In order to discourage abstentions, @ESmith has created a rule that people who show up to a committee meeting and choose to abstain for a motion must be named. The reasoning behind this new rule is that people often abstain in protest of a motion being on the agenda and that’s a bad thing.
If you’re wondering how I know what the intent is, it’s because I had a conversation with Erik about this.
These kinds of votes are, in my subjective opinion, completely valid and should not be discouraged. They certainly do not hurt the mission.
Abstention is typically done for reasons other than “I don’t have an opinion”, namely to avoid a possible conflict of interest or to register protest that that the item is on the agenda. The net effect of abstaining is voting against the proposal anyway thus if someone is abstaining in order to not support it they should vote against it .
As such, in order to avoid problems with simply enumerating abstainers, I’m mandating that they be named to ensure consistency.
EDIT: I’m still in favor of members voting up or down on issues, however an abstention is not present thus alters the basis for majority.
“The net effect of abstaining is voting against the proposal anyway thus if someone is abstaining in order to not support it they should vote against it .” Erik Smith, in a private conversation we had via Talk.
So you want to know if people have conflicts of interest? Or if they don’t want to vote on something they don’t like? Sounds like a way to gather information on dissenters.
Are you also going to include people who walk out of the room at voting time? Because that’s what you’re going to incent with this. Rather than abstain, they’ll just leave the room and avoid the vote altogether.
Generally, when one has a conflict of interest, they make it known, limit their participation in the discussion to the conveyance of facts, and don’t participate in the vote.
Then they’re still effectively voting against it. Majority is determined by attendance as listed at the start of the meeting. One cannot leave a meeting to attempt to deny quorum - this has been established in case law as best I can determine.
An abstention is like pleading no lo contendre - the same net effect as pleading guilty but you can tell yourself you’r not pleading guilty.
It’s not set in stone though. Plenty of other groups out there (the UK House of Commons for example) treat abstain votes differently, and Bill’s example would have passed. Similar to ‘they’ll just leave the room’, treating an abstain as not being present, Bill’s motion would pass. Our own Bylaws allow for a scenario where two of five directors to pass a motion, so it’s actually reasonable to assume that Bill’s example passes.
In my opinion we can decide to treat them however we want, but your interpretation it not so obvious.
Committee and SIG meetings are open to everyone who is interested in an area. Not everyone who attends these meetings feel knowledgeable enough to cast a vote on all matters and thus abstain or are undecided. Their vote is usually not counted for this reason.
You are essentially saying that if you show up to a meeting you have to vote yes or no. Not only that you must vote, but if you choose not to we want to know who you are (but don’t care if you do vote, which really makes this seem odd). I don’t know, I get the feeling this will cause even less people to show an interest in a committee or SIG, even more so for new members who are just trying to figure out how things work.
Yeah. the only time I can recall intentionally abstaining from a vote was because I felt I had no business saying either way. I’d just wandered into the meeting uninformed and didn’t think casting a vote either way was fair to anyone who’d actually been paying attention and voted their conscience. My conscience would only allow me to say “I should stay out of this”. I’m not liking the notion that my keeping my uninformed nose out of it would have swayed the vote either way, that being the exact opposite of my intent…
Edit to add: I have no issue with name being noted as “abstain”, although i think it’s only fair to note “ayes” and “nays” similarly; thus, if it’s just a count, it’s just a count. If it’s named instances, name 'em all.
Alright, I’d assumed abstention followed the logic on quorum and thus the basis for majority, however it seems I’m in error. Apologies.
I’ll update the policy to indicate that members who abstain and request that their reason be stated be named and their reason stated, otherwise simply sum abstentions.
Every act or decision done or made by a majority of the Directors available at a meeting duly held at which a quorum is present is the act of the Board of Directors, unless the Articles of Incorporation, the Bylaws, or provisions of law require a greater percentage or different voting rules for approval of a meeting by the board.
Historically, Board meetings have treated abstentions as de facto votes against. Fail to reach 3 ayes with 5 or 4 Directors present or fail to reach 2 ayes with 3 Directors present and the motion doesn’t pass.
There’s no mention of “abstain” or “abstention” in the bylaws. The keyphrase is a majority of the Directors available at a meeting. The specific interpretation of this, however, could change the procedure going forward.
That’s my main point. How abstains are handled is open to interpretation at the moment. It absolutely needs to be clarified, but that’s not a small decision. Perhaps, though not ideal, it’s even different between board voted and committee votes.
I think jast is on the right track though. For DMS, it probably makes the most sense to treat abstains as not present for the vote.
Agree. Interpreting an abstaining vote as a vote against a measure is not sound logic. Seeking to “fix” this by naming the abstainer is questionable. I didn’t see, but might have missed, whether this change received or required a vote, but it should have. Erik said he mandated it. Seems to be quite a bit of mandating happening lately.
