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Re: [802SEC] +++EC Motion+++ Rules Change Ballot on Roll Call Votes



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