KimSeeTeo

15 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

I have been wanting to make some comments and ask some questions about this situation for the past few days but have not been able to do so because of time constraints.  I do hope to return later today or tomorrow.

For now, I will say that it has been my opinion from the beginning, and continues to be my opinion, that the original declaration of the chair that candidate S was the winner stands and that S was indeed elected to the position.  I see no evidence that whatever mistakes the chair might have made in that initial declaration constitute a continuing breach.  Those mistakes were therefore waived when no-one raised a timely point of order.  The chair had no authority to order a re-vote some 40 minutes later after conducting intervening business.  I believe the re-vote  was improper and that the chair's subsequent declaration that H had won the election was null  and void and constitutes a continuing breach.   S had already been elected to the position.  The question is, "What can be done about it, short of going to court, since the convention is over?". 

15 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

I have been wanting to make some comments and ask some questions about this situation for the past few days but have not been able to do so because of time constraints.  I do hope to return later today or tomorrow.

For now, I will say that it has been my opinion from the beginning, and continues to be my opinion, that the original declaration of the chair that candidate S was the winner stands and that S was indeed elected to the position.  I see no evidence that whatever mistakes the chair might have made in that initial declaration constitute a continuing breach.  Those mistakes were therefore waived when no-one raised a timely point of order.  The chair had no authority to order a re-vote some 40 minutes later after conducting intervening business.  I believe the re-vote  was improper and that the chair's subsequent declaration that H had won the election was null  and void and constitutes a continuing breach.   S had already been elected to the position.  The question is, "What can be done about it, short of going to court, since the convention is over?". 

Please take your time, to respond to my Question here, or even on my previous thread, as you may be pretty occupied with the recent activities at the NTC in Baffalo, I feel.

I tend to agree with your take on the outcome which was as described, and which was not proper, in my view. Since it is an international organization, which is privately owned and members from over 135 countries, are granted privileges only and likewise officers too, are granted privileges only, don't feel they could take any action in any court of law, against the Decision made at the recent Convention. It may be possible if someone were to petition to the Board, to allow a review of the decision so made, but that's a different matter, and also most unlikely, as it had never happened, before.

Actually, as I alluded to, this was a repeat of a similar situation which happened in KL, Malaysia, in 2014. At that time, I was a voting delegate at the same kind of annual convention, which had the highest presence of delegates about 2,600, since it was held outside of N America, for the first and only time, in about 80 years of annual conventions. I raised the only Point of Order then, at that convention, and it was well taken, by the Chair, after the assembly stood at ease for some minutes, for the Chair to consult with the (acting) Parliamentarian. It settled all issues, amicably. No uproar, only overwhelming applause from all sectors at the huge convention hall. That explains why some delegates had contacted me again this time to ask why it was not decided in the same way.

In 2014, the results of one Region 4 elections then where in 2 phases,

Phase 1, there were 3 candidates, as follows,

Candidate A  5202 votes

Candidate B  6812 votes

Candidate C  6136 votes

Rejected votes 238 votes (we call Illegal votes)

The Assembly moved to go on to the Second Phase, by dropping off A,

Phase 2 results, as follows

Candidate B 9044 votes

Candidate C 9222 votes

Rejected votes 412 votes (higher than that in Phase 1)

Candidate C was first declared as winner, and then very quickly (after some minutes or so later) the Chair revoked his decision to re-ballot, saying there was no majority vote.

Majority vote would be 9339 (assuming, including the rejected votes)

When the Chair was about to ask for a re-ballot,  I "yelled" 3X for a Point of Order, from the end of the huge Hall. I was then asked to go to the front to explain my Point, by the Chair. I asked why the rejects in the  Second Phase, could be higher that that of First Phase Election. If no reasons were forthcoming, I asked that the Chair's decision on Candidate C should stay. As he could not explain why, to all present I believed, (never explained), the Chair accepted my Point as well taken! It made my day. 

There were zero complaints thereafter, for 3 intervening years. No repeats of similar incidents, until recently in Chicago.

N.B. All other details as regards the proxy voting, bylaws and e-voting process using the keypads for each of the registered delegates have remained the same, as I'm aware. 

Thank you, Richard, et al.,

15 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

I have been wanting to make some comments and ask some questions about this situation for the past few days but have not been able to do so because of time constraints.  I do hope to return later today or tomorrow.

For now, I will say that it has been my opinion from the beginning, and continues to be my opinion, that the original declaration of the chair that candidate S was the winner stands and that S was indeed elected to the position.  I see no evidence that whatever mistakes the chair might have made in that initial declaration constitute a continuing breach.  Those mistakes were therefore waived when no-one raised a timely point of order.  The chair had no authority to order a re-vote some 40 minutes later after conducting intervening business.  I believe the re-vote  was improper and that the chair's subsequent declaration that H had won the election was null  and void and constitutes a continuing breach.   S had already been elected to the position.  The question is, "What can be done about it, short of going to court, since the convention is over?". 

