Re: [chairs] Re: Quorum required for good standing

[Tom Rutt <tom@coastin.com>]

If a member is not present at a meeting, they do not get counted
towards quarum.  There votes are "not Present" rather than "abstain".

Why is it not the same for email votes.  If the member is on vacation
for a month, and do not respond to the mail, they should be counted as
not present for purposes of quorum.

One quarum is verified, it realy does not matter whether "not present"
is treated as abstain, as the effect is the same in the final majority
calculations.

To summarize, I do not believer that "Not responding" members really 
should not be counted for quarum puposes on an email vote.

Please let me know if my interpretation is not correct.

Tom Rutt
Fujitsu
WSRM chair

Tony Jewtushenko wrote:
> Am I mistaken - doesn't OASIS followed Roberts Rules of Order? 
>  Customising the rules for membership/quorum is one thing,  but to 
> customise fundemental rules on voting and achieving quorum is,  in my 
> opinion, no different than making it up as you go.
> 
> Roberts Rules <http://www.constitution.org/rror/rror-08.htm#46> is clear 
> on the topic of voting: 
> 
>     "When a quorum [64] is present, a majority vote, that is a majority
>     of the votes cast, ignoring blanks, is sufficient for the adoption
>     of any motion that is in order, except those mentioned in 48, which
>     require a two-thirds vote."
> 
> Note that for our purposes,  an abstention should be equivalent to a 
> "blank".   Furthermore,  an abstention  is considered an appropriate 
> vote in its own right: 
> 
>     "While it is the duty of every member who has an opinion on the
>     question to express it by his vote, yet he cannot be compelled to do
>     so. He may prefer to abstain from voting, though he knows the effect
>     is the same as if he voted on the prevailing side."
> 
> Therefore,  nullifying a vote where you have 2 yeahs,  one nay and a 
> couple dozen abstentions is inappropriate - the question should carry.   
> The Yeah's woudl win even when a 2/3 majority vote is  required,  since 
> blank votes are not counted. 
> 
>     "Two-thirds Vote. A two-thirds vote means two-thirds of the votes
>     cast, ignoring blanks which should never be counted. This must not
>     be confused with a vote of two-thirds of the members present, or
>     two-thirds of the members, terms sometimes used in by-laws. "
> 
> With respect to the issue of membership and quorum - I think the answer 
> is to bite the bullet and terminate memberships of those who are 
> chronically absent.  The TC I lead recently had frequent problems 
> achieving quorum because of a couple of long term absentees,  wo we went 
> through a painful membership / attendence audit that resulted in 
> revoking TC memberhip of 3 members (out of a total of 19),  one of whom 
> was an original founding member.  We haven't had any problems achieving 
> a quorum since,  but I'll admit it was a painful process.
> 
> Regards,
> Tony Jewtushenko,  Chair - XLIFF TC
> 
> 
> Lauren Wood wrote:
> 
>>[I cut down the CC list assuming everyone is on the chairs mailing 
>>list - L]
>>
>>On 18 Feb 2003 at 22:44, Eduardo Gutentag wrote:
>>  
>>
>>>That may be true in theory, but in the practice, when in a 20 person TC
>>>an email vote elicits 2 yes votes and 1 no vote and the rest either
>>>send "I abstain" messages or none at all, people are quite reluctant
>>>to consider the matter settled in favor of the motion. Most would say,
>>>and have said, that the vote doesn't and shouldn't count.
>>>    
>>>
>>
>>If everyone else abstains or can't be bothered voting, doesn't that 
>>mean they don't care about the result of that vote? So why shouldn't 
>>it count? I could see saying that a certain percentage of the TC must 
>>vote in one of the three ways, which would imply if you don't care 
>>what the result is you must explicitly say you don't care by 
>>abstaining. How is this different to the common "if no objections, 
>>it's carried"? 
>>
>>Lauren
>>
>>--
>>
>>Lauren Wood, Chair, Entity Resolution TC 
>>
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> 
> -- 
> Tony Jewtushenko				mailto:tony.jewtushenko@oracle.com
> Sr. Tools Program Manager			direct tel: +353.1.8039080
> Product Management - Tools Technology Team
> Oracle Corporation, Ireland
> 
> 


-- 
----------------------------------------------------
Tom Rutt		email: tom@coastin.com; trutt@fsw.fujitsu.com
Tel: +1 732 801 5744          Fax: +1 732 774 5133