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Grex > Coop9 > #7: Members with more than one vote |  |
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srw
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Members with more than one vote
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Oct 20 04:14 UTC 1996 |
I would like to discuss the question of whether individual members
should be limited to one vote in Grex elections. It is my opinion that a
single individual should not be able to vote more than once, even if
that person buys two memberships. In fact I think it should not be
possible for an individual to have two memberships. This may be spelled
out by either State Law, or our bylaws, but I am not sure. To me this is
a basic principle (1 person-1 vote) that I believe Grex adheres to, but
I am not sure of the details.
A related question is whether an organization can have a membership in
Grex, or only individuals. I do not remember us ever establishing a
policy on this question, but we may have done so. I am hoping that
someone can shed light on this. I do not believe we have a second type
of membership for organizations. I think this means that organizations
cannot really become members, only individuals, but again I do not know
if this is established.
These two issues could be related. If a person had an individual
membership, but also exerted some control over an organization that was
also a member of Grex, then if both could vote, this person would have
more control over Grex's policies and directors than anyone else on
Grex. This would violate the 1 person-1 vote principle, that I believe
Grex adheres to.
Perhaps this is all a non-issue, but I need to understand why.
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| 186 responses total. |
tsty
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response 1 of 186:
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Oct 20 06:17 UTC 1996 |
slate? individual memership and elected representative of an organization
which also has a membership?
businesses are consdiered "persons" for all intents and purposes.
maybe a slate of two. the business would tell their representative how
to vote for the business/organization, and that same individual would,
with a personal membership, vote independently. i cna see this if we
had organizational/business memberships.
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chelsea
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response 2 of 186:
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Oct 20 15:05 UTC 1996 |
I'm fond of the one vote per member and one member per
person philosophy. Very fair to all. Money shouldn't
buy additional votes in a co-operatively run organization.
I'd also like to see Grex be helpful to other organizations
but without bending or altering our basic rules of governance.
So other groups would be encouraged to use Grex but not with
special privileges. If groups had voting rights there would
most certainly be cases where a proxy would be given to
the person most in-touch with the organization and this person
could or would be voting as an individual member. We'd
be allowing multiple votes by one person. Bad policy. Bad
precedent.
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janc
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response 3 of 186:
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Oct 20 17:16 UTC 1996 |
I think if we formalized some "benefactor" status, which confers no real
benefits except public recognition of your support, that would be a better
way for corporations to support us.
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dang
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response 4 of 186:
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Oct 20 22:29 UTC 1996 |
Of course, someone in a group could get a membership, and then decide how it
voted in some way as a group, and we'd never know. Big deal. However, we'd
need some one person who vouched for the membership.
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kami
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response 5 of 186:
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Oct 21 03:21 UTC 1996 |
This issue doesn't particularly upset my reality, but two data points:
I read two accounts on Grex. One is my personal account, and in it I vote
as one person. I *tend* to be the person who reads to Convocat account,
but it *belongs* to an organization, to the Magical Education Council of
Ann Arbor, so in any voting decision which affects that organization, I would
have to get the opinion of the board before registering a vote. Effectively,
that represents one vote for about 1/2 a dozen people then. Not a big deal.
Secondly, another organization to which I belong does voting by seniority;
for each year that you are a member you gain another vote, giving the more
experienced people more weight. I'm not suggesting that Grex adopt that
policy, it could be an accounting nightmare, but there's a different model
than one-person-one-vote, which is accounted fair.
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rcurl
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response 6 of 186:
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Oct 21 06:49 UTC 1996 |
Many organizations have a class of "Institutional members", or something like
that, usually with higher dues than for individuals, because organizations
can afford to support the organization at a higher level. Many, if not
most, such institutional members can also vote (one vote). In the cases
I know personally about, the instituional board discuss and cast their ballots
at a board meeting. I suppose an individual member with some "pull" in
the other organizations, has in effect (say) 1.15 votes, but this is less of
a problem than the benefits of the closer ties with organizations that may
be helpful in other ways.
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mdw
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response 7 of 186:
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Oct 22 01:00 UTC 1996 |
I believe that for many organizations, that would work more like 2 votes
for the person - perhaps more if someone clever volunteers to be the
"grex coordinator" for a number of organizations.
I also beleive that's unfair, and contrary to grex's purpose. Grex
should be interested first in promoting access for *individuals*, not
*organizations*. For almost any organization, there are plenty of
better ways for them to organize web pages, mailing lists, or other
activities that organization might wish to pursue. Those activities
would come at the expense of individuals users if done here. Other
organizations, such as HVNC, branch, or any commercial ISP, are a much
better fit for most such organizations.
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ryan1
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response 8 of 186:
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Oct 22 01:36 UTC 1996 |
I agree with Steve Weiss. I do not think that an individual should have
more than one vote in elections. This would allow people to "buy" votes
which really isn't much of an "election". On the other hand, I think
that a person should be able to have more than one "member" account(s)
with internet access, but without these extra accounts having the voting
privileges.
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albaugh
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response 9 of 186:
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Oct 22 16:07 UTC 1996 |
If grex does indeed allow/accept "institutional" memberships, then such
institutions should be required to assign exactly one human for voting
purposes (who could be checked against other memberships to prevent more than
one vote per human), or waive their rights to vote.
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