Thank you, Richard for your tinuin

15 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

I have been wanting to make some comments and ask some questions about this situation for the past few days but have not been able to do so because of time constraints.  I do hope to return later today or tomorrow.

For now, I will say that it has been my opinion from the beginning, and continues to be my opinion, that the original declaration of the chair that candidate S was the winner stands and that S was indeed elected to the position.  I see no evidence that whatever mistakes the chair might have made in that initial declaration constitute a continuing breach.  Those mistakes were therefore waived when no-one raised a timely point of order.  The chair had no authority to order a re-vote some 40 minutes later after conducting intervening business.  I believe the re-vote  was improper and that the chair's subsequent declaration that H had won the election was null  and void and constitutes a continuing breach.   S had already been elected to the position.  The question is, "What can be done about it, short of going to court, since the convention is over?". 

Your response is convincing enough, based on what we knew. There were of course, something else not disclosed. Who had actually informed the Chair, during the recess or otherwise, for him to revoke his first decision, and declared it null and void. It was impossible for him to suddenly become wiser - about what constitutes a majority, or what was a counting error or whether the illegal votes are to be considered. If it were an information by another, even from his Parliamentarian, he should have made it known,  in his "ruling" at least to justify what he first announced was incorrect. This alert must be made known, too, to be seen in public. Otherwise, justice was not seen to be done. 

Even though the candidate could not object, but as a voting candidate himself , H should be able to raise his Point of Order, or Request for Inquiry provided he knew of his rights, there and then, when S was first declared winner. So also, S should have raised her Point of Order, when H was later, declared winner.

If the Chair could feel or realize about the issue of disenfranchising those who had voted, that piece of advice should in fact come from his Parliamentarian, in my view. I do not feel the Chair was so wise as to have known that point, you inferred to. Else, he wouldn't have made that first mistake, and subsequent mistakes.

This means, good knowledge, adequate preparation, quick-wittedness, spontaneity on the part of the Parliamentarian, and the Chair in particular, and at least among some voting delegates,  are crucial factors to evoke at the right moment, to help all major elections.

That resultant scenario was disappointing to many. Perhaps for a long time to come.

Your response is convincing enough, based on what we knew. There were of course, something else not disclosed. Who had actually informed the Chair, during the recess or otherwise, for him to revoke his first decision, and declared it null and void. It was impossible for him to suddenly become wiser - about what constitutes a majority, or what was a counting error or whether the illegal votes are to be considered. If it were an information by another, even from his Parliamentarian, he should have made it known,  in his "ruling" at least to justify what he first announced was incorrect. This alert must be made known, too, to be seen in public. Otherwise, justice was not seen to be done. 

Even though the candidate could not object, but as a voting candidate himself , H should be able to raise his Point of Order, or Request for Inquiry provided he knew of his rights, there and then, when S was first declared winner. So also, S should have raised her Point of Order, when H was later, declared winner.

If the Chair could feel or realize about the issue of disenfranchising those who had voted, that piece of advice should in fact come from his Parliamentarian, in my view. I do not feel the Chair was so wise as to have known that point, you inferred to. Else, he wouldn't have made that first mistake, and subsequent mistakes.

This means, good knowledge, adequate preparation, quick-wittedness, spontaneity on the part of the Parliamentarian, and the Chair in particular, and at least among some voting delegates,  are crucial factors to evoke at the right moment, to help all major elections.

That resultant scenario was disappointing to many. Perhaps for a long time to come.

In a separate thread, I had received quite an exhaustive discussion series on the topic of a Majority Vote with or without considering the so called "Illegal votes" in the context of a large annual convention of 2000 delegates with registered 777 proxy holders, employing a pc voting system, with the use of keypads, which was allowed by the Bylaws. I am grateful of what has been discussed and debated there in the past few days. 

Here, I'm seeking the viewpoints of how a parliamentarian should help with the Chair's ruling in that specific context, and in line of what had convened, what do parliamentarians here perceive what had gone awry. Firstly, I shared with my take on the said scenario, based on what I had been given the factuals and told, since I was not at the said Convention, and did not watch the Business Meetings online, as well. Feel free to point out your different viewpoints, as fellow Parliamentarians.

.....

At the Region 8 elections for the position of International Director, there were only 2 candidates,  H and S. When the results were announced, S had a favorable margin of 29 votes over H, and was declared as Winner. Nobody raised a Point of Order. There was applause for the winner S, who was congratulated by many supporters on her side.

Then the meeting went on to conduct the elections of Regions 10, 12 and 14, without a hitch. Then there was a recess of about 10 mins. 

When the assembly reconvened, the Chair announced that there was a mistake made in the declaration of the R8 winner, saying that the winner did not earn her majority vote, and apologized, and there was no Point of Order raised. Then the Chair ordered a re-balloting for R8 for the same two candidates, H and S. There was also no Point of Order raised.

