02 Board Appointment : Cultural Entity

This is an interesting board matching tool https://communitydirectors.com.au/board-positions for NFPs and this could be a really great way to find the right skills using a radically inclusive process if ever the Org is struggling to find suitable officers. While I understand that the community is relatively large (with something like 15,000 participants over the years) it is not always simple to find people willing and able to perform governance roles.

@Eric Doriean This relates to the question you asked about how Boards are appointed and ways to avoid the potluck popularity factor.

I think it is important that we consider some factors that could/should preclude certain people from both peak bodies. In the BOSS constitution we drafted in a condition for eligibility whereby anyone with a conviction for crimes of a financial (fraud, money laundering, embezzlement, theft etc), sexual (sexual assault or harassment) or violent nature would not be eligible to hold a Board position. I would like that to be included here and to extend it further.

I would like a clause to be written in that; any Board member charged with a crime be required to step aside while the matter is heard in court and until a verdict reached. If they are acquitted, then a mechanism could allow for their return and for their term to be re-started. If they are convicted, then they must resign and their position should go to the first runner up (who could also act in their absence?) OR in the case that all candidates in the most recent election already hold Board positions, then the place should be re-advertised IF there are fewer than 7 members once they have left.

When the Board is declared open to nominations and there are more candidates than available places, an election is held. I think it is important to include clear instructions in the foundation documents regarding mid term vacancies of Board positions. For example, the Reserved Vision Group was declared to be 7 members. There were 11 nominations and an election was held. However when a vacancy came about due to the resignation of one member, there was a decision made (in very unclear processes) that the first, second, third or fourth runners up would not fill the vacant seats. This highlighted the need for a clear clause with regard to mid term vacancies and preferences for unsuccessful candidates. When the margin between the incumbents and the first runner up was something like 3-5 votes it was a peculiar position to disregard the wishes of the prospective members in terms of representation and instead leave the position vacant. It was a great opportunity to learn the lesson and see what can happen when no rule is written up.

The usual way a vacancy on a board is filled, is at the discretion on the Board, where if they feel its necessary to fill the vacancy the Board appoints who they so choose.

The person appointed then resigns at such a time as person with whom they were replacing's term would have finished.

The newly appointed member would also be eligible for election when the term concludes.

Its a very novel concept for the runner up at the last election be required to be appointed by the Board to such a vacancy.

I have an open mind here, though would be interested in exploring the pro's and cons.

In doing so legal advice would be needed as well.

It may be novel but seems more democratic and representative of the members. In an election candidates offer their ideas and experience and the community votes for the board based on this. If someone resigns shortly after assuming their position it seems logical that the wishes of the members are honoured. We have often discussed flattening power structures and I am mindful of giving the Board too much power. My suggestion is not that the runners up are required to accept the place, but that they should have the first offer.

Hi all,

I wrote a whole update on this and then accidentally closed loomio without posting it losing all my work!

Have now summoned the energy to try again.

From discussions and also comments on the proposal, I’ve gotten a strong sense of hesitancy towards the voting model on the concern that it favours or is designed for “parties”.

This is entirely my fault. The summary on OpaVote which I posted alongside the proposal sells the model with a heavily party oriented perspective - presumably to a target audience in the United States.

This is not maliciously misleading but it definitely causes confusion for our purposes where we aren’t proposing any party voting of any kind.

In Australia’s most common voting method (preferential), the lowest scoring candidate is removed from each round, and votes who had marked them as first preference are redistributed to the candidates marked as second preference on the same sheet.

This is better than first past the post, where voting for a third party might be seen as “throwing away a vote”, but it can still be improved upon.

I’ve attempted an example that more closely explains the benefits of the model:

Democratic Avengers!

Let’s imagine our Town Councillors (Operating org) and board members (cultural org) as the superheroes we know them to be. However I’m going to shrink our example down to be easier to keep track of.

