ELF Loomio Voting mechanics
Dean Cameron
Public
Seen by 132
only a small number of votes on Loomio have passed with a consensus. It is also not clear what an abstention means, or what a failure to participate means. I want us to clarify this as currently, the group is dysfunctional in that we can't make even basic decisions on things like who can vote what a Loomio quorum is and what a vote means.
pospi Fri 25 Jan 2019 9:11AM
The original members vote was a special case because as per the constitution the directors need to approve those members. So only yourself, @sun7 and I need to vote yes on that proposal for everyone to have been accepted as members. Maybe we should make note of that in the thread.
pospi Fri 25 Jan 2019 9:25AM
I don't know where you're pulling this "50% of members plus 1" from, but it doesn't match what I'm reading in the current ELF constitution.
Dean Cameron Tue 22 Jan 2019 11:21PM
The second opportunity to sabotage a proposal is to abstain from a vote and so fail the consensus vote. Abstaining could mean one of 2 things. First that the abstaining member doesn't really care about the outcome of the vote either way. They are fine with it not being passed and fine if it passes. We could treat this scenario as if the person wasn't present (may fail the quorum rules) or that they were present and votes yes or were present and voted no. Or that they assigned their vote to another member who voted either yes or no. They could just say in their vote comment who they want to assign their proxy to.
Poll Created Tue 22 Jan 2019 11:38PM
dealing with abstaining votes Closed Wed 30 Jan 2019 11:02PM
as outlined in the discussion there are several ways an abstaining vote can be interpreted.
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |||
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an abstaining member is considered to be not a member for the purpose of a quorum and so changes the quorum number required for a vote to pass | 80.0% | 4 |
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an abstaining vote is considered a proxy vote and must be assigned to another member in the vote comment field | 20.0% | 1 |
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| an abstaining vote is considered a yes vote | 0.0% | 0 | ||||
| an abstaining vote is considered a no vote | 0.0% | 0 | ||||
| Undecided | 0% | 3 |
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5 of 8 people have participated (62%)
Dean Cameron Tue 22 Jan 2019 11:42PM
I think this is the fairest way to deal with abstain votes where a person is either conflicted or just doesn’t care about the outcome and it doesn’t then hold up the consensus process
Rodney Whitman Wed 23 Jan 2019 12:50AM
An abstain vote should be a voided vote in my opinion. It removes one person from the majority vote so less are needed to pass a vote. E.g ten votes are needed to pass a vote and I abstain so only nine are needed to pass.
pospi Fri 25 Jan 2019 9:08AM
There is no proxy feature on Loomio so this doesn't really apply to Loomio votes I suppose. I also think proxies are something that needs to be declared explicitly in writing at the time of the vote and communicated to the person who had a proxy vote, to be sure that they actually consented to a proxy vote in the first place.
Sun Sun 27 Jan 2019 8:23AM
and may refer to a proxy in the Proxy Register
Poll Created Tue 22 Jan 2019 11:55PM
a failure to vote is an implied vote with the simple majority vote Closed Wed 30 Jan 2019 11:02PM
This vote failed under the existing rules as we don’t have a consensus so strictly speaking it should go to a. Second vote. If the new rules were in place it would be a consensus vote. I’m glad we have changed the rules on this as. It is annoying to have to go to a second vote to get this rule changed but I think it’s the right thing to do. What do others think!
if people don't vote on a proposal it can fail simply cause of a quorum failure or a consensus failure. if people don't vote because they don't care or are too busy to engage then they should be aware that the new procedure considers a nonvoter to have no strong opinion and so to be an agreement with the majority.
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Agree | 83.3% | 5 |
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| Abstain | 16.7% | 1 |
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| Disagree | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Block | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 0% | 2 |
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6 of 8 people have participated (75%)
Dean Cameron · Tue 22 Jan 2019 11:10PM
as I understand the ELF Constitution all members are entitled to vote on any issue at a general meeting. All members are invited to a general meeting. Only those members who show up at a meeting either in person, by proxy or electronically are counted in any poll or vote. For a vote to be valid it must have 50% of members plus 1 represented in the meeting/vote. So the first opportunity to sabotage a proposal is to just not show up to vote. (In our case with "7 unofficial" members it appears like even that pending vote to accept original members as members will fail because of lack of participation and so failed quorum of 5. Strictly speaking that solves a lot of problems with voting because there will be only one member of ELF - me! So if I vote yes every proposal is automatically passed!) I don't think this is how we want the group to work somehow!