The results of the re-balloting showed H had won, with a majority vote, and the Chair declared H as the Winner. There was again no Point of Order raised.

The meeting went on to elect other senior officers' positions, without a hitch, and adjourned sine die.

Based on the scenario described, was the Chair's rulings correct, in the first instance and the second instance, for R8?

I feel that the Chair's ruling was correct in the first instance and he should have stayed with that decision. His decision was accepted by the winner who was present and did not object. Neither did the loser H object. Then the Chair's decision to re-ballot was incorrect, and could have been objected by a Point of Order. In any case, the convention had adjourned and the R8 Director had been installed in position. The ruling had been carried, going forward, until the next Convention.

Cheers.

20 hours ago, Gary Novosielski said:

I've been following this thread, and it seems to me that it is not so much the definition of majority that is at issue, but firstly whether the voting software can handle the unusual (for RONR) condition where the principle of one-person-one-vote is not upheld, as is sometimes the case where delegates represent varying numbers of constituents. 

A better method, in my experience, is to apportion delegates so that each has an equal number of constituents, but that some member organizations have more delegates than others.  Thus the votes of delegates may be counted simply with each delegate casting one vote.  But I understand that may not be possible in your structure, and in any case, it should be possible to design software to handle virtually any logically consistent rules.

The second and probably larger problem is the high number of illegal votes.  Recall that the sample tellers' report in RONR looks like this:

TELLERS’ REPORT
   Number of votes cast  102
   Necessary for adoption (majority)  52
   Votes for motion  69
   Votes against  32
Illegal votes
  Two ballots against, folded together, rejected  1

In the example, the reason for the illegal vote is reported, and apparently this is not a feature of the software, so it appears to me that this software is incapable of producing a proper report, or at least supply sufficient information that one can be prepared.   

In any case where there is a doubt as to whether a particular ballot should be treated as a legal vote, an illegal vote, or an abstention, the matter is submitted to the assembly for final determination, and without any information about why the ballot is questionable, it will not be possible for them to make an informed decision.

Thank you, Gary for your input and participation. All ideas are possible for the Organisation, going forward.

In fact, as I was just given to know, by a very seasoned PRP,  that there are excellent e-voting packages now on the market, such as Sunvote, Padgett Comm., and iClicker which have been perfected to give zero rejects, or nil Illegal votes, no matter how silly the delegates had voted, in all silly ways. All mistakes will be "foreclosed". If so, this particular one at the said Organization their voting package in the pc system might not have been updated. 

That means, if there are only two Candidates, in an e-voting process, involving all delegates with proxy votes, the winner will be declared as one who has earned a majority vote, even by one vote, as there won't be any Illegal votes. None. There won't be any more complex discussions like here involving the hardware, software, and skills of technician in situ or program manager, and so on. All these non-parliamentary but technical matters have now been perfected in the electronic voting applications industry. As most of us are well versed and competent in the parliamentary procedure but may not be the up to date in technology knowledge, it is better of us, to presume that the Organization or any others, should use the latest and most up to date program for large scale meetings or conventions, as in this one in question.

That being the case, for the said case, which had occurred some weeks ago now, what had been decided was at least unfortunate. and could not be undone. It simply goes to show that going forward, the major voting process involving hundreds or thousands of proxy delegates, the basic or competent knowledge of parliamentary procedure may not be adequate. Good and proper assumptions must be made, and if anything else still could not be made certain, or at least more certain, then the entire Assembly of all accredited delegates should decide by a vote or otherwise to Suspend (some) Rules, upfront, as the Assembly has all "full and sole power to act". 

Cheers.

7 hours ago, Guest Zev said:

The statement itself is correct. However, no one can help the voter that has committed a mistake and voted for the incorrect candidate.

Oh, I strongly disagree. The definition of "majority" must not change. What needs to be changed is this organization's Special Rules Of Order on how to use the voting equipment and how to interpret the results generated by the software.

This may be true. Nevertheless, perhaps in the future a "dry run" (a test) of a vote should be conducted to make sure all delegates are familiar with the equipment and are confident that the result reflects what actually took place. If this confidence is lost then, in my opinion, no amount of knowledge of the rules in this book is likely to provide any relief.

On 9/4/2018 at 3:45 PM, KimSeeTeo said:

I am in agreement with you, Joshua Martin, to say that the organization should "adopt its own rules" on this subject in future, but the question is how to do it. Even if they had to hire a top notch PRP, who could explain in such fine details as we discuss almost exhaustively here, he or she is not going to more the hearts of any one of the members of the Board of Directors, and henceforth with a plan to revise its Bylaws.In addition, if that organization begins to adopt many own rules, over time, their commonality with other kinds of international clubs, using the same kind of electronic process will be little if not completely gone. We'll be starting a new kind of voting procedure in general whenever, the pc system is adopted for e-voting process. Could the competency of pc literary competency outshine that of classical procedural competency, then? I wonder.

