IBU

Consol

Election Results 2003

Subject: Wrong GEA Election Result breaches GEA Constitution so is invalid !

GEA people,
Last week's election result is invalid:
  - Returning all 11 as elected is in breach of the GEA constitution 
    requiring a minimum 6 to maximum 10 on the committee.
  - No returning officer has authority to break the constitution, (which
    also contains other safeguards EG "minimum 2 Germans & 2 English" etc).
  - Returning 11 also conflicts with:
    From: "Gwyn Evans" geagwyn @ gmx.net> Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 14:48:57 +0100
    To: sue.turner @ gmx.de, gea @ yahoogroups
    > As usual the 10 candidate with the most number of votes will be selected
    > for the committee, provided more than 20% of the voters vote for them.
  - Presumably last week's blunder was attempted with good intentions,
    but it abuses the electorate's right to selectively _choose_ candidates.

I was ill Fri 21st, so did not vote.  No election results were
published after by either email list.  By Thurs Mar 27 12:18 I'd still
seen no announcement, so requested results from Gwyn. No reply. The
April printed programme on Friday wrongly lists 11 on the committee.

Years back when Keith, Chris & I took over GEA elections, we made a clean
sweep after a murky past. Some elections since run by others have been
equally well run, but some others not, so years back I wrote recommendations:
    http://www.berklix.org/~jhs/gea/elections/
Elections run poorly seem a careless insult to those of us who've
previously contributed considerable effort to clean up GEA elections.

The Real Committee:
  - Is just the top 10 on the ballot list, that the Returning Officer has 
    still not posted on either GEA mail list just over a week later.
  - If the last 2 places really were a draw, only the top 9
    in the ballot are returned, if the RO failed to realise or persuade
    either of the last two to cede to the other before the announcment.
    (Beware lists without numbers, regularly urged on ROs by a few reprobates).
  - The 1 or 2 falsely declared elected in breach of the constitution
    are not entitled to voting rights as committee members.
  - Solution: Announce the 9 or 10 truly elected, & invite surplus candidate(s)
    not elected to attend committee meetings & help, but not to be voting
    committee members until/ if someone resigns & they may be co-opted.

Those (including committee members) only on the other committee moderated
yahoo list won't know about this blunder yet, but the solution above seems
easy enough. Why not ask them what they think is an honest solution ?