Dear Bob and
Jim,
Well I've had a
look at this and it seems reasonably clear to me that the By-Law below applies
to us and so we require a majority of voting members for a motion to
pass.
As I recall Jim's
objection to this is that no other committee votes in this way. However, I
suspect we are the only committee that works entirely by e-mail, and that is
what causes the difference (except when other committees have a letter
ballot).
I should perhaps
make my own position clear. I am relatively indifferent as to which voting
process we use as a matter of principle. My experience is that people adapt
their behaviour to make a voting process work reasonably. However, what I am
concerned about is that there should be uncertainty about how votes are counted.
Then people do not know what the effects of their behaviour will
be.
So Jim, do you
accept that our voting is governed by the By-Law quoted below? If not please
give a rationale.
Also, if you do
not, what action do I have to take to challenge your decision so that we can get
this sorted out?
If we accept this
process below, then looking back the SUMO - and I suspect the IFF vote
would have failed (though the numbers of voting members were not declared in the
published ballot result). What do we do about those votes?
Matthew West
Principal Consultant
Shell Information
Technology International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United
Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Mobile: +44 7796 336538
Email:
matthew.west@shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk
Matthew,
I spoke to a member of
the IEEE -SA staff who confirmed that in our case (a vote without a
meeting, e.g. e-mail) an affirmative vote of a majotity of all the voting
members is required. The reference is the IEEE By-Laws, 1-300
Management, 1-300 General, 1. Governance; Parliamentary
Procedures, 4.
Action of the Board of Directors and Committees. (4) below:
(4)
Unless otherwise provided in the Certificate of Incorporation, the
Constitution, these Bylaws, or the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law of the
State of New York, any action required or permitted to be taken by any board
or committee of any organizational unit of the IEEE (other than the Board of
Directors, the Executive Committee, the Major Boards, the Standing
Committees and any other board or committee reporting directly to the Board
of Directors) may be taken without a
meeting. Unless a more restrictive
voting requirement is specified in the governing documents of the board or
committee, an affirmative vote of a majority of all the voting
members of the board or
committee shall be required to approve the action. The results of the vote shall be confirmed
promptly in writing or by electronic transmission. The writings and/or
electronic transmissions shall be filed with the minutes of the proceedings
of the board or committee. ?Electronic
transmission? means any form of electronic communication, such as e-mail, not directly involving the
physical transmission of paper, that creates a record that may be retained,
retrieved and reviewed by a recipient thereof, and that may be directly
reproduced in paper form by such a recipient.
The IEEE By-Laws can be viewed at
http://www.ieee.org/portal/index.jsp?pageID=corp_level1&path=about/whatis/bylaws&file=i-300.xml&xsl=generic.xsl
It is clear that the SUMO vote failed.
Bob