[arrl-odv:22631] Changing election rules
Its interesting to see so much discussion on the North Florida Section Manager election process. I thought it would be useful if you were to hear from the E&E Committee on our deliberations on this issue since no one has asked us for background The Ethics and Elections Committee was asked if it was OK if K4ACs Director e-mail privileges could be used for a reminder to the Northern Florida section about the current voting process for Section Manager. In January, the Board and President asked the Committee to look at ways to improve member turnout in elections by reviewing our present Director/Vice Director electronic voting process. That review is still underway. No request was made to review Section Manager election turnout. Note that Section Manager elections are still conducted by mail with paper ballots. Nothing has changed in the process for conducting them in years (and years). There has not been any data gathered showing a decline in turnout for SM elections. That may be a useful thing to research. According to K1ZZ, the policy in the past has been not to allow SMs or Directors to remind members about ongoing balloting at all. Messages from SMs to their members are screened by WV1X, messages from Directors are screened by K1ZZ. In 2012 when it looked liked the turnout in a Director/Vice Director election was a bit low, the E&E Committee decision was that a reminder should not be sent out. During last years Director balloting the E&E Committee did allow a plan to remind voters about Division elections via the ARRL web. We decided that it would not be good for Directors to be able to send out reminders about elections, as requested by Director Rehman. This could become a problem during a Directors election year, for example. What happens during the SM or Division election period? We need to review our present policy and take the time to update it if the policy is to be changed. After discussion, we considered whether such a reminder should come from HQ in a general email to members in the Section or Division. We thought it was a good idea to consider. We discussed the impact of voter turnout efforts. Generally, we agreed it is desirable to have higher member participation in our elections. The editorial in May QST was generated as a result of the lousy turnout in last years Division elections, our discussions at the January Board meeting, and the need to highlight to members how the organization works (this was not directed by the E&E). On the other hand, voter turnout efforts are quite contentious on the national level with strong efforts currently underway to both reduce and increase it depending on your political views. The same issue exists with our elections. A change in turnout will impact the results. The general research on voter turnout is that a higher turnout usually favors change or candidates that are more disruptive to the status quo. A low turnout favors incumbents. We decided it was not a good idea to make any change now for several reasons: * There are four SM elections currently underway, some contentious. E&E has already dealt with an election complaint related to the Indiana SM race. If there is a desire to improve turnout, it has to be done for all Sections, not just one. * The E&E Committee should not make a general change in policy in this area, it should be a Board decision (or at least the Board should be informed before change is made). * We have to recognize that a change in turnout will impact the results of the election. We anticipate making a recommendation that HQ send out an e-mail reminder(s) for SM (and Division?) elections in our report to the Board in July. Director Rehman has stated he has not disclosed how he will vote (he is a member from the NFL section) but he clearly has an interest in the results or he wouldn't be so insistent in trying to increase the turnout at this point. (my opinion) If a change is needed, it should be done with care and thought. Making a precipitous change can easily make for a bad outcome. We may miss something important. -- Tom (Chairman, E&E) ===== e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444
Director Frenaye: You stated, ”Director Rehman has stated he has not disclosed how he will vote (he is a member from the NFL section) but he clearly has an interest in the results or he wouldn't be so insistent in trying to increase the turnout at this point. (my opinion)” I find the insinuation in your open statement to the Board questioning my integrity to be insulting and exceedingly inappropriate for someone that is charged with deciding ethics issues. My sole motivation is to ensure that every member of the Section is aware that they should have received a ballot and to remind them to mail it back so that their voices can be heard. In my emails to K1ZZ, I stated that this was something that I planned to do for all Section Manager elections within my Division. Doug Rehman, K4AC Director Southeastern Division ARRL—The National Association for Amateur Radio® doug@k4ac.com www.arrlse.org <http://www.arrlse.org/> www.facebook.com/arrlse From: arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org [mailto:arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org] On Behalf Of Tom Frenaye Sent: Friday, April 18, 2014 9:34 AM To: arrl-odv@arrl.org Subject: [arrl-odv:22631] Changing election rules It’s interesting to see so much discussion on the North Florida Section Manager election process. I thought it would be useful if you were to hear from the E&E Committee on our deliberations on this issue – since no one has asked us for background… The Ethics and Elections Committee was asked if it was OK if K4AC’s Director e-mail privileges could be used for a reminder to the Northern Florida section about the current voting process for Section Manager. In January, the Board and President asked the