 

2 hours ago, Atul Kapur said:

I have to disagree with your diagnosis and agree with Mr. Martin.

If your organization had not proxies, the only difference would have been that the raw numbers would jave been 1/10 the numbers you quoted. You would still have had the same problem with your "illegal" votes becase there would have been enough of them to potentially affect the result.

Quoting him here to emphasize my agreement.

2 hours ago, Atul Kapur said:

I have to disagree with your diagnosis and agree with Mr. Martin.

If your organization had not proxies, the only difference would have been that the raw numbers would jave been 1/10 the numbers you quoted. You would still have had the same problem with your "illegal" votes becase there would have been enough of them to potentially affect the result.

Quoting him here to emphasize my agreement.

I just realized my typo error which should have stated, "the meaning of majority vote (not vote majority) has to be re-defined..."Nobody wants to change the definition of the Majority, which is simply "more than half", but a Majority Vote, is More than Half of Those Present and Voting, per se. Since, all 777 delegates were proxyholders, except perhaps for a few Delegates-at-large (who vote for themselves), and they represent close to 30,000 proxies, the outcome of their vote count should exclude all illegal votes, or rejected votes by the pc systems. After all, most or the bulk of the voting voices were "carried" but "not present" at all, while resting in their home countries around the world, and away on the mainland USA. In addition, a good pc system, both the hardware and enabling software, should prevent any rejected or illegal votes, and have zero of them. If not, it's the fault or defect of the system, which should not impact the 'Majority Vote" count. My point here, is to ignore all the so called Illegal votes, even if there is just one such vote.

2 hours ago, Atul Kapur said:

I have to disagree with your diagnosis and agree with Mr. Martin.

If your organization had not proxies, the only difference would have been that the raw numbers would jave been 1/10 the numbers you quoted. You would still have had the same problem with your "illegal" votes becase there would have been enough of them to potentially affect the result.

Quoting him here to emphasize my agreement.

2 hours ago, Atul Kapur said:

I have to disagree with your diagnosis and agree with Mr. Martin.

If your organization had not proxies, the only difference would have been that the raw numbers would jave been 1/10 the numbers you quoted. You would still have had the same problem with your "illegal" votes becase there would have been enough of them to potentially affect the result.

Quoting him here to emphasize my agreement.

Let me add some details here about the proxy. If a voting delegate carries just one proxy, that does not represent the delegated voting right of another natural person, per se. But it represents the voting right of one position of elected club officer who was not present at the meeting, and who acted for the club of some 20 or 30 or more members in that club. The proxy is not deemed to be the natural voice of one person, but a collective voice of a group, 20 or 30 members in that club. Therefore, it seems to be a delegation of a delegation of a group decision, now rests as a proxy in the voting delegate. And that this voting delegate, could carry with him, as many as a few hundred proxies, thus representing thousands of ordinary members, who are natural persons. That is allowed in the Bylaws of the Organization. 

Therefore as Josh says, the Organization should decide if a vote cast in error - should that vote be counted toward the majority. But if one voting delegate who has, say, 200 proxies and he casts it incorrectly, it could mean, a major shift of vote count simply because of this one person's human mistake in hitting the keypad. Hence the meaning of a  vote majority has to be re-defined in that organization, without any consideration of the illegal votes, if any, at all. If this definition were accepted, the problems would not have cropped up in that Convention in Chicago, recently.

Yes, selection of a good vendor and a specific high performance or proven program, as Joshua says, is important, in the electronic process. The point is, if the delegates are not well educated with parliamentary procedure, they may not be convinced by our discussions here. I know there are many such good voting programs on the market, but wonder if they work in line with our thoughts.

Let me add some details here about the proxy. If a voting delegate carries just one proxy, that does not represent the delegated voting right of another natural person, per se. But it represents the voting right of one position of elected club officer who was not present at the meeting, and who acted for the club of some 20 or 30 or more members in that club. The proxy is not deemed to be the natural voice of one person, but a collective voice of a group, 20 or 30 members in that club. Therefore, it seems to be a delegation of a delegation of a group decision, now rests as a proxy in the voting delegate. And that this voting delegate, could carry with him, as many as a few hundred proxies, thus representing thousands of ordinary members, who are natural persons. That is allowed in the Bylaws of the Organization. 

Therefore as Josh says, the Organization should decide if a vote cast in error - should that vote be counted toward the majority. But if one voting delegate who has, say, 200 proxies and he casts it incorrectly, it could mean, a major shift of vote count simply because of this one person's human mistake in hitting the keypad. Hence the meaning of a  vote majority has to be re-defined in that organization, without any consideration of the illegal votes, if any, at all. If this definition were accepted, the problems would not have cropped up in that Convention in Chicago, recently.

