vote, may vote any portion any way the owner chooses. If the owner does not say how to split the vote, the whole interest is treated as voted the way the member voted.

How it works in practice#

  • Pick the record-date rule in the bylaws, or leave it to the board. If the bylaws are silent the 60-day outer limit applies when the board uses a record date.
  • The cooperative should keep the written notice from a joint owner as part of its records, because that notice changes who may vote.
  • Subd. 5 begins "Except as provided in subdivision 4," so a co-owner's written objection under subd. 4 takes priority over the vote-splitting rule.

Sources

  • P1 Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 308B (Cooperative Associations), Office of the Revisor of Statutes, State of Minnesota. revisor.mn.gov (primary; accessed October 15, 2026)

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