Reduce quorum form ⅔ to ½ for director elections

[bg002h]

SITUATION: The most recent election was not definitive in one round due to failure to achieve approval by a majority of a quorum.

BACKGROUND: The current quorum for director elections is two-thirds of the corresponding member class. An election winner must achieve a majority of this quorum. Quorum serves two purposes: 1) establishes that a sufficient fraction of the membership have been reached with a ballot and 2) a sufficient fraction of the members wish the ballot to be brought for a vote.

However, in the most recent election we had several voters who wished for the election to be held but did not have a preference for any candidate. While ballots not supporting a particular candidate do help achieve quorum, such ballots also raise the bar that a successful candidate must achieve. This is not the intent of quorum.

ACTION: This is the first of two pull requests. In this request, the quorum requirement is lowered to one-half from two-thirds. A subsequent pull request will describe a method for reducing the "majority of a quorum" requirement to reflect a majority of those that submitted a ballot supporting a candidate after quorum requirement achieved.

RESPONSE: Pull request submitted for community and board discussion.

[pmlaw]

The Board agreed in spirit with the pull request and the need for the change, but wanted to be sure that changing the quorum threshold didn't result in any unintended consequences. Greg agreed to do a quick analysis for the board and the Board committed to a vote following that, at the next Board meeting.

[bg002h]

No reason to rush these. I think both #21 and #22 work best together, but, a combination of the two makes the most sense to me.

[bg002h]

No reason to rush these. I think both #21 and #22 work best together, but, a combination of the two makes the most sense to me.