Yes, selection of a good vendor and a specific high performance or proven program, as Joshua says, is important, in the electronic process. The point is, if the delegates are not well educated with parliamentary procedure, they may not be convinced by our discussions here. I know there are many such good voting programs on the market, but wonder if they work in line with our thoughts.

7 hours ago, KimSeeTeo said:

Dear esteemed Parliamentarians,

It seems to me that the problems arising from that Major Event in Chicago were complex, even beyond ordinary Competent Parliamentarians. It involved the Rules of Procedure, Bylaws, the Proxies and finally most elusive PC voting systems, employed there.

We are all quite certain of all the classic rules of procedures. Maybe even quite certain of rules in the Proxies, and the Bylaws. But when the questions arose from the ambiguity and even ambivalent scenarios in respect of technology employed, we could be stuck there and then. Imagine the poor Presiding Officer, whom we respect as an International President of some 28 years of leadership experience in his country, had to tussle with this complex situation, and make a choice in that nick of time, especially to declare S as the first Winner. Then, after whatever had ensued, or upon the advise of the Parliamentarian, an RP, he had to reverse his decision and to cause a re-balloting, and ...the uproar.

See, we are now debating substantially on the Rejects, per se. Who's to know more about what could crop up by such a large number of rejects in 1477 and 282, as to determine a winner? It was mind-boggling to me, when I was asked such a humongous question, the details of which I had no idea, but just based on factual input and a little additional info, here and there. I am sorry, I can't add anything on what transpired. Even if I asked anyone, the answer may depend on the psychological mindset of a supporter of S or H. That won't be helpful.

I am so appreciated of all of you, Joshua, Josh Martin, and Richard to offer your highly regarded viewpoints, and thankful of Richard to ask me to come here. 

In Asia today, I am really alone, trying to make sense of all kinds of elections when I read them, anywhere, and ...having nobody to spar with intellectually with, always. This Region is not up to speed in this sense, yet. Maybe even for a very long time to come.

Come to think of it, as we move forward to say, Edition 12 of the RONR, the bulk of that esteemed authority has to include this aspect of the continuing change in line with the popularity of e-technology. There could be a lot of cases which come up, where even credentialed Parliamentarians may be stuck in case of marginal vote, as occurred in Chicago, among 2000 delegates. We may not blame anyone, even the untrained Presiding Officer or the inexperienced RP, but just no luck that the situation was not that clear, that is, the margin was not large enough to cause a Certainty in the first Declaration by the Chair. Well, well the next time, this luck or lacking thereof, may repeat. As we lead others in this line of very cold educational field, we must all be well prepared for this unkind and expected scenario, coming up in the future, anywhere in the world.

My deep appreciation to all of you, once again, fine gentlemen.

Cheers.

KimSee.

 

Surely the technician who conducted the whole e-voting process and the software programmer should know why the rejected rates were so high. Don't think it's in their interest to provide info which was not asked. The organizers should have gathered some years of experience by now to avoid a repeat in the future. Already twice in 4 years.

I am in agreement with you, Joshua Martin, to say that the organization should "adopt its own rules" on this subject in future, but the question is how to do it. Even if they had to hire a top notch PRP, who could explain in such fine details as we discuss almost exhaustively here, he or she is not going to more the hearts of any one of the members of the Board of Directors, and henceforth with a plan to revise its Bylaws.In addition, if that organization begins to adopt many own rules, over time, their commonality with other kinds of international clubs, using the same kind of electronic process will be little if not completely gone. We'll be starting a new kind of voting procedure in general whenever, the pc system is adopted for e-voting process. Could the competency of pc literary competency outshine that of classical procedural competency, then? I wonder.

On 9/2/2018 at 7:34 AM, Josh Martin said:

I guess my impression was not that no one but the computer knows why the votes are illegal. I was under the impression that someone knows, but did not provide this information to the assembly (which is probably even more concerning). As I have already noted, this should be corrected in the future.

You know, Josh, we're discussing all such technicalities among us who know what's RONR, perhaps through and through, I doubt even a few among the 2000 delegates had much procedural knowledge at all, especially those dissenting ones who rebelled against the re-balloting and the new elected result for H, as winner. Had they known, they could raise a Parliamentary Inquiry or Request for Information to exercise their rights to know more details about the capability of the computer or even of the technician who ran the election process.

On 9/2/2018 at 6:48 AM, Joshua Katz said:

The more I think about it, the more troubled I am by this business of having illegal ballots because the computer says so, and no one able to say why. It's incredibly open to abuse, and violates all sorts of parliamentary principles. It places a decision rightly in the assembly's hands far beyond it, and in my view, is unacceptable on first principles. If you are using a voting system which rejects votes without telling you which votes, or why, I say the organization is running unfair elections by definition. If it is able to say "it was ballot #4, and the reason was..." that's something different, even if the assembly doesn't investigate any further. 

