RE: [PNB_Elections:814] One year until next election. (2012)

[Casey Peters]

Friends,
I wrote to this email list a couple of times earlier this year to urge action
in a timely manner to forestall potential problems with the upcoming
Pacifica Foundation elections. It is important to tune in now to prepare
for the 2012 and 1013 foundation election cycles.
It is, however, too late to reset the 2012 qualification database to zero.
According to Article Four, Section Five of the By-Laws, the deadline
for filing as a candidate for Delegate is July 1.
But that does not mean it is too late to address the problems raised here.
1. Duplicate memberships can be reduced through membership cards.
Each radio station member would have a given number that stays with them
throughout their membership. Perhaps it would be possible to create
a national membership, picking one station as primarily affiliation, to deter
the problem of people belonging to more than one station for voting purposes
(banned by the By-Laws but with no practical enforcement).
2. "Gift" memberships - this is a record-keeping matter, and all stations should
have a uniform way of recording all categories of membership.
3. Waivers are to be handled on an individual basis as per the By-Laws, not
wholesale. Elections supervisors may have to oversee potential abuse by
Local Station Boards.
4. Verification of staff membership is a tricky matter that is handled differently
at each station, and is handled well at none. It cannot be controlled by station
management, and should be done in an open process on an ongoing basis.
This includes fair secure record-keeping for station volunteers (including but not
limited to just programmers).
Allow me to implore members of the PNB Elections committee to review the
recommendations made by all National and Local Election Supervisors over the
past decade as a way of seeking solutions to the recurrent problems experienced
in the administration of the key to governance of the Pacifica Foundation.
As always, I am willing to help with any questions you may have.
-- Casey Peters
Two-time former KPFK LES and
former National Elections Supervisor

<-----Original Message----->
>From: Alex [ale...@optonline.net]
>Sent: 11/2/2011 6:38:06 PM
>To: pnb_el...@googlegroups.com
>Subject: RE: [PNB_Elections:814] One year until next election. (2012)
>
>Hello, I was a member of this committee last year as the PNB representative
>from WBAI.
>
>I am sure you have gone over this already but allow me to enumerate what I see
>as the problems with membership lists:
>
>1. Duplicate memberships. (Eg, the same person at the same address can
>have a slightly different spelling of his name or the apartment might be
>specified in one case and not the other. Mailing houses have software to
>eliminate those kind of things. Generally we rely on the mailing houses to
>clean up our membership lists. Why not do our own cleanup before we even send
>the list to the mailing house?
>2. &#8220Gift&#8221 memberships. These are not legal under our bylaws but we seem to
>get some anyway. Typical is someone asking for memberships for his or her
>family members at $25 a crack. This could be quite innocent but it is also open
>to the abuse known as buying votes.
>3. Membership waivers.. Our bylaws give LSB&#8217s the option to provide
>&#8220waivers&#8221. This is a constant source of abuse and has been so at WBAI. The
>Elections Supervisor must insist that no waiver can be granted without solid
>evidence that the person in question really meets the eligibility criteria and
>he or she cannot just take the word of some committee that that is the case.
>Otherwise there is the possibility of another way to buy votes, and this time
>for free.
>4. Verification of staff membership. This is by far the most important
>thing to do. The staff election is the most open to abuse and since a staff
>vote counts about as much as 20 listener votes it is also the most tempting
>target for those who would abuse the system. No elections supervisor should be
>approved who is not prepared to independently verify the membership status of
>all unpaid staff in consultation with the General Manager. It&#8217s that simple but
>this has never been done.
>
>I am not sure how you propose to address any of these items with the idea of
>starting the database from zero. And since management has to keep a membership
>list of current members, regardless if there is an election or not, you are in
>effect asking someone to maintain another, separate list although obviously
>related to the active membership list. Who will be doing that? I am sure you
>can probably program memsys to create a new database from the old one and
>eliminating all those who whose membership expires before the due date while
>adding new members during the year but I am not sure what the gain would be.
>
>I think the best way to make sure we have a good election in 2012 (and not a
>repeat of last year&#8217s disaster) is to make sure we hire good elections
>supervisors. It might mean that we need to pay more for quality people than we
>have been doing in the past. Also the Elections Supes might need more start up
>time than they had in the past and certainly can use more support locally from
>staff and volunteers and management.
>
>If you agree with some of these suggestions it would be something you might
>consider recommending to the PNB and the sooner we start planning for the 2012
>elections the better.
>
>Alex Steinberg
>WBAI listener representative on the PNB (who will NOT be running in the 2012
>election due to being termed out.)
>
>From: pnb_el...@googlegroups.com [mailto:pnb_el...@googlegroups.com] On
>Behalf Of Chris Collins
>Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 4:35 PM
>To: pnb_el...@googlegroups.com
>Subject: [PNB_Elections:814] One year until next election. (2012)
>
>Folks,
>
>After all the experience of holding these elections for the decade, this
>upcoming one can be the smoothest
>today. The most transparent. The most democratic. The most efficient and cost
>effective.
>
>The voter list is always a huge problem. Isn't it the case that on the very
>first day of the one-year
>membership window, there are zero eligible members. And each day from then until
>the end
>of the membership window each donor/contributor gets the membership and place on the
>voter rolls.
>
>Wouldn't it be smart to sort of start with a zero in the database, and more
>closely and carefully maintain
>and manage these up until it needs to be compiled into a voter roll.
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