Guild Elections

Table of Contents

• Background
• The Referendum
• Arguments for Elections
• Arguments against Elections
• Go To Vote! (Full members only)
• The Original Motion (for reference)
• The Guild Bylaws (for reference)

Background

The Governing Board is considering the issues of the next election, scheduled to be held in September 2002. The first Guild election was held in February 1998; prior to that, vacancies on the Board -- from terms expiring after 3 years or from mid-term resignations -- were filled by a vote of the Governing Board.

The bylaws specify that in order to have a valid election, at least 10% of the voting population of the Guild must cast their votes. At the time of the last election, there were approximately 880 "Plus" members eligible to vote. 58 votes were cast, however, which meant that the 1998 election failed to achieve quorum.

In the absense of a valid member vote, the Governing Board appointed one former candidate to the Board, and re-appointed the incumbent Board member who was up for re-election.

The failure of the membership to achieve quorum when voting for the Board members has cast serious doubts on the future of membership elections.

The Referendum

To gauge if there is any interest in future elections among the voting membership, the Guild is having a member referendum vote on the following question: Should the Guild continue to elect Governing Board members by a popular vote of the membership?

This voting is open only to Full (paid) members of the Guild, and the results will be used by the Board to determine future Guild policy regarding elections.

The voting period is now complete; it was from Sunday, Oct 4 to Sunday, Oct 11. The results will be released to the hwg-announce mailing list; if you are interested in subscriping to that list please see the hwg-announce page. You may also want to bookmark this page you are reading now, for easy reference during the voting period.

Arguments for Elections

The primary argument for elections is obvious -- it gives the members a voice in deciding who makes the decisions for the Guild, including how their dues moneys are spent.

Elections can bring a diversity of opinion to the Governing Board, making the Board even more directly representative of the membership of the Guild.

If you wish to contribute additional arguments "for" membership general elections to this page, you may submit them to site contacts. Not all submissions may be accepted.

Arguments against Elections

Elections are time consuming, difficult to run, expend Guild volunteer resources that are already taxed, and produce nothing. The failure of the 1998 vote sends a clear signal: Nearly 95% of the Guild's voting membership does not care about voting. The use of Guild resources and effort for a meaningless vote is not justifiable.

Members of the Governing Board must work together for the good of the Guild; cooperation and compatability with the other Board members are essential qualities. The GB members have to work with whomever is elected -- and the general membership does not -- and the Board may be more qualified to judge who would be a valuable addition to the GB.

Membership elections turn a very important task -- deciding what is best for HTML Writers Guild, Inc. -- into a personality contest. It may not be in the best interests of the corporation for the Board to be chosen based on a popular vote.

Public election debates and voting may discourage some potentially valuable Board members from seeking office, due to the scrutiny of a personality-based vote. This may result in a fewer qualified candidates willing to present themselves, affecting the overall quality of the Board.

If you wish to contribute additional arguments "against" membership general elections to this page, you may submit them to site contacts. Not all submissions may be accepted.

Voting Script