Very good point, Joshua. No more details to add here, from me. How rejects or even one reject came about, could be a clue to a better management of the elections, in future. All these may become, as you rightly pointed out, unfair elections.

The question, if there were many who could realize these technicalities, surely a Point of Order would have cropped up, during those 40 minutes interim, or better still spontaneously, to say that something was "unfair."

Everyone seemed to agree with the first declaration of results to have S elected, and a done deal!

Dear esteemed Parliamentarians,

It seems to me that the problems arising from that Major Event in Chicago were complex, even beyond ordinary Competent Parliamentarians. It involved the Rules of Procedure, Bylaws, the Proxies and finally most elusive PC voting systems, employed there.

We are all quite certain of all the classic rules of procedures. Maybe even quite certain of rules in the Proxies, and the Bylaws. But when the questions arose from the ambiguity and even ambivalent scenarios in respect of technology employed, we could be stuck there and then. Imagine the poor Presiding Officer, whom we respect as an International President of some 28 years of leadership experience in his country, had to tussle with this complex situation, and make a choice in that nick of time, especially to declare S as the first Winner. Then, after whatever had ensued, or upon the advise of the Parliamentarian, an RP, he had to reverse his decision and to cause a re-balloting, and ...the uproar.

See, we are now debating substantially on the Rejects, per se. Who's to know more about what could crop up by such a large number of rejects in 1477 and 282, as to determine a winner? It was mind-boggling to me, when I was asked such a humongous question, the details of which I had no idea, but just based on factual input and a little additional info, here and there. I am sorry, I can't add anything on what transpired. Even if I asked anyone, the answer may depend on the psychological mindset of a supporter of S or H. That won't be helpful.

I am so appreciated of all of you, Joshua, Josh Martin, and Richard to offer your highly regarded viewpoints, and thankful of Richard to ask me to come here. 

In Asia today, I am really alone, trying to make sense of all kinds of elections when I read them, anywhere, and ...having nobody to spar with intellectually with, always. This Region is not up to speed in this sense, yet. Maybe even for a very long time to come.

Come to think of it, as we move forward to say, Edition 12 of the RONR, the bulk of that esteemed authority has to include this aspect of the continuing change in line with the popularity of e-technology. There could be a lot of cases which come up, where even credentialed Parliamentarians may be stuck in case of marginal vote, as occurred in Chicago, among 2000 delegates. We may not blame anyone, even the untrained Presiding Officer or the inexperienced RP, but just no luck that the situation was not that clear, that is, the margin was not large enough to cause a Certainty in the first Declaration by the Chair. Well, well the next time, this luck or lacking thereof, may repeat. As we lead others in this line of very cold educational field, we must all be well prepared for this unkind and expected scenario, coming up in the future, anywhere in the world.

My deep appreciation to all of you, once again, fine gentlemen.

Cheers.

KimSee.

On 9/2/2018 at 8:56 PM, Josh Martin said:

The only exception I can think of is the argument that, by denying the illegal votes, this amounts to denying those members the right to vote. In this instance, those members’ votes would have affected the result.

I’m very concerned with this idea that the “illegal” votes should be treated as blanks based on the argument that they “probably were not caused by humans as the pc was supposed to override errors or correct mistakes of humans, if any.” If there is any doubt as to whether these are, in fact, illegal votes, I would strongly lean toward the presumption that they are illegal votes. If the election had been conducted again immediately (as would have been proper) as opposed to 40 minutes later, there would be very little harm in having members vote again, even if the “illegal votes” were actually computer errors. On the other hand, if the assembly chose not to count the illegal votes on the assumption that they were computer errors, then those voters have been disenfranchised.

Of course, better still would have been for those managing the software to explain what had happened, so there could be a proper determination of how to treat these votes. If there was still doubt as to how to count the votes, the facts should have been reported to the assembly, without disclosing how any particular candidate would be affected, and the assembly would have decided.

“If the meaning of one or more ballots is doubtful, they can be treated as illegal if it is impossible for them to affect the result; but if they may affect the result, the tellers report them to the chair, who immediately submits to the assembly the question of how these ballots should be recorded. When reporting doubtful ballots, the tellers must be careful whenever possible not to show how the decision would affect any of the candidates.” (RONR, 11th ed., pg. 416)

Then in the future it should be asked. If there are over 1,000 “illegal votes” (regardless of the reason), this should be of concern to everyone. Either there are a great number of members who cast votes incorrectly, or the software has a large number of errors. Either of these situations doesn’t seem great.

It remains my view that incorrect number presses should be treated as illegal votes. Presumably, the members pressed the wrong button in error. If the members wished to abstain, they did not need to press a button at all. Therefore, this seems more comparable to an illegible ballot than a blank one.

Nonetheless, since RONR provides no clear answer on this point, I concur that the assembly should have made this determination - ideally, without informing the assembly which candidate would benefit.

