#01: Election of board members by SPI membership

[David Graham]

On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, John Goerzen wrote:
> > Logically, it would start that the three new board members we have now
> > stay on and the seven older members would be subject to election, if we
> > were to use a staggered approach. From there it would flow normally,
> > albeit it might take a while for it to reach half the board at a time.
>
> I'm not sure that the three vs. 7 thing really lends itself to balance.  We
> will need to have some sort of enforced balance by procedure if we do this.
>
> We could just declare certain seats to expire certain times to begin with.
> There is still the bootstrapping problem.  I would prefer to abstain from
> final wording on that one due to a potential conflict of interest.

I think it is best to avoid separating the election altogether. One
election for the whole board is certainly, in my opinion, the best option.

> > Another downside to a staggered approach is if the status quo isn't
> > working, it will take several elections to replace the whole board with
> > fresh blood. Impeachments/recalls should be fairly difficult and used in
> > the most extreme of circumstances, so should not be considered an
> > alternative to thorough elections.
>
> I think running two board campaigns per year is too much.  Currently, board
> members have a term of three years.  I think one compromise may be to make
> the terms two years, and half of the board is up for re-election each year.
> If the terms remain at three years, a third of the board could be up for
> re-election each year.

I think separating it in two is not a very good idea, but separating it in
three can stunt any renewal efforts if we ever get into a situation like
the one we had in December of last year. I favour very strongly one
election for everyone per year, with no limit on the number of times a
board member can be re-elected.

> However, I'm not sure your officer selection proposal can co-exist with this
> sort of method.  It seems to require everyone be voted on at once.

See the message I just sent to the list for an alternative to the officer
selection process.

> > If board members are selected using the condorcet system in the manner
> > they were last month, it could be fairly simple to work out officers -
> >
> > outright winner - president
> > second place - vice president
> > third place - treasurer
> > 4th-(8th-12th) - rest of the board
>
> I don't like this option very well.  It may well be that the person in third
> place is not well qualified to be the treasurer and does not seek that
> position.  If I want to see a particular person as the treasurer, it is very
> difficult to express my wish in this way.  Same goes for president and VP.

A system of appointments would allow a treasurer (for example) to be
appointed even if no candidates came forward for the role.

> > The secretary can rotate through the board or be selected by the board,
> > and officers can resign and be replaced between elections. The secretary
> > is a procedural rather than political role and doesn't really need to be
> > elected by the membership in my opinion.
>
> Agreed wrt the secretary.
>
> > I also think hierarchal ranking reduces or eliminates the chance for
> > parties, but I would not be adverse to explicitly banning parties in the
> > by-laws.
>
> I don't think we can do that.  There's nothing we can do to prevent people
> from aligning themselves with one another off-list.  Nor should we be prying
> into that.

Certainly people can align themselves, but a party system where people
vote for the parties rather than for the candidates could be outright
banned, forcing SPI never to formalise any such alignments.

=--------------------------------------------------=
David "cdlu" Graham 			cdlu at pkl.net
Guelph, Ontario			SMS: +1 519 760 1409