ECF voting arrangements

[John Swain]

I understand that the ECF is intending to reconsider its "political" make-up, possibly going for a OMOV system.

The AGM thread contains a number of comments about the ECF's voting arrangements, some of which express dissatisfaction with the way the present system works. The voting situation for the recent AGM was as follows (thanks to Mick Norris for providing the link):

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... -8-Oct.pdf

As a relative novice on this subject (but as someone who, as Notts President many years ago, was happy and relieved to see others attend the BCF AGM as Notts rep. rather than having to do it myself!) I would be interested to hear what others think of this voting "system". I can see that it was originally intended to reflect population and participation, but it seems that it may no longer do so and may have outlived its usefulness in the present membership (rather than game-fee) age.

As a secondary issue, why are some congresses enfranchised and others out in the cold? Is it simply that some Congress Directors have bothered to apply for voting recognition and others haven't?

The present system looks harder to justify than the pre-1832 parliamentary system with all its rotten boroughs and archaic arrangements!

[Roger de Coverly]

As a secondary issue, why are some congresses enfranchised and others out in the cold? Is it simply that some Congress Directors have bothered to apply for voting recognition and others haven't?

That's one reason. Another is that some smaller events elect to have their grading done by the local league or county. In those circumstances, voting rights accrue to the larger body.

[Alex Holowczak]

I can see that it was originally intended to reflect population and participation, but it seems that it may no longer do so and may have outlived its usefulness in the present membership (rather than game-fee) age.

The BCF probably had other funding methods in the past, but by the time we got to the 1980s, we had the county levy. I understand that this meant that only counties affiliated to the BCF, and that counties were responsible for paying their share of the levy, based on the expected amount of chess played within that county. Some of the consequences were:
(1) Middlesex were accused by Warwickshire (rightly or wrongly) of "buying votes" by telling the levy committee they had far more chess in their area than was actually being played
(2) Warwickshire was nearly bankrupted, because it had no direct control over the chess in its area; for example, the Birmingham, Coventry and Leamington Leagues counted as chess in Warwickshire, but Warwickshire ran none of them. They therefore had to beg, borrow or steal money from these leagues to pay the levy.

Warwickshire weren't too chuffed with this, and so they decided that there needed to be a better way to count the amount of activity in the area. And so, the idea of everyone paying Game Fee was born (although Stewart Reuben will observe that the London League already paid Game Fee in the 1980s at his suggestion). Game Fee started in about 1994.

You know how the Game Fee -> Membership transition happened.

As a secondary issue, why are some congresses enfranchised and others out in the cold? Is it simply that some Congress Directors have bothered to apply for voting recognition and others haven't?

Three reasons are possible:
(1) Because they haven't bothered to affiliate. (NB Affiliation costs £58 or Deemed Game Fee paid, even today. So if you run a tournament with 29 standardplay results (i.e. 14.5 games), you get free affiliation.)
(2) They bothered to affiliate, but their membership lapsed when they didn't pay Game Fee. They probably haven't noticed they haven't re-affiliated yet.
(3) Congresses (and indeed club-internal stuff) can nominate their counties to inherit their total of results for counting votes. Some of these are obvious: The Warwickshire Championship counts towards Warwickshire's results. The Nottinghamshire Open counts towards Nottinghamshire. Blackpool counting towards Lancashire was less obvious. As was Frodsham and Cheshire. When counting results, I often had to count up club internal results from the grading database, and to be honest, it was a pain in the backside. I had to look up which county random club internal tournaments were in, although the identity of the Grader was usually enough to give me a clue.

The present system looks harder to justify than the pre-1832 parliamentary system with all its rotten boroughs and archaic arrangements!

Why? Rotten boroughs were difficult to justify because it gave votes to places where no one lived. Whether one agrees with the current system or not, it does at least give votes to organisations that are responsible for paying the ECF money.

[Dragoljub Sudar]

We could easily simplify the voting process. Each member should be represented by just one body and not several as is the case currently.

Require every member to declare which county he 'belongs to' and give counties votes proportional to the number of members they represent. Get rid of votes for everyone else except officers, trustees and immediate past officers. Get rid of votes by unions, leagues, congress organisers, chess associations, direct member reps etc.

The current system is crazy as it gives 78 votes to congress organisers who don't represent anyone plus 89 votes to leagues but as those league players are in a county they are already being represented. Similarly for the 10 'other organisations' votes, the 21 Union votes and the 10 'direct members' votes, as they are representing players already represented by their counties.

[Roger de Coverly]

it does at least give votes to organisations that are responsible for paying the ECF money.