It would also seem prudent for the assembly to adopt its own rules on this subject in the future.

On 9/2/2018 at 7:34 AM, Josh Martin said:

I guess my impression was not that no one but the computer knows why the votes are illegal. I was under the impression that someone knows, but did not provide this information to the assembly (which is probably even more concerning). As I have already noted, this should be corrected in the future.

Surely the technician who conducted the whole e-voting process and the software programmer should know why the rejected rates were so high. Don't think it's in their interest to provide info which was not asked. The organizers should have gathered some years of experience by now to avoid a repeat in the future. Already twice in 4 years.

9 hours ago, Josh Martin said:

I guess my impression was not that no one but the computer knows why the votes are illegal. I was under the impression that someone knows, but did not provide this information to the assembly (which is probably even more concerning). As I have already noted, this should be corrected in the future.

Surely the technician who conducted the whole e-voting process and the software programmer should know why the rejected rates were so high. Don't think it's in their interest to provide info which was not asked. The organizers should have gathered some years of experience by now to avoid a repeat in the future. Already twice in 4 years.

7 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

Kim-See has also posted this question in another forum (the AIP public forum) and AIP President Kay Crews responded with an answer that has a bit of a different take on what happened regarding the 1,477 "illegal" votes.  She wonders, as do some of us, how illegal votes can be cast when using electronic hand held keypads.  She surmised, as did Josh Martin and myself, that perhaps delegates pressed a number which had no corresponding candidate, such as pressing #5 when there are only four candidates.  Josh and I took the position that such a vote amounts to a vote for "someone" not eligible, thus becoming an illegal vote.  Kay theorized, however that it  seems to her much like turning in a blank ballot.... which would not count as a vote at all.  It would amount to an abstention.  Under that scenario, with the 1.477 "illegal" votes being treated as blanks (abstentions) instead of illegal votes, candidate S would have received a majority of the votes cast and would have been properly declared the winner.

That's an interesting...and quite plausible... twist in my opinion. Ultimately, however, unless there is a rule on point, the question of how to treat a vote for a nonexistent candidate should have been for the assembly to decide.  I believe that the chair (since there are presumably no tellers) could make the initial  determination whether to consider such votes as blanks or as illegal votes, but such a question could and maybe should have been put to the assembly to decide.  The chair's decision on that issue was also subject to an appeal under RONR.

Thanks Richard, certainly Kay has a different viewpoint, to refreshen our thinking, If this was what the Chair had in mind in declaring the winner S, then he must be the most brilliant presiding officer. Remember about 2000 pairs of intelligent eyes were watching the giant screen displaying the results. Why nobody protested against S being declared as winner, in the first instance? Where were the opponents and supporters of H?

18 hours ago, Joshua Katz said:

I think you should avoid using any software that gives you inexplicable results.

Hopefully someday, the organizers would come to their senses, and use more advanced software programs to avoid a repeat of what occurred. 

Thanks Richard for pointing out a reply from Kay, in the  AIP Forum . As this is day time in Asia, and a Sunday weekend, I am pretty occupied with family, although my intellectual heart is with NAP, you guys and with Kay, in AIP. I shall get back to Kay and add some of my comments on her thoughts.

Yes, indeed, the pc system ought to have an answer of why there are rejected votes, we call illegal votes, of 1477 and 282. As far as the technician and the programmer(of an outside consulting party) were concerned, these numbers didn't seem to bother them that much. It might make sense to regard those "illegal" votes as blanks, as mooted by Kay, and ignored. After all, they probably were not caused by humans as the pc was supposed to override errors or correct mistakes of humans, if any. Some others suggested use of newer pc systems which could provide error free voting process, with zero rejected votes. It may make sense, as the proxy-holders in this instance could carry with them, a few votes to several tens of votes, and any inadvertent errors may result in a big shift toward one or the other. Just because of a wrong hit of button. The pc system could come to a rescue and perfect the flaws of humans. 

Per Joshua, "someone knows but did not provide the answers to the assembly"

10 hours ago, Josh Martin said:

The chair’s reasoning may have been that, by refusing to count the illegal votes, this was disenfranchising those members, which was in this instance enough members to have affected the result. I don’t know that I necessarily agree with this reasoning, but it does not seem absurd.

I would note that, in my view, whether the President acts on his own initiative or in response to a Point of Order has nothing to do with it.

Well, in the future the reason why the votes were, in fact, recorded as illegal votes should be announced to the assembly and recorded in the teller’s report, as required by RONR. That should help with some of these problems. Additionally, if there is a large number of illegal votes, then if another round of voting is necessary it would seem prudent to provide additional instructions to the assembly regarding the proper use of the electronic voting devices.

If there was any reasoning to exclude the illegal votes, nobody seemed to know that. There were apparently arguments on the floor, as told, why the illegal votes were not counted. So the Chair did not explain at all.

