[Chapter-delegates] The results of the recent polls regarding two issues from the Puerto Rico Chapter and the proposed test for transmission to the BoT.

Greg Shatan gregshatanisoc at gmail.com
Mon Jul 8 00:20:25 PDT 2024 

All,

I have a few comments in my personal capacity (i.e., not as ChAC-SC
Secretary), going from general to more specific comments.

First, per our Charter, our "primary purpose" is "to channel and facilitate
advice and recommendations ... in a bottom-up manner." (Charter, Section
2.1)  In order to carry out that purpose, we must have clear and readily
implementable methods of deciding what advice and/or recommendations we are
giving. We also need to be mindful that how we do things needs to follow
(and not be inconsistent with) the Charter and the Rules & Procedures
(R&P).

The Charter and the R&P both speak to the issue of decision-making.  The
Charter is our foundational document and, as such, should be given priority
in the case of a direct conflict between the Charter and R&P; however, the
Charter specifically describes one of the primary functions of the R&P is
to set out "decision-making processes." (Charter, Section 8.2). Section 10
of the R&P states that "in any case of ambiguity ... and in the
interpretation of the Chapters AC [R&P] and the Chapters AC Charter, the
provision of the latter shall prevail."

As noted previously, the Charter states in Section 7.5 that "[t]he Chapters
AC ... shall normally take decisions by consensus among participants.
Formal votes, which shall be by a majority of those present at the meeting,
are only to be used if rough consensus cannot be reached after reasonable
effort."  Section 7.5 only deals with formal votes taken at meetings; it is
silent with regard to formal votes taken at any other time. Section 7.7
states that "[f]or all meetings of the Chapters AC, the quorum shall be the
one defined in the [R&P]." Section 5 of the R&P states that "[f]or all
meetings of the Chapters AC, the quorum shall be fifteen per cent (15%) of
the total number of Chapters AC Representatives with voting rights as the
time the quorum is determined." In addition, the quorum must include at
least one Rep from each ISOC Global region.

Section 6 of the R&P ("Other decisions") provides more detail regarding
decision-making processes.  Section 6 begins by emphasizing that "based on
Section 7 of the said Charter, decisions of the Chapters AC ... shall
normally be made by consensus among Representatives."  Section 6 goes on to
state that "[f]ormal electronic votes, which shall be by a majority of
those with rights to vote, are only to be used if rough consensus cannot be
achieved after reasonable effort."  Section 6 does not distinguish between
formal votes at meetings and formal votes taken at any other time; it is
written to cover all voting scenarios.

The language of Section 6 creates a direct conflict between Section 7.5 of
the Charter and Section 6 of the R&P, at least with regards to votes at
meetings: Section 7.5 states that such a vote "shall be by a majority of
those present at the meeting," while Section 6 says that votes "shall be a
majority of those with rights to vote."  Section 6 leads to a very
different result than Section 7.5 when applied to votes at meetings.  For
example, if there are 101 Representatives with voting rights, a meeting
would be quorate with as few as 16 Representatives. If a ChAC meeting takes
place with 16 Reps, a majority vote can be achieved with 9 votes (or more).
Those 9 votes represent only 9% of all Representatives.  In contrast, under
Section 6, a vote at that meeting will only succeed if at least 51
Representatives vote in favor. The fact that the meeting is quorate (which
typically means that the meeting can be used to make decisions) does not
seem to matter.  There is no way that both of these provisions can be given
meaning when applied to a formal vote at a meeting. Based on Section 10 of
the R&P, it is clear that Section 7.5 of the Charter will prevail, and the
rule in Section 6 of the R&P will be disregarded.

For votes outside of meetings, the result is far less clear.  Since Section
7.5 only applies to meetings, there is no direct conflict between Section
7.5 and Section 6.  However, there is still a peculiar result (i.e., votes
at meetings can carry with less than 10% of the total number of Reps with
rights to vote, but votes outside of meetings will only carry if at least
51% of the total number of Reps with rights to vote cast their votes in
favor). Without a specific statement that this result was intended, I have
to believe this result is a mistake and was not intended.  Is this an
"ambiguity" such that Section 10 of the R&P dictates that the Charter must
prevail?  Unfortunately, I don't think it is -- even though it is (in my
view) a "clear error."

So where does that leave us?  Here are my thoughts:

