Re: Quorum required for good standing; was RE: [chairs] Info forchair setup of Kavi TC areas

[Eduardo Gutentag <eduardo.gutentag@sun.com>]

Jon, 

you say:
> Note that in mail votes (including email), a majority is a
> majority of all of those casting a vote -- not necessarily a
> majority of the entire membership. 

That was possibly true in previous versions of the TC process. Currently
this has been clarified to avoid ambiguities, and the TC process
nowadays says:

"For the purposes of mail vote counting, quorum is constituted by the
whole TC membership." -- The reasoning behind this is that the whole 
membership is always available and present for email votes.

What is still not clear to me is whether in a 10 person TC, given,
let's say, 3 abstentions, are 4 positive votes enough to pass, or
are 5 positive votes required no matter what. I guess because I've
never understood whether abstentions are counted as negative votes
or simply as no-votes-that-reduce-the-quorum-count.



On Sun, 2003-02-16 at 15:20, Jon Bosak wrote:
> | I think the OASIS process, regularly scheduled meetings, open
> | archives and minutes, ability of 10% of membership to veto a
> | Standard, has adequate safeguards to keep a small group from
> | hijacking a TC.
> 
> Just remember that you can't take formal action without a quorum.
> The rules provide for this by extending Robert's to allow voting
> by email (if the TC votes, in a quorate meeting, to allow the
> chair to operate this way).  So the right way to handle a group
> that has a hard time achieving a quorum is to adopt standing rules
> that authorize email voting and allow the inquorate group to
> automatically become a committee whose recommendations can, if
> necessary, be submitted to the whole TC by email.
> 
> Note that in mail votes (including email), a majority is a
> majority of all of those casting a vote -- not necessarily a
> majority of the entire membership.  This is exactly the same rule
> as when voting in a quorate meeting.  To put it another way (I
> don't believe Robert's puts it this way, but I find it a useful
> way to think about it), in email a quorum is always present.
> 
> Jon
-- 
Eduardo Gutentag               |         e-mail: eduardo.gutentag@Sun.COM
Web Technologies and Standards |         Phone:  +1 510 550 4616 x31442
Sun Microsystems Inc.          |         1800 Harrison St. Oakland, CA 94612
W3C AC Rep / OASIS TAB Chair