In our example we’re going to have the following candidates running for two available seats, listed on the ballot paper as follows:

1. Shuri

2. Scarlet Witch

3. Iron Man

4. Loki

5. M.O.D.O.K

Now it so happens that in this particular community, Shuri and Scarlet Witch had just done some amazing work prior to the election and are beloved by all. Loki has been wreaking havoc and littering and everyone hates it. But he has some dirt on a couple of people and reckons he can secure a handful of votes through extortion and bribery.

Sidenote: intentions are not really relevant to the point they just add colour and help differentiate the candidates.

Election day comes and goes with the following results:

Australia's Preferential voting model

What has occurred is that a vast majority of voters, who love Shuri and Scarlet Witch equally, have given their preferences in ballot order. This has resulted in Shuri winning by a landslide, but leaving Scarlet Witch at risk of being knocked out.

Under Australia’s preferential voting system, M.O.D.O.K is knocked out. His henchmen all put Loki as their second preference because they vibe with the whole chaos theme, and for round two the totals sit at:

As we can see from the second round tallies, it is M.O.D.O.K’s voters’ second preferences which are redistributed. So while Scarlet Witch was voted as 990 people’s second favourite candidate, she is out of the running.

I’ll play out the final round here for interest:

In the end despite Iron Man having some 3rd preference votes that nobody else had (see the boost to 44), Loki’s total is still higher and he wins the remaining seat.

You can also see that it would only have taken a hundred or so people to safely place Shuri with enough of a lead to win a seat, leaving plenty of votes for Scarlet Witch. But because of the system, voters aren’t able to account for that and can at best make a rough guess as to how to rank their preferences to make their vote actually count.

Compare to the STV model

The Single Transferable Vote system solves this by not just redistributing the votes of the loser of each round, but redistributing everyone’s votes fairly.

So in our example, Shuri only needed 223 votes to not be the lowest scoring candidate (in a 5-way tie scenario). Rather than waste the votes of the other 764 people who voted for her, the STV system attributes the surplus to the voters’ second preferences.

Sidenote: redistribution of surplus votes is done on a ratio basis, so all of Shuri’s 1st preference voters have their second preference receive a vote but it’s less than a whole vote because the minimum “portion” is attributed to Shuri.

Under the proposed STV Shuri and Scarlet Witch would have won the election because most of Shuri’s 1st preference voters had marked Scarlet Witch as second preference, and this preference wasn’t wasted.

About the STV model

As you can see there is no need for any parties or grouping or gaming for the STV system because the system automatically “games” for you, or better put; it makes your vote count to its maximum value. Also, each voter’s individual preferences are taken into account. Shuri doesn't have any control over where her surplus votes go - it was the voters who decided to place Scarlet in 2nd preference, and those who didn’t vote for Scarlet Witch instead had their chosen second preference candidate receive their proportional vote instead (mostly Iron Man in this scenario).

Pros and cons

The system allows voters to vote for as many or as few of the candidates as they choose, so if you only like one candidate you can put them as your first preference and your entire vote fully counts.

The beauty of the system is that it allows voters to properly reflect their desires in the outcome regardless of the luck of the ballot paper and regardless of how many candidates they like or don’t like.

The cost of the system is that for paper ballots, the counting is extremely slow. Every reference is considered, which requires a much larger amount of work by the election agency to record. Of course if voting is done electronically, then this issue is avoided entirely and results can be known instantaneously.

Conclusion

I’m not sure my example is particularly good. So please consider reading beyond here if more reassurance is required, or ask a question in the thread below. I tried to avoid the parties example, and even if it looks like a Heroes vs Villains scenario, if you look closely at the preferences you can possibly see group of misogynists whose motivation was not on party lines but actually on the candidate’s sex, preferring the men over the women. I got way too invested in this example lol. I guess the idea was to show that parties are irrelevant to the model, and the voters have complete freedom in their preferencing.

But please remember the take-home point: the parties don’t affect the outcome, the voters’ choices do. And the STV model avoids unfair skewing due to ballot order and other factors better than preferential voting does. And that’s why I recommend this system.

Thank you for taking the time to explain the STV system more thoroughly (and in a fun way)!!