Re: [802SEC] Chair re-election - proposed interpretation/rules change
FYI: Here is the result of a motion at the 802.16 Working Group
Opening Plenary on Monday afternoon:
Motion: "Per the third paragraph of section 7.2.2 of the IEEE 802
Policies and Procedures, to authorize and allow Roger Marks to run
for re-election as Chair of the IEEE 802.16 Working Group in the
election of March 2008."
Motion by: Phil Barber
Second by: Carl Eklund
Passed by 171/0/1
On Nov 11, 2007, at 03:31 PM, Geoff Thompson wrote:
> Bob-
>
> Good point.
> We should stipulate that it has to be a vote by count.
>
> For my case, (without regard to whether or not I can vote in the
> EC) I would not support the continuation of a chair who brought in
> a vote by acclamation in alleged satisfaction of this criteria.
>
> Geoff
>
> At 05:20 AM 11/11/2007 , Bob Heile wrote:
>> Just out of curiosity, where does a vote by acclimation (or would
>> it be unanimous consent in this case) fit into the scheme of things?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> At 02:32 PM 11/10/2007 -0800, Geoff Thompson wrote:
>>> Tony/Colleagues-
>>>
>>> I agree with Tony that the language needs to be tightened up.
>>>
>>> While I hesitate to have "special" voting rules instead of just
>>> referring to one of our existing procedures, I believe there is a
>>> fatal flaw in what Tony has proposed.
>>>
>>> Our original intention was to have term limits be the default
>>> situation. The 75% vote was intended to allow things to be
>>> overridden by a highly affirmative action (a principle which I
>>> support). I believe Tony's proposal waters that down
>>> significantly in its current proposed form.
>>>
>>> The problem of 75% of Y/(Y+N) is that those not voting are weight
>>> in the affirmative. In this particular case (a) the bias is in
>>> the opposite of our alleged default and (b) it takes a lot of
>>> courage to stick your hand up to say you hate the current chair
>>> (hard enough to brash American, effectively impossible for some
>>> other cultures).
>>>
>>> Therefore, I propose that the method of vote should be (from
>>> Tony's list below):
>>> > - 75% of the voting membership that are present in the room.
>>>
>>>
>>> I acknowledge that does not solve the problem completely, voters
>>> can still abstain by leaving the room. This could be solved
>>> (perhaps) by instead using:
>>> > - 75% of the voting membership of the WG (whether in the
>>> room or not).
>>>
>>>
>>> There is a problem with too though. Many (most?) WGs don't have
>>> anything near 100% of the voting members show up at a plenary.
>>> This effectively raises the bar significantly (too far in my
>>> opinion). We could use 50% of the voting membership on a vote
>>> taken at the plenary but that has a potential unevenness problem
>>> between WGs.
>>>
>>> Therefore, my choice remains:
>>> > - 75% of the voting membership that are present in the room.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Appropriate fruit for discussion during a P&P meeting
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> Geoff
>>>
>>>
>>> At 05:34 AM 11/8/2007 , Tony Jeffree wrote:
>>> Following the interesting discussion on the email exploder on
>>> this topic, I decided to take a shot at hacking the P&P text into
>>> something rather more watertight and hopefully rather closer to
>>> what we intended to say in the first place. As with all of these
>>> things, the closer you look at the existing text the more
>>> problems come out of the woodwork. So in addition to the initial
>>> problem of interpreting the number of years vs number of terms of
>>> office ambiguity, I came across the following problems:
>>>
>>> 1) Although the existing text specifies when terms of office come
>>> to an end, it only indirectly specifies what happens next.
>>>
>>> 2) The wording around the 10-year rule is sufficiently ambiguous
>>> that it could be interpreted as requiring someone that has spent
>>> 10 years as Vice Chair to undergo the 75% vote before standing
>>> for Chair (and vice versa). I know Bob Grow disagrees with me on
>>> this interpretation, but suffice it to say that if I wrote
>>> something similar in a draft standard I would expect to get
>>> comments requiring the ambiguity to be removed.
>>>
>>> 3) The text doesn't make it clear what question the WG should
>>> vote on in cases where the 75% approval is required. I.e., it
>>> says that something needs to be approved by 75%, but not what
>>> that something is.
>>>
>>> 4) (this is probably the worst of the lot, and in my view, makes
>>> it essential that we have a clear interpretation next week) The
>>> wording around the 75% vote does not specify what "a 75% vote of
>>> the WG" means. Hence, it is open to at least the following
>>> interpretations, some of which might be terribly difficult to
>>> achieve:
>>>
>>> - 75% of the people in the room (members and observers).
>>>
>>> - 75% of the participants in the WG (voting members and
>>> observers, whether in the room or not).
>>>
>>> - 75% of the voting membership of the WG (whether in the room or
>>> not).
>>>
>>> - 75% of the voting membership that are present in the room.
>>>
>>> - Same as a technical vote (75% of those voting members voting
>>> Approve and Disapprove).
>>>
>>> - Impossible to determine, as a WG is a single entity, so a 75%
>>> of it isn't a meaningful concept.
>>>
>>> - Some other interpretation that I haven't thought of.
>>>
>>> I have attached a marked-up version of the relevant sections that
>>> I believe fixes the problems that I have identified. My intention
>>> would be to use this as the basis for a rules change ballot.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Tony
>>>
>>>
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