Committee to look at ways to improve member turnout in elections by reviewing our present Director/Vice Director electronic voting process. That review is still underway. No request was made to review Section Manager election turnout. Note that Section Manager elections are still conducted by mail with paper ballots. Nothing has changed in the process for conducting them in years (and years). There has not been any data gathered showing a decline in turnout for SM elections. That may be a useful thing to research. According to K1ZZ, the policy in the past has been not to allow SMs or Directors to remind members about ongoing balloting at all. Messages from SMs to their members are screened by WV1X, messages from Directors are screened by K1ZZ. In 2012 when it looked liked the turnout in a Director/Vice Director election was a bit low, the E&E Committee decision was that a reminder should not be sent out. During last year’s Director balloting the E&E Committee did allow a plan to remind voters about Division elections via the ARRL web. We decided that it would not be good for Directors to be able to send out reminders about elections, as requested by Director Rehman. This could become a problem during a Director’s election year, for example. What happens during the SM or Division election period? We need to review our present policy and take the time to update it if the policy is to be changed. After discussion, we considered whether such a reminder should come from HQ in a general email to members in the Section or Division. We thought it was a good idea to consider. We discussed the impact of voter turnout efforts. Generally, we agreed it is desirable to have higher member participation in our elections. The editorial in May QST was generated as a result of the lousy turnout in last year’s Division elections, our discussions at the January Board meeting, and the need to highlight to members how the organization works (this was not directed by the E&E). On the other hand, voter turnout efforts are quite contentious on the national level with strong efforts currently underway to both reduce and increase it depending on your political views. The same issue exists with our elections. A change in turnout will impact the results. The general research on voter turnout is that a higher turnout usually favors change or candidates that are more disruptive to the status quo. A low turnout favors incumbents. We decided it was not a good idea to make any change now for several reasons: * There are four SM elections currently underway, some contentious. E&E has already dealt with an election complaint related to the Indiana SM race. If there is a desire to improve turnout, it has to be done for all Sections, not just one. * The E&E Committee should not make a general change in policy in this area, it should be a Board decision (or at least the Board should be informed before change is made). * We have to recognize that a change in turnout will impact the results of the election. We anticipate making a recommendation that HQ send out an e-mail reminder(s) for SM (and Division?) elections in our report to the Board in July. Director Rehman has stated he has not disclosed how he will vote (he is a member from the NFL section) but he clearly has an interest in the results or he wouldn't be so insistent in trying to increase the turnout at this point. (my opinion) If a change is needed, it should be done with care and thought. Making a precipitous change can easily make for a bad outcome. We may miss something important. -- Tom (Chairman, E&E) ===== e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444
At 10:10 AM 4/18/2014, Doug Rehman wrote:
Director Frenaye:
You stated, âDirector Rehman has stated he has not disclosed how he will vote (he is a member from the NFL section) but he clearly has an interest in the results or he wouldn't be so insistent in trying to increase the turnout at this point. (my opinion)â
I find the insinuation in your open statement to the Board questioning my integrity to be insulting and exceedingly inappropriate for someone that is charged with deciding ethics issues.
Doug - I agree, it wasn't appropriate for me to say anything. Please accept my apology.
My sole motivation is to ensure that every member of the Section is aware that they should have received a ballot and to remind them to mail it back so that their voices can be heard.
I'm in strong agreement with you that a reminder is a good idea. My goal is to make sure we do it in a way that is fair to everyone and so we don't make a mistake in the process. The discussion we've had has been good and has raised some good points that I hadn't thought of.
In my emails to K1ZZ, I stated that this was something that I planned to do for all Section Manager elections within my Division.
That's something I missed in the discussion. Looking back I do see that was mentioned. At this point it seems to me that the majority of the Board supports the idea of sending out a reminder from HQ to those members eligible to vote in a Section Manager election. I'd like to suggest that a reminder be sent once, about two or three weeks after the ballots are mailed from HQ to members. Two to three weeks seems best because the time between ballot mailing and ballot counting is about seven weeks. Your suggested text for the message seems to have all of the necessary information in it. There will probably be another round of SM election ballots going out at the end of June. That will give us two rounds of SM elections to see what the impact is before we meet in July. One open question that I don't know the answer to is how much trouble it will be to implement this change. -- Tom ===== e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444
Tom: Accepted—thank you. 73, Doug K4AC
participants (2)
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Doug Rehman -
Tom Frenaye