[Chapter-delegates] Board Election

[Lajos BALINT]

Hi Peter, while agreeing with your other points, let me stress that 
seemingly you (and many others) knock at open doors here:

Peter Koch wrote:

> ,,, Personally, I'd prefer a "qualified abstention" over
> simple inaction, but the system did not really provide for this this time.
>   

Surprisingly indeed, blank voting (qualified abstention) has been a 
valid option also this time. (However, I'm afraid that there was no 
conscious intention behind that on behalf of ISOC.)

The "ISOC 2014 BoT Chapter Election" ballot starts with the following 
introductory text "Vote for up [to] two candidates below by checking the 
appropriate checkboxes." I never tested but assumably an "empty" vote is 
not rejected by the system since "up to two" means either 2 or 1 or 0 - 
and checking 0 checkboxes is just the blank vote many comments in this 
thread are talking about as a desirable opportunity. (An interesting 
mistake in the above sense is that the "2014 ISOC BoT Organization 
Member election" ballot is introduced by the text "Please vote for one 
of the candidates below by checking the appropriate checkbox." rather 
than offering also here the two possible options of either 1 or 0 
checked boxes.)

Moreover, the present ballots also allow that specific type of 
abstention which corresponds to considering all candidates/nominees 
equivalently acceptable so that no smart selection can be made by the 
voter. Simply checking all checkboxes will result in an invalid vote - 
another way of expressing abstention.

However, I agree with those having said that not too much change is 
foreseeable by offering and emphasizing the above blank or invalid 
voting options as different ways of expressing abstention. Voting 
behavior of the members is just a consequence of how they feel about the 
organization and that feeling can not simply be changed by drawing the 
attention to those extreme or irregular voting opportunities.

But never mind. Although less than half of the chapters and 
organizations do in general vote, and much less than 1 % of the 
membership has ever expressed any opinion or made any comment about any 
ISOC-related matter on the numerous mailing lists operated by ISOC, the 
overaíl reputation of ISOC is high and seemingly it doesn't decrease. 
The reason is that the "existence" of those registered tens of thousands 
of ISOC members and those 100+ chapters and 100+ organizational members 
demonstrate ISOC's strength even if the vast majority is silent and just 
a tiny minority is "working".

That's why it would be in a certain (but important) sense inappropriate 
and unwise to try to simply make members and chapters more active - the 
result would be gaining 10 more active members but losing 1000 others 
leaving ISOC, or gaining 1 more active chapter but losing 10 others 
changing their "hardly active" status to "inactive" status. If nothing 
else, the 20+ years history of ISOC well demonstrates that most human 
beings and their smaller or larger communities normally don't like being 
molested/harassed even by friendly goodwill..

More realistic an approach might be to try to investigate and, if 
necessary/possible, improve the "working habit" and performance of that 
tiny minority, if possible. But that's already a different story.

Lajos