I thought if someone felt that the Chair had ruled wrongly, a Point of Order raised in a timely manner, could change the picture or at least cause the matter to become a debate.

Some who had experience in using the latest pc software were saying, it should not even have one illegal vote, as the powerful program could quickly capture it, and perhaps tickle off the voter who had keyed in wrongly.

I don't know what they would do in the future.

Thank you very much, Richard, et al. indeed, that was my concern. As it turned out, the said election was for Region 8 for one International Director's post. When it was done, after declaring the first winner, there was a recess of some 10 mins, after which the election process proceeded to conduct similar elections for Regions 10, 12 and 14. ( One year for the even regions and another year for the odd). It was only at that point, "someone" probably realized that there was no majority vote attained at that Region 8 election, and the Chair did what was to me, a strange decision to reverse his first declaration of winner S, and announced it null and void, then ordered a re-vote. There was no call to vote to support  that Chair's decision.  I did not know what transpired and who had pointed out the apparent mistake or anyone else other than the Chair (and Parliamentarian) could influence such an unwise step. Unwise in the sense that anything at the meeting must be seen to be done, to make sense. No point of order raised, and it would appear that either the Chair or the Parliamentarian suddenly came to their senses, out of the blue in those 40 mins. Why? Why?

In fact, some delegates who supported the winner in the first round, felt happy and so assured that, they could have left the scene and did not bother at all about any subsequent regional elections. That was why the second vote count was fewer by 870 proxy votes and more importantly the rejected votes were reduced from 1477 to just 282. This phenomena should have been felt both by the Chair and the Parliamentarian, even before they adjourned the whole business session. In addition, why should there be so much difference in the rejected votes, given the same pc system used and the same level of intelligence in the delegates sustained?

Actually this scenario was a repeat of what had occurred in 2014, when the Convention was held in KL, Malaysia (my country) for the only and first time since 80 years ago. I was present as a voting delegate, (with 2 proxy votes) and spotted a technical error similar to this one, but there were then 3 candidates. The convention then decided to have a re-vote to reduce it to just 2. Then similar reject votes couldn't decide in one way or another. I raised the only Point of Order, by yelling it 4 times, immediately to call for the Chair's attention, among the 2600 delegates present from 56 countries, and then, the Presiding Officer and Chair, appropriately called the meeting to stand at ease. After a few minutes of private consultation, they came out to say, the Point was well taken. It made my day. I sealed the fate of one candidate and helped justify for the other. My point was to express the thought I had then. Why the same set of pc system could engender so much difference in the rejected votes? Perhaps, they couldn't explain why and had to accept my Point! I never knew.

Thanks, gentlemen. 

Thank you for your response to my question.  I am now back as a member. 

For some reason, my earlier answer to your Q above did not get posted. 

About 2000 delegates were at the convention. But only 777 keypads were registered meaning only about 40% had the voting rights with proxies. The rest of delegates were observers without voting rights

Voting Results, as follows

Candidate S 10843

Candidate H 10814

Illegal Votes 1477

S was declared winner.

Then after about 40mins, the decision was made by the Chair to declare it null and void, since it didn't have a majority, and ordered a re-vote. 

New results as follows, 

Candidate S 10467

Candidate H 11505

Illegal Votes 282.

This time, H had more than the majority and declared new Winner. 

I do not know more details than the above data, in particular why were there illegal votes, which was substantially reduced in the second set of results.

Since the pc system must have a good protective software measure to avoid any illegal vote, the actual results could not be explained. That being the case, the way a majority vote was computed and decided on should exclude all so called illegal votes, in my view. Hence, the first set of results should have been deemed as proper, and winner S justified. There was no need to re vote. 

That was the crux of the problem which caused a lot of dissent and unhappiness.

KimSee.

Thank you for your response to my question.  I am now back as a member. 

For some reason, my earlier answer to your Q above did not get posted. 

About 2000 delegates were at the convention. But only 777 keypads were registered meaning only about 40% had the voting rights with proxies. The rest of delegates were observers without voting rights

Voting Results, as follows

Candidate S 10843

Candidate H 10814

Illegal Votes 1477

S was declared winner.

Then after about 40mins, the decision was made by the Chair to declare it null and void, since it didn't have a majority, and ordered a re-vote. 

New results as follows, 

Candidate S 10467

Candidate H 11505

Illegal Votes 282.

This time, H had more than the majority and declared new Winner. 

I do not know more details than the above data, in particular why were there illegal votes, which was substantially reduced in the second set of results.

Since the pc system must have a good protective software measure to avoid any illegal vote, the actual results could not be explained. That being the case, the way a majority vote was computed and decided on should exclude all so called illegal votes, in my view. Hence, the first set of results should have been deemed as proper, and winner S justified. There was no need to re vote. 

That was the crux of the problem which caused a lot of dissent and unhappiness.

KimSee.