RE: [802SEC] EC email vote statistics
I will note one additional reason why the suggestion would not be a good idea.
No matter how much we want to encourage participation, I don't think we should do anything that requires members to always have email contact.
Email votes can come up on short notice. There can be a number of them running close together or at the same time.
Exec members may sometimes manage to take a two week or longer vacation on which they don't take their laptops. With the suggested rule, a member could lose voting rights because 2 email ballots occurred during that vacation - ballots that the member didn't even know would be held before the vacation started. There may also be occasions where one has to be "heads down" on a project for a short time. Being and SEC member shouldn't require 100% availability.
I don't think 80% is a bad record. I would be concerned if there were times when business wasn't getting down (or where votes were just barely getting enough participation) or when we made bad decisions because of lack of participation.
Getting higher participation might require accepting more constraints on when and how votes could be conducted, e.g. longer ballot periods, pre-established times when email ballots could be opened. This might make it harder to get work done under difficult time constraints.
Pat
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Nikolich [mailto:paul.nikolich@att.net]
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 2:38 PM
To: Bill Quackenbush; Bob O'Hara
Cc: stds-802-sec@ieee.org
Subject: Re: [802SEC] EC email vote statistics
All,
The request to the EC to 'empower the chair' will come in the form of a P&P
change request in November, altough it is becoming evident from this email
thread that it would probably not receive approval. Good discussion though.
I note that no one commented on the 80% response rate on the email votes.
I'm not sure how to interpret that--it is an adequate response rate or not?
My intent on the threat of suspending the EC email voting rights was to give
the chair a motivational tool to encourage all EC voters (that are aware an
email motion is open) to cast a vote. Why? It is my opinion that it is an
EC member's obligation to cast a vote on a motion. We are a small group.
Every vote and every opinion is important to our decision making process and
to the LMSC. Therefore, I want to encourage maximum participation.
Regards,
--Paul
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Quackenbush" <billq@attglobal.net>
To: "Bob O'Hara" <bob@airespace.com>
Cc: <stds-802-sec@ieee.org>
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 2:04 PM
Subject: Re: [802SEC] EC email vote statistics
>
> All,
>
> There is in my view a very important reason why the requirements for a
> motion to be approved by eballot are different from the requirements for
> a motion to be approved during an EC (in person) meeting.
>
> During an EC (in person) meeting, almost every voting member of the EC
> is present, they are all (hopefully) paying attention and their vote can
> be determined by visual inspection. However, there is no assurance
> during an eballot that anyone except those who vote ever saw the ballot.
> If eballot approval was determined as a majority of those voting
> "approve" or "disapprove", then it would be possible for a motion to
> pass an eballot with ONE "approve" vote and no other votes because no
> one else saw the eballot. Such a possibility is simply NOT acceptable
>
> Thanks,
>
> wlq
>
> > Bob O'Hara wrote:
> >
> > I don't believe that Paul has the authority to disenfranchise an EC
> > member, in this manner. Nor does the EC have the power to give him
> > this authority. This would require a change to the P&P. If you
> > disagree, please cite the text in our P&P that allows him this power
> > or allows us to grant him this power.
> >
> > Geoff is correct that the P&P explicitly makes a non-return by an EC
> > member equivalent to a "NO" vote. From 3.4.2.1:
> > "The affirmative vote of a majority of all members of the Executive
> > Committee with voting rights is required for an electronic ballot to
> > pass except when specified otherwise by these P&P."
> >
> > -Bob
> >