Any orgainzation has to operate under a set of generally understood and accepted rules, else chaos will happen. This may or may not be Robert's Rules. When I ran an executive committee, for example, we did not vote on issues. but rather discussed them until we could reach a consensus (the most opposed member says, "well, I can live with that."). If a consensus could not be reached, either I, as chair, made the decision, or we deferred decision making to a later date.