As per the decision of the Board on Tuesday, I've revised the Election Rules so that the top three candidates are elected regardless of whether they receive more than 50% approval.
However, if any of them get less than 50% approval, the powers of the Board are restricted to force the board to call a new election within 2 months.
I've also put in an couple of other minor drafting changes.
Details are here: Please let me know if you think they will be effective as drafted.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_UK_v2.0%2FElection_Rul...
Comments / changes as always welcome on meta or this email list.
Regards,
Andrew
Details are here: Please let me know if you think they will be effective as drafted.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_UK_v2.0%2FElection_Rul...
Comments / changes as always welcome on meta or this email list.
As it is currently written, even those that do get over 50% would have to retire at the EGM, is this intentional? They've been duly elected to a 1 year term by a majority of the membership, I don't see why they can't complete it.
It is intentional, yes. The idea is you have a completely new election, although we don't have to do it this way if we don't want to.
On Jan 16, 5:02 pm, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
Details are here: Please let me know if you think they will be effective as drafted.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_UK_v2.0%2FElect...
Comments / changes as always welcome on meta or this email list.
As it is currently written, even those that do get over 50% would have to retire at the EGM, is this intentional? They've been duly elected to a 1 year term by a majority of the membership, I don't see why they can't complete it.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.orghttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UKhttp://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman...
2009/1/16 AndrewRT raturvey@yahoo.co.uk:
It is intentional, yes. The idea is you have a completely new election, although we don't have to do it this way if we don't want to.
I have no particularly strong feelings on it, although continuity of leadership can be beneficial. Having two completely new boards within 2 months could be very complicated and confusing for all kinds of relationships. Obviously, those that won the original election stand a very good chance of winning the new one, but there is no real need to put them through that, so why bother?
On Jan 16, 6:07 pm, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
I have no particularly strong feelings on it..
Likewise!
... Having two completely new boards within 2 months could be very complicated and confusing for all kinds of relationships. Obviously, those that won the original election stand a very good chance of winning the new one, but there is no real need to put them through that, so why bother?
I think if we can't even get three Board members elected with majority support something has gone wrong and we'd need a complete rethink of our approach and a lot of new blood. I think giving the members an opportunity for a clean sweep would be worthwhile.
It's interesting to note that not a single director of WMUK v1 was elected onto the Board on WMUK v2 - perhaps an example of the kind of situation that this provision is intended to deal with.
Andrew
2009/1/17 AndrewRT raturvey@yahoo.co.uk:
On Jan 16, 6:07 pm, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
I have no particularly strong feelings on it..
Likewise!
... Having two completely new boards within 2 months could be very complicated and confusing for all kinds of relationships. Obviously, those that won the original election stand a very good chance of winning the new one, but there is no real need to put them through that, so why bother?
I think if we can't even get three Board members elected with majority support something has gone wrong and we'd need a complete rethink of our approach and a lot of new blood. I think giving the members an opportunity for a clean sweep would be worthwhile.
There is one situation where we could fail to get people with majorities without it being due to a serious underlying problem with the chapter - tactical voting. If an election ends up being held primarily on one issue, on which there are three points of view, people may well vote only for those holding their point of view even if they actually wouldn't mind some of the others being on the board, just to make sure the board has a majority in their favour on that issue (they don't need unanimity, so they could approve a few other people, but they don't want to risk it). This could result in a large number of people voting for less than 7 members, in which case it becomes extremely difficult for anyone to get a majority.
I'm not sure that makes any difference to this discussion (a completely new election would probably be good in that case, after giving everyone a good clip round the ear and telling them to vote properly), but I just wanted to point out that this situation could occur under less severe circumstances than you're assuming.
It's interesting to note that not a single director of WMUK v1 was elected onto the Board on WMUK v2 - perhaps an example of the kind of situation that this provision is intended to deal with.
None of them stood, either, and the only reason there is a WMUKv2 is because they decided they didn't want to or were unable to do the job. I really don't see how this example helps. The situation in question is where 1 or 2 people have a majority support and no-one else does, the question is whether or not that 1 or 2 should need to go through an election again. I see little to gain by making them do so, and it does seem rather unfair (they won the election fair and square, why shouldn't they get a year long term just because the rest of the people standing were rubbish?).
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