In what way does a FIDE rated Congress directly pay the ECF any money other than the recoup of FIDE rating fees for foreign players? On a marginal basis, every new Congress costs the ECF money when it doesn't attract any new players by virtue of the extra FIDE cost and the ECF's own time and expense in grading it.

[Alex Holowczak]

We could easily simplify the voting process. Each member should be represented by just one body and not several as is the case currently.

Require every member to declare which county he 'belongs to' and give counties votes proportional to the number of members they represent. Get rid of votes for everyone else except officers, trustees and immediate past officers. Get rid of votes by unions, leagues, congress organisers, chess associations, direct member reps etc.

What would be the point of using "counties", though? Under this system, I could declare for Kent if I didn't like my county delegate.

Each member wouldn't be represented by one body, they'd be represented by a human being of their choice. It would just be that each county nominates 1 human being to go into the pool of people who members can nominate.

[Roger de Coverly]

What would be the point of using "counties", though? Under this system, I could declare for Kent if I didn't like my county delegate.

If you still allowed multiple votes, every extra person could increase the influence of that county's delegate and that county's AGM.

It could be confined to Congress votes. Thus you strip Congress organisers of most or all of their voting rights and redistribute them by reference to the preferences of those who play in their Congresses.

[Alex Holowczak]

it does at least give votes to organisations that are responsible for paying the ECF money.

In what way does a FIDE rated Congress directly pay the ECF any money other than the recoup of FIDE rating fees for foreign players? On a marginal basis, every new Congress costs the ECF money when it doesn't attract any new players by virtue of the extra FIDE cost and the ECF's own time and expense in grading it.

FIDE rating is irrelevant for the purposes of calculating ECF voting entitlement.

You count games played, and hence Deemed Game Fee paid.

You might be deemed to have paid this Game Fee in two ways:
(1) By being invoiced the requisite fees (e.g. £2/player/game in a league)
(2) By having it waived because they're members.

[Alex Holowczak]

It could be confined to Congress votes. Thus you strip Congress organisers of most or all of their voting rights and redistribute them by reference to the preferences of those who play in their Congresses.

You could do that, but how do you administer that? If someone has to go through every single congress submission and count up the number of votes to reallocate to counties, it'd take ages. So someone would need to code something to do that calculation for you. We'd need to find someone to do it for free, or pay someone.

[Roger de Coverly]

(2) By having it waived because they're members.

That's exactly the point. The ECF doesn't get any income from waived fees and in the context of a FIDE rated tournament it demands everyone is either foreign or an ECF Gold member, so it will never collect anything.

[Alex Holowczak]

(2) By having it waived because they're members.

That's exactly the point. The ECF doesn't get any income from waived fees and in the context of a FIDE rated tournament it demands everyone is either foreign or an ECF Gold member, so it will never collect anything.

Apologies - I must have missed the point of the AGM where we decided that the fee for Gold membership was £0.

[Dragoljub Sudar]

What would be the point of using "counties", though? Under this system, I could declare for Kent if I didn't like my county delegate.

Each member wouldn't be represented by one body, they'd be represented by a human being of their choice. It would just be that each county nominates 1 human being to go into the pool of people who members can nominate.

It would be far more democratic than the current system as your county rep is accountable at your county AGM for how he/she votes and has been elected to represent that county and may have even been required to vote a certain way.

[Roger de Coverly]

Apologies - I must have missed the point of the AGM where we decided that the fee for Gold membership was £0.

A player pays £ 27 or the excess over Bronze or Silver to enter their first FIDE rated Congress of the season. Neither they nor the Congress organiser pay anything extra to the ECF when they enter the second.

As many players have needed to be Gold members to play in the 4NCL, you could attribute the revenue for everyone registered in a 4NCL team to the 4NCL. What's left over, you attribute to Congresses.

[Roger de Coverly]

So someone would need to code something to do that calculation for you. We'd need to find someone to do it for free, or pay someone.

If the data is available in a sensible format and obviously that's a big if, it's not greatly different from the code needed to work out Game Fee. You just run the entire grading file against the membership list and the county totals drop out the end. If the grading list subdivided games into Congress games and others, you could do it with just the grading list. So if I decide that my x Congress half games a year are to be attributed to y, all you need is x and which organisation is y.

[Sean Hewitt]

What would be the point of using "counties", though? Under this system, I could declare for Kent if I didn't like my county delegate.

Each member wouldn't be represented by one body, they'd be represented by a human being of their choice. It would just be that each county nominates 1 human being to go into the pool of people who members can nominate.

It would be far more democratic than the current system as your county rep is accountable at your county AGM for how he/she votes and has been elected to represent that county and may have even been required to vote a certain way.

Not according to some at this years ECF AGM.

But why vest the authority in county reps? Why not have OMOV, or have members elect their own reps? Surely that's more democratic?