[governance] Criterion for charter voting

[parminder]

On Thursday 30 September 2010 08:58 AM, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
> On 29/09/2010, at 8:58 PM, Avri Doria wrote:
>
>    
>> Having just voted in an election, one could argue that the conditions of the charter had been met.  Interesting cascade.
>>
>> And on the spirit, this happened so quickly, within the two month margin for voting on an election, we can be confident no one joined the mailing list to mess with the charter.
>>
>> So we might have both letter and spirit.
>>      
> Exactly.  That was my reason for doing it this way.  Whilst I agree that it is a question of interpretation as to whether one can interpret "voting 30 seconds ago" as having "voted in the previous election", it cannot be questioned that if you vote in the election one day before it closes, you can vote again in a charter poll that is called the following day.  So - 30 seconds, or one day - what difference does it make?
>
>    
Jeremy

I think, the co-coordinators need to protect the letter and spirit of 
the charter, in this case to understand why special conditions were laid 
for a charter vote, and do their utmost to go by it, rather than say, 
well, one could also have done this or that, and it would be the same, 
'what difference does it make'... I dont think taking this line of 
argument, showing other 'possible' technical gaps and loopholes, is 
really the right way to defend a leadership decision, which could as 
easily have been taken in a manner that upheld the charter.

> Don't forget that we are pressed for time here.  Unless the charter is amended, we will be unable to legally nominate any civil society representatives for the CSTD working group on the IGF.
The suggestion given to you  before you embarked on the process was to 
have the charter amendment vote - which is where we are pressed for time 
- right away, before the co-coordinator vote. (It is a different issue 
that the the very need of a charter amendment has been questioned by 
many, without the needed response from the co-cordinators.) I dont see 
why we are pressed for time reg the co-coordinator vote. Last year it 
took place in December, I think. In any case, nothing prevented the 
coordinator vote to immediately follow the charter amendment vote.

>   Further, the longer delay between election and charter vote, the less time the nominating committee will have to deliberate.
>    
As I said, charter amendment vote, if necessary, could be carried out 
first and nomcom process started immediately. I dont see the problem here.
> Having said that, if there is a clear preference for Adam's solution, whereby I would disqualify voters from all the 2010-eligible members if they were not also 2009-eligible members, then we can proceed that way.  This is technically possible, and will save us the time (and aggravation to people who have already voted) that we would otherwise waste by duplicating the poll in 10 days time.
>
> However, my reason for avoiding doing this was that there was a shadow over the validity of the 2009 membership list, that was never completely resolved (and frankly, probably now cannot be, since the person who ran the last election was unable to find the time to do the necessary investigations - and he was always volunteering his time after all).
>    
I have asked for this before, included on the list, and I think IGC 
should get a report on what really happened vis a vis the 2009 voting 
with reg. to its voting list. We need to know all that the coordinators 
know, which must be significant since now we see that it has become the 
basis of an important organizational decision (though taken in private) 
not to use the 2009 election voters list for a purpose it is needed to 
be used for a charter mandated organizational process. If Derrick 
Cogburn, who conducted the polls, has some information on this he can be 
persuaded to share it, but at least coordinators should share with us 
the basis of their doubts about the 2009 election voters list.

In any case, if, as you say, the ' shadow over the validity of the 2009 
membership list' was a material issue in taking this contested decision 
about the charter amendment vote, I think the list could easily have 
been revalidated. But that depends on what kind and extent of shadow 
there is on the voters list.

Parminder

> So my first preference is that we accept both the coordinator election result AND the charter vote as valid, but I have encouraged Parminder to let the Appeals Team decide if this is unacceptable to him.
>
> My second preference is that if there are a sizable number of people for whom the first option is unacceptable, and if it this would overcome their concern and Parminder's, I will filter the results of the charter poll through last year's membership list (notwithstanding the problems with that list).
>
> My third and least preferred option is to run the charter vote again after the coordinator ballot closes.  I would need an Appeals Team decision on this before proceeding, because of the delay it would cause to our selection of the CSTD panel.
>
>    
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20100930/c2b25e46/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t