First off...I need to ask, is the PTO board in favor of voting in these bylaws or does the root of the problem lie in that the PTO board is not happy with the bylaws they wrote?

Everyone's bylaws are different, but the PTO board would need to hold the vote. Committee's can't just up and hold their own votes. The vote should be held at a general meeting and like you said everyone should have a chance to read them and then the president should make a motion for them to be voted on, someone needs to second it and then you count by a show of hands.

There is no need for this to be ugly. The PTO board has the power to hold the vote...like I said before committee's can not just hold their own votes to enact policy.

Being from a new school and pto board, we have a set of bylaws that really have not been voted in. However, the bylaws committee says they were. Two people stood up to "count hands" but the only people at the meeting that read them were the bylaw committee and the pto board. No members read them. So we (the pto board) announced that we will wait until the next general meeting to vote so that the parents would have time to read them and so that they would have a educated voting process. We even told everyone that they were posted on our website for review. The bylaw committee doesnt remember that detail. They say that since hands were counted, it was passed???? I know that none of the pto board raised their hands so that the only ones who did was the bylaw committee, not a majority vote! We (pto board) are under the impression that any and all voting has to be seconded and announced with the number of votes... Are we incorrect in this? Things are getting very nasty between the two committees... Please help us!