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