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Re: [802SEC] Avoiding Appeal Pain in the Future



Mike-

See below, comment mixed in

At 12:51 PM 2/13/2004 -0500, Mike Takefman wrote:

Dear EC Members,

At the January meeting I agreed to write an email to
start discussion on the issue of elections in dot20.
The goal of this email is to be proactive so that
we have a high probability of avoiding a surge of
appeals following the March meeting.

At our EC meeting in March 2003 and at subsequent
meetings the following issues have been raised.

0) That an organization is attempting to dominate the WG.
1) To further that end, many companies sent a large number of
    voters.
2) A large number of consultants were sent to the March'03
    meeting to bolster the position of their sponsors, and the
    relationship between those consulting firms and their
    sponsors was not declared as per ANSI rules.
3) Double sign-in of voters from another other WG for the
    purpose of gaining initial membership in order to vote
    at the initial meeting.

Given the secret nature of the last election, there is no
ability to analyse the results to prove that there was
no attempt to dominate.

Given my experience in dot17 with block voting behavior
I present the following steps to restore confidence in
the election process are as follows:


a) All members must declare what company is sponsoring their
    attendance. As per ANSI rules, consultants shall declare who
    their sponsor is, or declare if their sponsor is already
    represented as a voter. Any consultants whose details are
    found to be incorrect shall not have their vote counted.

**GOT**
We should just fix this in the rules
In 802.3, one of the requirements for being a voter is that you maintain correct contact information. Your contact information goes invalid, you lose your right to vote until it is corrected (admittedly, this was mostly for letter ballots rather than in-meeting but it is the rule). We could expand that concept to include correct and current information regarding "sponsor or affiliation per ANSI requirements".

That would make the requirement an up front portion of acquiring voting status and would pre-set expectations.

That should minimize bickering over the long haul after the initial spike.

We would have to formulate specific requirements that consultants would need to meet in fulfillment.

Geoff



b) The members who signed into multiple groups for the March'03
    session should be subjected to the following checks and those that
    do not show clear interest and attendance in dot20 should be
    disallowed
   i)   What do they claim their interest was for that week.
        (Jerry's suggestion)
   ii)  Where possible, verify if their claimed interest is what was
        marked in their registration.
   iii) Verify their attendance at subsequent dot20 meetings and
        if possible determine if they continue to do double
        sign-ins.

c) The election shall be conducted as a role call vote and then
    the results must be analyzed to prove existence of domination.

Howard Frazier had suggested that a sub-committee be formed
(with for example the treasurer & secretary) as members to
resolve the issue of valid voters (b).

I further suggest, that a sub-committee be formed to
do the analysis of the election ballots.

I encourage Jerry to come back with his plan for insuring an
election that withstands scrutiny and appeal.

cheers,

mike