RE: [atlarge-discuss] Quorum: Members said

["Dassa" <dassa@dhs.org>]

|> -----Original Message-----
|> From: Joop Teernstra [mailto:terastra@terabytz.co.nz]
|> Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 9:51 PM
|> To: atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de
|> Subject: RE: [atlarge-discuss] Quorum: Members said
|>
|>
|>
|> >Reply to a private question.
|>
|> If the members elect 11 people to sit for them on a Panel then it is
|> certainly not acceptable when only 6 show up to vote.
|>
|> If of those six three object and three are in favour, those
|> three have
|> effectively a veto.
|> If one more crosses the line, 4  have a "majority".
|>
|> Utterly unacceptable!  That would be a repeat of the infamous end of
|> the  first Steering Committee of the IDNO, where quorum was
|> ignored to the
|> point that 3 members out of 21
|> >claimed a "majority".

First an apology, I overlooked the fact I was sending this privately, I
had intended to send it through the list.

I'm not sure I fully understand, aside from the fact there are 11 on the
panel.  If the whole 11 vote the same procedure you outline may occur
except with different numbers ie 5 vote yes, 5 vote no and 1 abstains.
Same thing can happen if any one panel member changes their vote.  The
only difference is the numbers.  With a quorum you are talking about the
smallest number of members you would trust to make an informed vote.

It is fine if you feel the smallest number for an affirmative or
negative vote should be 6 votes out of a 11 total, in that situation
there is no quorum written into the bylaws.  It is the full panel or
nothing.  I don't have any objections to that although there will be
procedural problems when one or more members of the panel can not vote
for some valid reason.

The idea of a quorum is to enable the organisation to continue
functioning if one or more members are unavailable to vote.  Not setting
a quorum number smaller than the full panel is setting up the panel to
be controlled by any one member not voting, even if there is a limit on
the number of votes they can miss.  Any one member could miss a vote on
an important issue, vote on the next and continue.  This could also be
covered for in the rules but it starts to get complicated, setting a
quorum number simplifies it.  Your points are noted and the quorum
number perhaps should be set higher than 6.  My only thoughts so far
have been for it to be a minimum of 6.  Perhaps 9 would be a good figure
all could agree with?

Anyway, just rambling whilst tossing the matter over.

Darryl (Dassa) Lynch



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