Whereas the entire membership should have the opportunity to research potential members of the provincial executive, and whereas the entire membership should have the opportunity to vote for the provincial executive in accordance with Party Principle 2.3, Participatory Democracy.
Be it resolved that by-law 8.2 be amended as follows:
8.2 - All Provincial Executive officers shall be elected by combination of secret mail in ballot and vote at the Annual Convention on the last day of the Annual Convention.
8.2.1– Any member not in attendance at the Annual Convention may mail in their ballot, or have their ballot hand delivered to the Convention.
8.2.2 - Any mailed in ballot must be received by the Party President prior to the Annual Convention.
8.2.3 - Ballots must be sent out 6 weeks prior to the Annual Convention along with the list of candidates
Be It Further Resolved that by-law 8.3 be amended as follows:
8.3 The nomination of the Provincial executive officers will be as follows:
8.3.1– All candidates for any provincial executive position must be nominated in writing by 3 members in good standing.
8.3.2 - All nominations must be received by the Party President 2 months prior to the date of the election.
8.3.3 - If no candidate in nominated 2 months prior to the election, the position may be filled by nominations from the floor during the AGM.
8.3.4 - If only one candidate in nominated for a position and None of the Above receives the majority of votes, new candidates may be nominated from the floor and a second election will occur.
8.3.5 - All candidates must be presented to the general membership at least 6 weeks before the election.
Be It Further Resolved that by-laws 8.6 and 8.7 be removed.
I agree with the intent to
I agree with the intent to involve more members in the election, and to give some advance notice of nominations. However, I think this bylaw amendment needs more work before adoption. I suggest it be referred to the Constitution & Bylaws Committee. The issues I think need to be addressed are as follows:
8.2 The process for combining "secret mail-in ballot and vote at the Annual Convention" should be defined. The mailed-in ballots must be kept secret while maintaining an accurate and reliable list of who has mailed in a ballot. There will have to be some mechanism for ensuring those who voted in advance do not vote at Convention.
The bylaw should specify what it takes to declare a candidate elected. If there are four candidates, and the one with the most votes gets 28%, is that candidate elected? Is that consistent with our policy on electoral reform, given that 72% of voters opposed the candidate? Or do we require the winning candidate to have a majority? If so, what do we do when no candidate gets a majority? This bylaw really has to say what the process would be, or we will be in a position where valid elections cannot take place.
Note that 8.9 answers the above questions for the current election process. 8.9 would have to be changed to reflect the new process.
8.2.2 & 8.3.1 The President should not be made responsible for administrative details like this. If a member of the Executive must be designated as responsible, the Secretary would be more appropriate. However, this amended bylaw should call for the Elections Committee (as per 10.5.2) to be appointed far enough in advance of Convention to manage the whole election process, including receiving the nominations and ballots.
8.2.2 Should specify that ballots be received at the GPS Office (not by a particular individual, who may be returning from holidays the day before Convention). Should also specify that ballots must arrive there a certain number of days before Convention; otherwise mail arriving early on the same morning would technically have to be processed and included in the mail-in ballot results at Convention.
8.3.4 Says what to do if "None of the Above" receives the majority of the votes. The process for casting ballots does not call for "None of the Above" to be on the ballot.
Actually, 8.3.4 just says what to do if "only one candidate in [sic] nominated for a position and None of the Above receives the majority of votes". What if three candidates are nominated for a position and None of the Above receives a majority (or even a plurality) of the votes? What then?
8.3.3 and 8.3.4 both specify conditions under which nominations will come from the floor. However, they use different language to describe the process for nominations from the floor. These bullets should be combined into a single bullet, with a single description of the process to be followed, and a list of the two or more conditions that cause the process to be invoked.
8.3.5 Says "All candidates must be presented to the general membership at least 6 weeks before the election." This should say "except as specified in 8.3.3 and 8.3.4".
What if we fail to get candidates presented at least 6 weeks in advance, as we failed to give adequate notice of resolutions in 2007? Is this another circumstance in which the nominations-from-the-floor process could be invoked? If we don't make any provision, then whatever we do at the time could be challenged.
8.7 and 8.8 mandate speeches by the nominator and nominee at Convention. Under the mail-in ballot proposal, this will become pointless, as most of the votes will already have been cast. The motion to amend section 8 should drop 8.8 as well as 8.7, and should include some new, appropriate process by which nominators and nominees can get their message out to the membership.
No political party
No political party constitution has as much detail in there bylaws or constitutions. The purpose of this amendment is to make this party more democratic as is in our constitution and values.
The intent of these amendments are not to hamstring future executives from changing procedures to make them better.
The GPC has a committee that determines the rules for each election, and they are altered to change to meet needs. I will add this as an amendment at the convention.
As for 8.3.3 and 8.3.4 they are separate points as they are for separate situations and cannot be combined. None of the Above is an option to vote for in the GPC and one that we hope to bring to the GPS. Again, maybe we could clarify, but I don't want to hamstring the future.
As for not getting things out in time. 2006 and 2007 are to the best of my knowledge the only two years in which this has happened. I have based the writing of this amendment based upon the fact that things should go out on time. Perhaps a discussion needs to occur as to what happens if deadlines are missed. However, we cannot base our amendments on the expectation that deadlines will be missed.
We have asked for 8.7 to be removed. However 8.8 concerns acceptance speeches and I see no reason as to why they should be removed.