[reccom] Voting proposals

[David Wheeler]

Hello, one and all.

I hope that all of you have enjoyed your holidays.  It is now the new year (even according to the Chinese Calendar), yet we have a very long list of unfinished business from last year.  For whatever reasons, some of us sometimes find it difficult to vote in a timely manner and records pile up.  That is unfortunate to the process for several reasons.  First, poor Milt is aging at an unnatural rate from the frustration of members not following our bylaws.  Second, we are failing in our duties to the public which has trusted the Committee with review of their records, often after extensive efforts at documentation on their part.  I have more than once heard that people in the birding community are cynical and discouraged at our tardiness.  We are seen as non-responsive.  I've heard people say "what's the point?" [of submitting records for review].  That is a reputation and loss of good will that only hampers our mission.  And third, when a record is held up for more than a couple months, those who voted on it in a timely manner may forget much of their original reasoning.  The record is no longer fresh in their minds.  That means that they either have to study again to refamiliarize themselves with the record, or, to some extent, re-engage with less familiarity.  This is especially unfair for records that are very complex and require a lot of research.  I believe something should be done to make us more functional.

I have two proposals I'd like to float for consideration by the rest of you.  

1.  The first idea was discussed at the last Committee meeting in Ogden, and strikes me as a wonderful solution which allows for those times when something comes up that temporarily precludes us from voting (vacations, illnesses, life crises, or simply other priorities) with honor.  Apparently this is an idea used by some other Committees.  The basic idea is this:  we elect two Alternates to the voting members.  These Alternates vote on every record, just like a regular voting member, but their votes are only counted if a regular voting member (or two) does/do not vote in the prescribed time frame.  The regular voting member would not have to justify him or herself, nor would they be booted from the Committee.  Simply, their vote for that record would be replaced by a vote from one of the Alternates.

2.  The second idea is mine, so it probably has little precedent and may well be foolish in ways I have not even pondered.  But I throw it out there for your consideration because it is a possible partial solution to the problem of tardy voting.  Please feel free to savage the idea in a free discussion.  I have noticed over the years that there are some records that we Committee members would like to discuss before voting on the first time.  How many times have we written "I am voting NO in hopes of sending this to the second round" or some similar comment?  The problem is two-fold.  We then guess how the other members are voting just to vote contrary to them in order to move the record into the second round.  That is an undesirable solution because it introduces a vote into the record that you may not actually agree with (albeit qualified), and it is a gamble because you may guess wrong as to how the rest of the Committee is voting, thus failing to send the record into the second round precisely because you didn't vote what you thought was the logical vote in the first place.  So my proposal, is this:  Why not add another voting option to the yeah or nay ones we can choose form now?  Why not add an option like "pass record to second round for discussion," which doesn't force the voter to guess the intentions of others, doesn't pollute the record with these qualified spoiler votes (which I have employed myself), and doesn't keep the Committee voting process waiting on those who are unable to come to a decision on a particular record (often for very excellent, thoughtful reasons).  After all, sometimes there are difficult questions regarding particular records which would benefit from discussion.  I know I have repeatedly learned from comments of other members.

I suppose I would also propose that if we decide to incorporate the first idea about Alternate voters, we should allow the regular voting members to vote "abstain --pass my vote to Alternate" so as to allow the vote to proceed at a faster pace without having to wait for the deadline.

Please give my proposals some thought.  I would be very interested in your thoughts on how to solve our dilemma.

Thank you very much if you have made it down this far,

David Wheeler