29. Motion 2011-D - DISCUSSION

[Christopher Mallon]

Hi Chris:

Re Quorum requirement:

1. When you say " If everyone opposed to a motion refuses to vote on it, " you are referring to a situation where everyone opposed theoretically abstained, and since an abstention is NOT a vote, one could say they " refused " to vote on it , even though they cast a ballot?

2. Quorum requires 50% of those eligible to attend,to attend or the vote fails. You say that in the situation above, " given normal CFC Governor activity levels the motion will fail due to lack of quorum ". Are you saying that in an e-mail vote, since abstentions are not counted as voting, their ballots will not be counted towards the number " attending ". And without them, the total Yes/NO votes will llikely fall below 30, and the motion will fail for lack of sufficient attendance, or quorum?

Bob

These are now both basically the same question. And it's happened, there was if I'm not mistaken a vote in the past couple of years that was in the area of 25-2, but failed due to quorum requirements.

[Lyle Craver]

That's fine if we're talking about a constitutional amendment.

Please note en passant that assuming 60 Governors a 21-8 vote would fail while 21-9 or 21-8 with 1 abstention would pass - it's not 50% of the Governors voting FOR the constitutional motion but 50% voting period. (An abstention is definitely considered a vote)

The whole point is that constitutional changes are supposed to be difficult as they are considered of exceptional importance to the organization. As such it's even more important than usual to get as many participating as possible.

Can we get back to the merits or otherwise of the motion?

Personally I think the idea of abandoning the quorum for constitutional amendments at Online Meetings is a terrible idea as it puts 'everything on the table' in every single online meeting on the same basis as an AGM. Meaning most any motion gets handled on nearly the same basis as an ordinary motion and that I think goes way way too far.

If the intention is to make the Online Meetings de facto AGMs then let us be clear on that. My understanding is that they were intended to supplement the Governors' Letters and speed decision-making on routine matters. That's a totally different matter than holding an AGM every 3 months!

If that's the intent then please say so so all of us know exactly what direction the proponents want to move the CFC.

[Bob Armstrong]

That's fine if we're talking about a constitutional amendment.

Please note en passant that assuming 60 Governors a ...21-8 with 1 abstention would pass - it's ...50% voting period. (An abstention is definitely considered a vote)

Who is going to solve this impasse re constitutional amendments and 50% quorum? :

Chris - An abstention is not a vote, and in an e-mail vote, will not be counted as an attendance for quorum purposes.

Lyle - An abstention is a vote and is counted as an attendance for quorum purposes.

Bring back Maurice Smith out of retirement !!

Bob

[Ken Craft]

I think they are saying two differnt things Bob A.

Chris is saying one can refrain (abstain) from voting.
Lyle is saying one can cast a vote called yes, no or abstain.

[Bob Armstrong]

I think they are saying two differnt things Bob A.

Chris is saying one can refrain (abstain) from voting.
Lyle is saying one can cast a vote called yes, no or abstain.

I'm finding the wording confusing:

Chris says: One can cast a ballot either as Yes, No or abstain. But if you cast an " abstain " ballot , it is not considered a " vote " for e-mail purposes, in counting whether there is quorum attendance. Only Yes/No votes are counted as indicating an eligible voter attendance.

Lyle says: all ballots are considered " votes " ( barring spoiled ones I guess ) for the purpose of counting the presence of eligible voters for quorum purposes.

So in the case of a 28-1-1 vote by e-mail:

Chris - the motion fails for lack of quorum - only 29 " votes " and you need 30;

Lyle - the motion passes - there are 30 " votes ", and that indicates 30 eligible governors " attended " = quorum made.

They are exactly opposite positions.

Again I appeal to Life Governor still, though retired, Maurice Smith, for an opinion !!

Bob

[Christopher Mallon]

Bob,

My point was, Lyle counts an abstention as being present in an email vote only if the Governor physically replies stating that they abstain. That's usually a case of can't decide or don't care. Many people simply do not vote. This is still abstaining, but is NOT counted as "present and/or voting". Even though you can reasonably assume they received the email and simply chose not to vote for whatever reason.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Chris:

I can only say then that if a governor receives a ballot, and doesn't e-mail back a ballot with one of the three options on it, they are irrelevant for all purposes, except that we have to count them in the total of eligible voters, to determine if a quorum requirement has been met.

What is the practical purpose of claiming in that case they have " abstained "? I think abstention usually only refers to those who actually cast an " abstention " ballot, not those who didn't vote.

So I take it you agree with Lyle that if a governor physically returns an " abstention " ballot, then it is a " vote " and should be counted as indicating an attendance when we calculate if quorum has been met?

Bob

[Christopher Mallon]

No, what I'm actually saying is there should be no further need to have email votes at all, and for quorum purposes we just see how many people are present at the actual meeting, and any who do not vote are considered to have abstained.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Chris:

1. I think e-mail votes may be necessary in an emergency between meetings. I'm not sure we should call a special on-line meeting every time an emergency vote comes up. So we need clear rules, understood by all, as to how constitutional amendment motions are treated in e-mail votes.

2. There is no constitutional motion quorum required at on-line meetings, so we have no issue there at this time ( so ruled earlier in the meeting by Bob G ).

3. I don't think we should consider governors present and not voting as being deemed to have cast an " abstention ballot ", the same way as those do who physically submit an abstention ballot. This trivializes those who do actually come and take the time to vote, even if abstaining for some reason of uncertaintly or not caring or whatever.

Also, it confuses the enhanced majority requirement for constitutional amendment motions. We only want to have to achieve 2/3 of all votes. So I don't want non-voters to be considered as part of the total " votes " cast when I go to calculate the 2/3 !!

Bob

[Lyle Craver]

No - I catagorically reject the idea that Governors who have signed in but do not vote are counted for quorum requirements.

Governors have a right to vote or not vote as they choose and an abstention IS a vote. Non-attendence is not an abstention so I don't think Chris and I are in disagreement.

The ONLY thing that counts is the actual vote - no one has the right to impute decisions to Governors that they did not voluntarily choose to make.

I think the issue is 'attendence quorum' vs 'voting quorum' - without the required number of Governors in attendence a meeting cannot legally make decisions - that's the former. A particular motion requires a certain percentage to pass (either 50%+1 or 2/3 depending on the motion) and may or may not require votes by the required number of Governors. In the latter case 'quorum' is a poor choice of words since the word means the number actually attending - not the number voting.

The latter is specifically what this motion seeks to eliminate. I think it's a very very bad idea so urge Governors to vote against it.