response 100 of 200:

Dec 27 00:34 UTC 1994

My thought that the next election would have a better turnout is speculation
which another election will determine true or false.  Why?  I guess I am 
really optimistic about people pulling together to accomplish things when 
they realize what they are being called on to do is important.  Maybe I am
just naive :)

response 102 of 200:

Dec 27 03:50 UTC 1994

   I think that, if we send out email to all people and start calling
people up on this phone about half way through the event, we can see
the vote succeed.  It won't be easy, but doable.

response 104 of 200:

Dec 27 19:44 UTC 1994

I think someone should post a poll in agora asking people why they
voted/didn't vote and think about quorums based on the responses 
there.  agora is much more widely read, and more people are
likely to see that there's a problem with the elections.

response 106 of 200:

Dec 28 01:47 UTC 1994

Upon wading through a week's worth of this:
Bah.  I disagree with EVERYONE.

response 108 of 200:

Dec 28 15:58 UTC 1994

Re #79:  That's correct.

response 110 of 200:

Dec 28 19:02 UTC 1994

Ok here goes after reading 87 responses!

1.  re:92, why does amending 5. B. only require a 1/2 majority, while all
others seem to require a 3/4 majority?

2.  I think that splitting the proposals into two is both within the
proposer's right to submit a final wording, and a good idea, since there
seem to be several people who would vote differently on removing board
quorums and proposal quorums.

3.  I feel that the whole removal of quorums is premature.  I understand
SRW's and RCURL's arguments in favor, but I feel that removal of the
quorum should be the last thing we try, not the first.  Before that, we
need to answer the following questions at minimum:
A.  How many "members" are still active?  (Though I've been a member
nearly continuously for two years, I certainly haven't been active during
all that time)  B.  How many active members knew about the election?  C. 
How many new members who payed for more than three months in a lump sum
thought they weren't eligible to vote until that three months had expired?
 D.  How many people actually read the candidate's policy statements in
#28 in COOP?

response 112 of 200:

Dec 29 05:13 UTC 1994

You misunderstood #92, Chris. All proposals to amend the bylaws require
a 3/4 majority. Bylaw 7 requires this. #92 describes the quorums
proposed to be removed. In parentheses are the majorities required in the
elections *described* by each bylaw, not the majorities required to amend
that bylaw.

response 114 of 200:

Dec 31 19:00 UTC 1994

Soon, the discussion period will be over for this proposal. There has been
some good discussion, but I have received very few suggestions about which
course to take in finalizing the wording. By and large, it seems to me that
most (but not all) of those favoring the elimination quorums on board
elections agree with me that quorums on propositions are also undesirable.

My preference is to have separate votes for each proposal, but based on my
reading of the bylaws, I am quite uncertain whether it is legal to have my
proposal turn into two or four separate items for the membership to vote on.
It would be perfectly OK with me to vote on the change to each bylaw 
separately.

If I propose the elimination of quorums on only board elections, I suspect
that it could be difficult to obtain a quorum for any further member proposals.
I think it is right for me to propose the wording we have been discussing
all along, the elimination of all election quorums. This is a risk on my part.
If I gauge the feeling of the members wrongly, this proposal could fail
because of opposition to the elimination of quorums on member proposals.

I sincerely hope that if that event occurs, we will have another member
proposal limited to elimination of quorums on board elections.

OK so here is the final wording:

----

 PROPOSAL

 I propose that the Grex Bylaws be amended as follows:

 Articles 4d, 4e, 5b and 7 should be changed to delete the reference
 to any requirement that a specified percentage of the membership must
 vote for an election to be valid.

 Current wording:

   4d.  Nominations will be submitted by November 15th and elections
        held between the 1st and 15th of December for terms to
        commence January 1st.  2/3 of the membership must vote for
        the election to be valid.  The nominees receiving the most
        votes will be appointed to the BOD.

 Proposed wording:

   4d.  Nominations will be submitted by November 15th and elections
        held between the 1st and 15th of December for terms to
        commence January 1st.  The nominees receiving the most
        votes will be appointed to the BOD.

 Current wording:

   4e.  A BOD member shall be removed from office if they resign,
        not be available for meetings or respond to BOD
        communications for a period of four months, or be voted out
        of office by a vote of the membership, with 2/3 of the
        membership voting and 3/4 of the ballots cast in favor of
        removal.

 Proposed wording:

   4e.  A BOD member shall be removed from office if they resign,
        not be available for meetings or respond to BOD
        communications for a period of four months, or be voted out
        of office by a vote of the membership, with 3/4 of the
        ballots cast in favor of removal.

 Current wording:

   5b.  A motion will be considered to have passed if, and only if,
        at least 50% of the membership has cast a ballot, and more
        votes were cast in favor than against.

 Proposed wording:

   5b.  A motion will be considered to have passed if more
        votes were cast in favor than against, except as provided
        for bylaw amendments.

 Current wording:

   7.   Amendments to these bylaws may be proposed and voted upon  at any
        time according to the procedures of Article 5a. In order for a
        proposed amendment to take effect, 2/3 of the membership must
        vote, with a 3/4 majority voting in favor of the change.

 Proposed wording:

   7.   Amendments to these bylaws may be proposed and voted upon  at any
        time according to the procedures of Article 5a. In order for a
        proposed amendment to take effect, a 3/4 majority voting in favor
        of the change is required.

response 116 of 200:

Jan 2 00:17 UTC 1995

Thanks, John. Would you or some other staffer (anyone but me) please
update the motd wording to describe the vote and the dates.

Oh yes, will you have a working version of "turnout" for this vote?

response 118 of 200:

Jan 2 01:25 UTC 1995

"Real soon now?" :) (I got a "can't execute" error when trying to
run !turnout).  I see the "vote" program is working; thanks for
getting that going. 

response 120 of 200:

Jan 2 04:12 UTC 1995

turnout worked. Thanks. I can see that I was the 5th person to vote.

In /usr/lib/aliases, the alias voters has 51 members, but in /u/remmers/voters
there are 83. I'm not sure if there are any other files containing
lists of voters, but it seems to me that they should all agree with the
list maintained by danr.

I think /u/remmers/voters is the one controlling the vote program.
Is that right, John?
Does it contain the right list of users? Danr?

response 122 of 200:

Jan 2 12:58 UTC 1995

I'm looking forward to knowing who composes Grex's current membership.

response 124 of 200:

Jan 2 20:47 UTC 1995

I will probably reluctantly vote yes as soon as I finish catching up on
Coop (I've been gone for a week).  I'm not entirely comfortable with the
blanke t elimination of quorums right now, and I would like to have had
more time to consider eliminating them for bylaw ammendments, but the fact
remains that Grex is without a board right now.  Assuming we don't have a
huge increase in turnout for the next electionm, which seems rather
unlikel right now, there are three things we can do.  We can either
eliminate quarums and have a majority of the members who bother to vote
choose the new board members, keep the quarums and have the new board
chosen by the remaining board members who were elected a year ago by a
much smaller and very different membership than we have now, or we can
stay without a board for longer.  If Grex has no board, nothing new can
get approved, no new hardware can be bought, and we have any number of
other problems.  Given the alternatives, I'm voting yes.  If the change
doesn't turn out to work very well we can always change it again later
when we do have time to give it the consideration it deserves.