   - We need to revise the R&P and/or the Charter to eliminate this absurd
   result, and have clear rules regarding votes at meetings and at other
   times.  If there is a reason to have different rules (and different
   outcomes), the differing rules need to be clearly states and the reason for
   the difference also needs to be clearly stated.
   - In my mind, there is an open question: *Did the ChAC make a reasonable
   effort to achieve a rough consensus*?  This is a necessary predicate to
   a formal vote; if we did not do so, the formal vote violates the Charter
   and R&P and is most likely invalid.  *I am far from sure that we made
   the required "reasonable effort" to reach consensus before shifting to the
   Surveymonkey poll.*
   - Did the Surveymonkey poll constitute a "formal vote"?  The term
   "formal vote" is not defined in the Charter or the R&P; however, it is
   reasonable to say that it refers to any vote that is used to make a
   decision within any deliberative body.  I think it's also fair to say that
   a "formal vote" is meant to contrast with surveys, polls and other actions
   that are intended to "take the temperature of the room," "get a sense of
   where we are," "gauge interest" but that are not intended to have the vote
   result be recognized as the decision of the body. *Unless there is
   ambiguity in how the poll was posed to the ChAC, I think it's highly likely
   that it should be considered a formal vote.*
   - *We do have some options:*
      - Section 6 of the R&P provides more flexibility in decision-making
      than the discussion of consensus vs. formal vote would indicate:
Decisions
      regarding advice and recommendations can "be made in person and/or by any
      means of electronic communication (e.g. email, text messages
applications,
      electronic voting systems, remote audio/video conferencing
platforms, among
      others."  Any of these methods can be used to arrive at consensus (or to
      take a formal vote, as long as the process is "open and transparent").
      - *As a result (and considering the rule regarding consensus efforts
      before voting), we could turn back to any of these other methods or to a
      meeting to make a consensus decision and use that consensus
decision as the
      basis for giving formal advice to the BoT, essentially superseding this
      vote result.*
      - I think the current result is technically correct, but I think that
      is unfair and unfortunate and does not represent the intentions of the
      active ChAC membersx.  It's clear that both proposals had strong backing;
      diluting that by casting that as a recommendation rather than advice
      weakens the result and leaves its intended result less likely to be
      achieved.

Apologies for the TL,DR nature of this email, but I did want to be as
detailed as I could be (at 3 am) to get these thoughts.

