OMOV - How would it work

[Roger de Coverly]

Just a comment: with four weeks to go to the ECF Council my Club has heard not a word from any of the three Leagues & Counties it belongs to as to what our views are. (To be fair I have not canvassed my Club members either)

As in most walks of life the decisions will be taken by individuals or small cabals - there is no direct democracy within our culture and won't be in chess unless ECF goes to OMOV

Any thoughts on how an OMOV would work? It's difficult to see how you would combine it with a Council style structure where twenty or thirty people assemble, discuss issues and wield block votes.

It's quite easy to see that you could have polls or e-polls regarding the election of directors, but you could do that with a Council structure as well (the electorate is the couple of hundred in theory able to attend the Council meetings). Would it really be plausible to hold votes amongst players at large on the list of motions that Council has to debate and vote on?

I know that Companies with a wide shareholder base hold AGMs and that any shareholder can attend. In practice it's the directors who run the Company and the only say the wider shareholder base gets is the election of directors and the odd strategic vote.

So in a voluntary organisation aren't you just relying on the board of directors to make all the decisions, not least those issues which it chooses to put to a vote of the wider membership?

[Roger de Coverly]

OMOV can work, it works well in other hobbies/interests so why not Chess.

I don't think anyone's necessarily disagreeing with this, but could you share the benefit of your experience, particularly with regard to how directors decide which decisions to keep to themselves and which decisions to throw open to the general electorate? A Council structure forces directors to have regard to a wider range of opinion than an OMOV that only had the power to elect directors.

[AustinElliott]

For info, thought I would describe the set-up I'm familiar with for some non-chess bodies.

For the scientific societies I belong to, and other ones I know about, having an elected Council (made up of members who put themselves up for election by the membership and serve 3-4 yr terms) is typical. Voting for these Council slots is usually via a website plus/or voting at an AGM (i.e. you can vote online or at a meeting, which occurs at an annual congress where a lot of the membership will be attending).

The elected Council would then typically meet three/four times a year. It also elects officers (from within its no) to be part of an Exec Ctte who meet more often (monthly?) to sort out the day-to-day stuff. The Exec Ctte also includes a salaried Chef Exec and a President (eminent person in the business, cf perhaps a widely respected GM for chess!) who chairs Exec Ctte and Council but (if an appointee rather than someone who was elected) does not vote at the latter.

Decisions on substantive things are taken by majority vote at Council (i.e. at the society's "parliament"), but in the case of major things (like constitutional changes), they can be (and sometimes are) made the subject of a OMOV referendum.

Having also looked at a couple of professional associations in things to do with medicine, I get the impression this is a fairly standard set-up for societies (including ones which are charities) and professional associations.

[Roger de Coverly]

having an elected Council (made up of members who put themselves up for election by the membership and serve 3-4 yr terms) is typical. Voting for these Council slots is usually via a website plus/or voting at an AGM (i.e. you can vote online or at a meeting, which occurs at an annual congress where a lot of the membership will be attending).

It's a very interesting notion to elect the Council at the British Championships. The immediate problem would be that you might not get more candidates than positions on the Council.

Assuming you did though, then presumably a national profile as a player, arbiter or organiser would be helpful. Or would it?

[AustinElliott]

I wouldn't say there was usually a MAJOR excess of candidates over slots on the Council for the science societies...!

If (and I'm guessing same is true with the ECF) being on a Council involves some sort of commitment (4 meetings / yr in London which can be pretty protracted, reading lengthy and inevitably often less than exciting meeting papers, sitting on one or more subcommittees with more meetings and associated paperwork), then there is inevitably some kind of "self-selection" of the kind of people who put themselves forward. But people can (and do) put themselves up if there is some issue or set of issues they want to make representations about.

For the scientific society that I'm most familiar with, the candidates have to get half a dozen other members to nominate them, and then write a little piece (which appears online) about themselves and why they want to be on the Council. There is then a period of a couple of months during which members can vote for their preferred candidates via the website. Finally, there is a vote at the AGM. The "combined" totals of online and AGM votes then give the results of the election.

While being well-known for some reason almost certainly makes a difference to your prospects of being elected, as a member considering who to vote for you can also see who nominated whom, what their job is in what kind of organisation (e.g. in science which Univ/company), what part of the country they're from, as well as what they say about themselves.