[802SEC] Some Thoughts on 802.20 Elections
Dear SEC,
Here are my thoughts on the issue of the 802.20
election. I abstained from voting on all aspects
of this issue as I did not have sufficient time to
properly consider all that went on, and not having
been an observer of the election process (as dot17 was
still in closing plenary).
Having had sufficient time to reflect since the
closing meeting, I would now feel comfortable with
voting NOT to confirm the elections. However, the
experience of the candidates is not a central issue
to me, but rather the large degree of ballot box
stuffing that occured on all sides of the election.
I would also vote NOT to change the membership
rules retroactively to disenfranchise anyone under
the old rules.
From inception, 802.17 has been in a state where
several companies had a "large" pool of voters
based on both the initial meeting and sending sufficient
people over 3 meetings to gain rights the "normal" way.
All of these companies had been very active during
the SG phase of the project, so the concept of highjacking
a WG from the people who got the project started is not
a factor.
From the very begining I have been closely monitoring all
votes to determine if domination by a single entity has occured.
This has been aided by roll call votes on any issue where
there appears to be strong polarization. In those cases
I did a post meeting analysis of the votes to determine if
modifying the vote (to be by company) would have changed the
result. There have been only a small number of cases where
the vote would have reversed on a major issue. In all such
cases, the issue was essentially resolved by the next meeting
(and concensus was achieved). Thus no single entity has
sucessfully delayed the WG for more than 2 months.
Additionally, with the exception of a single consultant,
there has never been a case where the sponsor of a consultant
was not KNOWN to the WG. And eventually the sponsor of that
consultant became known. When counting the consultants
as a company employee (and hence removing their vote) the results
of the vote would not have changed substantively.
My suggestion for a way forward on this result is to expand
on something that Matt said at the SEC closing meeting. I
would suggest the following process occur.
I would request that all consultants declare who their sponsor
is and for the sponsor to confirm. Clearly, we cannot force this
issue, but as the 802 process is open, then clearly the consultants
and their sponsors should not be hesitant to do so. Also, any
consultant who fails to do so, leaves a taint on the candidate who
they voted for. So unless someone was so machiavellian as to arrange
to have their consultants vote for the other guy, the lack of
disclosure will not splatter unfairly.
Now that we can properly identify "organizations", have the
interim chair run an email roll call vote. Failure of the
vote to produce the same results as in the meeting would cause the
vote to be thrown out and a new roll call vote to be held at
the July session. If the results match the meeting results, then
the analysis of the results on a one company one vote basis
should be valid and can help determine if anything untoward
occured.
Had companies behaved reasonably, in terms of the number of
voters they sent, then the legitimacy of the March
vote would not be called into question.
Should the result be upheld, the election should
stand and the officers should take their positions at the
end of the July session having had the experience of mentorship
by the interim chair.
If not, the interesting effect of all of this, is that all companies
will have sent people to three meetings of the WG and hence qualify
unambiguously for the right to vote. However, the issue of
"box stuffing" will remain, hence my suggestion that this
vote be by roll call in any event.
The advantage of waiting for the next plenary session to hold
the vote is that it would give all candidates sufficient time to
be fully conversant with 802 process and procedure and be ready
to take on the task of WG officers as they will have Geoff as
a role model.
I hope this helps, as I believe it sets out a process to resolve
the issue as well as expectations on the interim chair in terms
of success.
regards,
mike
--
Michael Takefman tak@cisco.com
Manager of Engineering, Cisco Systems
Chair IEEE 802.17 Stds WG
2000 Innovation Dr, Ottawa, Canada, K2K 3E8
voice: 613-254-3399 cell:613-220-6991