Best regards,

Greg




On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 6:19 PM Christopher Hawker via Chapter-delegates <
chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> For clarity, 7.5 reads as follows:
>
> *The Chapters AC, the Steering Committee and Sub­committees shall normally
> take decisions by consensus among participants. Formal votes, which shall
> be by a majority of those present at the meeting, are only to be used if
> rough consensus cannot be reached after reasonable effort.*
>
>
> Section 7 of the Charter refers to meetings held by the ChAC. This poll
> was not held during a meeting therefore 7.5 does not apply. If you wanted
> to go down this route, you could rely on 7.2 and gather support from
> another 9 chapters through a petition to the Chair to call a meeting at
> which consensus could be sought or a formal vote if rough consensus cannot
> be reached (s7.5).
>
> I understand the concern and fully support the two proposals, however,
> there is no point in arguing semantics regarding the definition of words.
>
> Regards,
> Christopher Hawker
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Eduardo Diaz <eduardodiazrivera at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, July 8, 2024 1:28 AM
> *To:* Christopher Hawker <chris at thesysadmin.au>
> *Cc:* Greg Shatan <greg at isoc-ny.org>;
> 0F9Dn000000QayiKAC at post.dn-71ceimaa.usa576.chatter.salesforce.com <
> 0F9Dn000000QayiKAC at post.dn-71ceimaa.usa576.chatter.salesforce.com>; ISOC
> Chapter Delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Chapter-delegates] The results of the recent polls
> regarding two issues from the Puerto Rico Chapter and the proposed test for
> transmission to the BoT.
>
> See my comments below:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 10:54 AM Christopher Hawker <chris at thesysadmin.au>
> wrote:
>
> Hello Ed,
>
> A majority (according to the Meriam-Webster Dictionary) is defined as "a
> number or percentage equaling more than half of a total", in this case as
> there were 101 chapters with a "right to vote" this majority number would
> be 51 (as this is more than 50% of the eligible voting chapters), i.e. a
> minimum of 51 chapters must have voted "YES" in order to request a formal
> response from the Board of Trustees. As this requirement was not met, the
> ChAC-SC is unable to request a formal response. Having said that, as Cheryl
> has advised given that a majority was reached in the number of respondents,
> they proposed sending a recommendation to the BoT.
>
> The term "majority" is not explicitly defined in the Rules and Procedures
> and is thus subject to interpretation, creating ambiguity.
>
> In order to avoid interpretation and ambiguity, it would be an
> argument/defense to use the definition of a word from a recognised and
> published dictionary (e.g. Collins, Oxford, Meriam-Webster).
>
> As you said, 7.5 of the ChAC charter reads: "Formal votes, which shall be
> by a majority of those present at the meeting, are only to be used if rough
> consensus cannot be reached". This poll/vote was not taken during a
> meeting; it was an email sent out to chapters who were entitled to cast a
> vote in the poll. As such, 7.5 does not apply.
>
>
> *Comment by -ed: **Section 7.5 should have been followed from the
> beginning. According to Section 7.5, the process requires holding a meeting
> to discuss the proposals and attempt to reach a rough consensus. If rough
> consensus is not reached during that meeting, a formal vote should be taken
> at the same meeting. The concept of a "consensus poll" does not exist in
> any ChAC governing documents.*
>
> *Section 10 of the ChAC Charter was included to address ambiguities. We
> must look into the governing documents for proper definitions given the
> context of the ChAC, not rely on a dictionary.*
>
> Therefore, the consensus poll, equated here to a formal vote, is valid
> under Section 7.5 of the ChAC Charter.
>
> This is not the case. This is not a valid vote under 7.5 of the ChAC
> charter as this poll/vote was not taken during a ChAC meeting.
>
> While there was strong support from those who did vote/poll, it does not
> meet the requirements to trigger a formal reply from the BoT. Having said
> this (and as mentioned earlier), the ChAC-SC recognises the strong support
> from those who voted and as a result will request a reply from the BoT.
> Unless a new vote/poll is held and it is verified that each eligible voting
> chapter has received their virtual ballot paper, this is as good as it's
> going to get.
>
> Regards,
> Christopher Hawker
>
> P.S. To avoid any ambiguity, I do not have an opinion regarding
> challenging the interpretation of the polling results and this email is
> simply to clarify some definitions, which may make things easier to
> understand. I am also not affiliated with the ChAC-SC, BoT, or any other
> ISOC mechanism other than my position on the board for the Australian
> chapter. This is also sent in my personal capacity.
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Chapter-delegates <chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org> on
> behalf of Eduardo Diaz via Chapter-delegates <
> chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
> *Sent:* Monday, July 8, 2024 12:10 AM
> *To:* Greg Shatan <greg at isoc-ny.org>
> *Cc:* 0F9Dn000000QayiKAC at post.dn-71ceimaa.usa576.chatter.salesforce.com <
> 0F9Dn000000QayiKAC at post.dn-71ceimaa.usa576.chatter.salesforce.com>; ISOC
> Chapter Delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Chapter-delegates] The results of the recent polls
> regarding two issues from the Puerto Rico Chapter and the proposed test for
> transmission to the BoT.
>
>
> Dear ChAC-SC,
>
>
> ISOC Puerto Rico Board formally challenges the interpretation of the
> recent polling results regarding the two proposals submitted by our chapter
> to the ChAC-SC. The current stance, which prevents these proposals from
> being sent as formal advice due to an alleged insufficient participation
> level, is based on a misinterpretation of our governing documents.
>
>
>
> The phrase “…which shall be by a majority of those with rights to vote…”
> in Section 6 of the ChAC Rules and Procedures (ChAC RoPs) was intended to
> include only chapters in good standing with a designated ChAC delegate. The
> term "majority" is not explicitly defined in the Rules and Procedures and
> is thus subject to interpretation, creating ambiguity. Section 10 of the
> same document addresses such ambiguities: “In any case of ambiguity... the
> provision of the [ChAC] Charter shall prevail.”
>
>
>
> The ChAC Charter (ChAC C), Section 7.5, clearly states: “Formal votes,
> which shall be by a majority of those present at the meeting, are only to
> be used if rough consensus cannot be reached.” This means the participants,
> not the entire electorate, are counted for formal votes.
>
>
>
> Therefore, the consensus poll, equated here to a formal vote, is valid
> under Section 7.5 of the ChAC Charter. Both proposals received majority
> support from those who participated, thus meeting the requirements for
> formal advice submission. Treating these as recommendations undermines the
> Charter’s intent.
>
>
> ISOC Puerto Rico Board insists that both proposals be transmitted to the
> ISOC Board as formal advice.
>
> -ed
>
> On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 7:29 PM Cheryl Langdon-Orr via Chapter-delegates <
> chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> The message you find attached outlines the procedures and results of the
> poll conducted by the Chapters Advisory Council (ChAC) of the Internet
> Society, conducted via Survey Monkey between June 17th and July 1st, and
> aimed to gather support for two proposals from the Puerto Rico Chapter
> among the 101 Chapters with voting rights. The first proposal was to open
> the Chapter Delegate email list to all Chapter Members as observers, while
> the second was to reinstate funding for the ISOC LIVE video and archiving
> services.
>
> The results showed that while a majority of responding Chapters supported
> both proposals, the required level of support for approval required by the
> ChAC Rules and Procedures for sending advice to the Board of Trustees still
> needs to be reached. Specifically, 66.04% voted in favour of the first
> proposal, and for the second, 88.68% voted in favour. However, due to the
> rules requiring a majority of all eligible Chapters to vote 'yes,' the
> proposals still need to pass.
>
> Despite the ChAC being unable to send “formal advice” to the Board of
> Trustees, the ChAC Steering Committee is taking a proactive step. We
> propose sending a “recommendation” to the BoT regarding the two proposals
> since their approval was clear among the poll respondents.
>
> I've included more details in the attached PDF. If you need additional
> information or access to the specific results and discussions, we have also
> included below reference links to summaries and presentations available on
> Box.com.
>
>
>
> *Cheryl Langdon-Or**r*,
> Chair 2024 of the ChAC -SC
>
>
> <https://about.me/cheryl.LangdonOrr?promo=email_sig&utm_source=product&utm_medium=email_sig&utm_campaign=gmail_api&utm_content=thumb>
> Cheryl Langdon-Orr
> about.me/cheryl.LangdonOrr
> <https://about.me/cheryl.LangdonOrr?promo=email_sig&utm_source=product&utm_medium=email_sig&utm_campaign=gmail_api&utm_content=thumb>
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