[Community-Discuss] Accountability assessment - quorum

Andrew Alston Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com
Thu Sep 29 14:50:58 UTC 2016 

Because proxies are enshrined in the companies act for one thing.

Secondly, what is your definition of abuse? Someone was trusted by a lot of people and used them to vote a way that you didn't like? That's not abuse - that's members who had faith in someone and decided to vote in a particular way.

Calling that abuse is laughable in the extreme - and it shows lack of willingness to accept the will of the majority vote.

Attempting to limit and change the rules to ensure that things go a particular way is no better than incumbent politicians attempting to change constitutions to hold onto power, or pushing for voting reforms to disenfranchise a particular group of people because you don't like the way they may vote.

Let's respect the democratic process here

Andrew

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________________________________
From: Omo Oaiya <Omo.Oaiya at wacren.net>
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2016 5:31:53 PM
To: General Discussions of AFRINIC
Subject: Re: [Community-Discuss] Accountability assessment - quorum

-1

There is history of abuse of proxies in AFRINIC so it is not simply the principle in question.   These votes are meant to be a representation of public interest not shareholder or group interest so we should care more about ethics and the moral responsibility of having involved voters.

As we are starting to record more online votes than onsite, I don't see why we can't consider limiting to online voting if not physically present.  We can use opportunity to improve on member engagement.

We may need to improve integrity and ease of use of the voting system in the process but small price to pay for a more representative and involved community.

-Omo

On 28 September 2016 at 20:16, Jackson Muthili <jacksonmuthi at gmail.com<mailto:jacksonmuthi at gmail.com>> wrote:
+1

On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 11:38 AM, Andrew Alston
<Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com<mailto:Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>> wrote:
> +1 Mark,
>
> I would have thought this was pretty plain – it’s a global practice in business and I’d be surprised if people who have stood on boards and other such things hadn’t seen this fairly often, its enshrined in every company act I’ve ever read.
>
> It’s the same way with shareholder meetings – a shareholder may give a proxy to someone.
>
> A member may issue a proxy and that person then 100% represents the person who gave it to them.
>
> Andrew
>
>
>
> On 28/09/2016, 20:08, "Mark Elkins" <mje at posix.co.za<mailto:mje at posix.co.za>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On 28/09/2016 15:20, Badru Ntege wrote:
>     > Ultimately percentage of members is the logical and sustainble way to
>     > achieve a representative outcome.  However this opens another
>     > question when it comes to “representative” and actual votes.
>     >
>     > We need to explore a way that also addresses actively engaged member
>     > views.  The current system is open to some kind of abuse where
>     > through the use of proxies,  votes are cast on behalf of members who
>     > might not even have a clue about what the vote is all about.
>
>     If I give my Proxy to someone - then I am implicitly trusting that
>     person - including their judgement/discretion on things I might not be
>     100% sure about. If I give them instructions and they fail to follow
>     them, my issue is with them, no one else.
>
>     Often, proxies will actually state how the "owner" wishes to vote on
>     certain (pre-defined) topics - i.e. - accept the current auditors for
>     another year.
>
>     If you don't trust a person to use your proxy wisely - don't give it to
>     them. I really don't see the problem.
>
>     > We have all noticed this in previous elections so I think we need to
>     > start putting our minds round how to find a solution.
>     >
>     > Regards
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     > On 9/28/16, 8:55 AM, "Dewole Ajao" <dewole at tinitop.com<mailto:dewole at tinitop.com>> wrote:
>     >
>     >> Is hard-wiring the numbers really a good idea as opposed to a
>     >> percentage (of something or the other)?
>     >>
>     >> Just thinking of a way to fix the quorum even if active membership
>     >> were to double in a year or two.
>     >>
>     >> Dewole.
>     >>
>     >>
>     >> On 28/09/2016 07:58, Alan Barrett wrote:
>     >>>> On 26 Sep 2016, at 22:00, Alan Barrett
>     >>>> <alan.barrett at afrinic.net<mailto:alan.barrett at afrinic.net>> wrote:
>     >>>>
>     >>>>
>     >>>>> On 26 Sep 2016, at 18:22, Douglas Onyango
>     >>>>> <ondouglas at gmail.com<mailto:ondouglas at gmail.com>> wrote:
>     >>>>>
>     >>>>> Hi Alan,
>     >>>>>> The current quorum requirement is 10 members, which is too
>     >>>>>> small, but I think 10% is too large.
>     >>>>> Perhaps AFRINIC can share with us statistics on member
>     >>>>> attendance in the past 5 years. We can normalize this data
>     >>>>> and can use something like the lowest or average number of
>     >>>>> members present to prescribe a pragmatic number for our
>     >>>>> quorum requirement.
>     >>>> Sure, I can get those numbers.
>     >>> Here are the number of votes cast during recent Board elections.
>     >>> The number of on-site votes gives a good idea of the number of
>     >>> members who attended the meetings.
>     >>>
>     >>> 2013    2014    2015    2016 E-Votes            58      59      49      183 On-Site Votes       45
>     >>> 66      77      62 TOTAL        103     125     126     245
>     >>>
>     >>> Given these attendance figures, I suggest a quorum requirement of
>     >>> 30 resource members in the future.
>     >>>
>     >>> Alan _______________________________________________
>     >>> Community-Discuss mailing list Community-Discuss at afrinic.net<mailto:Community-Discuss at afrinic.net>
>     >>> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/community-discuss
>     >>
>     >>
>     >> _______________________________________________ Community-Discuss
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>     >
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>
>     --
>     Mark James ELKINS  -  Posix Systems - (South) Africa
>     mje at posix.co.za<mailto:mje at posix.co.za>       Tel: +27.128070590<tel:%2B27.128070590>  Cell: +27.826010496<tel:%2B27.826010496>
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Omo Oaiya
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