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

[Tom Rutt <tom@coastin.com>]

Ooops I meant my summary to state:
To summarize, I do not believe that "Not responding" members
  should  be counted as present for quorum puposes on an email vote.


Tom Rutt wrote:
> 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
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>>> To subscribe or unsubscribe from this elist use the subscription
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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