Re: [802SEC] +++EC Motion+++ Rules Change Ballot on Roll Call Votes
Geoff,
I checked Robert's rules and found the following.
The responsibility of announcing, or declaring, the vote rests upon the
chair, and he, therefore, has the right to have the vote taken again, by
rising, if he is in doubt as to the result, and even to have the vote
counted, if necessary. He cannot have the vote taken by ballot or by
yeas and nays (roll call) unless it is required by the rules or by a
vote of the assembly. But if the viva voce vote does not make him
positive as to the result he may at once say, "Those in favor of the
motion will rise;" and when they are seated he will continue, "Those
opposed will rise." If this does not enable him to determine the vote,
he should say, "Those in favor of the motion [or, Those in the
affirmative] will rise and stand until counted." He then counts those
standing, or directs the secretary to do so, and then says, "Be seated.
Those opposed [or, Those in the negative] rise and stand until counted."
After both sides are counted the chair announces the result as shown
below. In a very large assembly the chair may find it necessary to
appoint tellers to count the vote and report to him the numbers. In
small assemblies a show of hands may be substituted for a rising vote.
Therefore, in situation 1) you described, the chair has a number
of ways to retake the vote, including forcing people to stand
and be recognized but not including a roll call vote. However,
even just forcing people to stand and be recognized allows some
level of check on whether someone is a voter or not.
I can see how one might view adding a rule to allow the chair to
force a roll call vote could be viewed as a remedy to situation
1), however it was not the intent of the rule. The fact that it
could be used to fix 1) is a (happy) coincidence,
Further thought on the use of voting tokens does not in and
of itself prevent fraud, although it does insure that no
additional voters add to the pool. Then again, a roll
call vote does not prevent fraud either unless all
voters are known to all other voters.
Hope you are having a good thanksgiving.
cheers,
mike
Geoff Thompson wrote:
> Mike-
>
> (DISAPPROVE at this point)
> I applaud your attempts to fix this. I am not sure that it is a
> tractable problem for reasons that I will outline below.
> But first the trivial fix:
>
> Change from:
>
> A roll call vote can be held at the discretion of the chair.
>
> Change to:
>
> A roll call vote may be held at the discretion of the chair.
>
> And you need to add that a motion and a second is needed to call for a
> roll call
> (and, I would hope that the vote could not be by acclamation)
>
> But further than that, I'm not wild about your test criteria.
>
> I believe that the problem in the Exec is that a roll call represents
> two different situations.
> Situation #1
> Occurs in fairly large groups without voting tokens.
> Occasional problems arise when non-voters participate in a vote.
> There are two remedies to this situation
> a) A caution from the WG Chair and a re-vote.
> b) A roll call vote
> Requests for a roll call vote from the floor have traditionally been
> honored.
> Requests for a roll call vote have been very infrequent.
>
> Situation #2
> (This is somewhat speculative since I am not in these groups. I welcome
> supplemental or corrective information)
> Occurs in groups with voting tokens
> These groups have less of a problem with non-voters voting.
> There are situations where there are strategic voting issues with voting
> in a secret ballot vs a "public" roll call vote.
> A request for a roll-call vote can be used in this situation to slow
> things down or to force members to vote "on the record".
>
> My feeling is that we need to (1) recognize these differences and (2)
> come up with a solution that harmonizes or clearly differentiates these
> 2 situations rather than trying to lump them into the same pot.
>
> At this point I don't have a particular idea on how to do that, but I
> believe that is the place to start.
>
> At 11:33 PM 11/24/2003 -0500, Mike Takefman wrote:
>
>> Dear EC Members,
>>
>> as per the motion at the November Plenary closing
>> EC meeting I am starting a (35 day) ballot on
>> the proposed rule change. I am extending the ballot
>> to account for the upcoming US Thanksgiving holiday
>> (and yes Canada has such a holiday - its just a month
>> earlier).
>>
>> I will be running a face to face comment resolution session
>> during the January Interim Session to try to finalize
>> the language. I believe sunday night is the best time
>> to hold such a meeting, but I am open to other suggestions.
>>
>> The language you will find enclosed is different (and
>> I believe improved) from what was shown at the EC meeting.
>>
>> 1) It attempts to provide better sentence structure
>> (less of a run-on sentence).
>> 2) It addresses an issue brought up to me personally
>> by one of the 2 dissenting voters to the rules change
>> motion in terms of insuring that roll call votes cannot
>> be used as a delaying tactic.
>>
>> Personally, I have only seen roll call votes used in dot17
>> sparingly and they have in fact helped me determine when a group
>> was attempting to block concensus / progress. As such, there
>> has never been an issue with their use as a delay tactic,
>> but I do have sympathy for such a concern.
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>> mike
>> --
>> Michael Takefman tak@cisco.com
>> Distinguished Engineer, Cisco Systems
>> Chair IEEE 802.17 Stds WG
>> 3000 Innovation Dr, Ottawa, Canada, K2K 3E8
>> voice: 613-254-3399 cell:613-220-6991
>>
>>
>>
>>
--
Michael Takefman tak@cisco.com
Distinguished Engineer, Cisco Systems
Chair IEEE 802.17 Stds WG
3000 Innovation Dr, Ottawa, Canada, K2K 3E8
voice: 613-254-3399 cell:613-220-6991