Preferred option for electoral reform?

[Andrew Zigmond]

I'm probably creating a rod for my own back here but as we keep getting sidetracked on the discussion thread let's see if we can find a consensus.

[Roger de Coverly]

I'd suspect the most practical solution is that some of the Directors are elected by individual players and Council members with votes at the AGM are at least in part elected by players. The notion of nominating an organisation to represent you has some practical value. For many players, it would be their local club, except it wouldn't because clubs are not represented. Rather it would be the league or county that the club regarded as its primary affiliation,

In terms of Directors, it should be the player facing ones. So that's the President and the two non-Execs. Next in line would be the Director of Membership and the Home Director as those have the biggest impact on "ordinary" players.

In France, you need to be a club member to get a licence to be allowed to play domestic league or tournament chess. In compensation, the clubs get to elect the FFE President.

I dare say charitable status throws up in the air what can and cannot be done. There hasn't been much debate, not least because of a lack of clarity on what is proposed.

[Andrew Zigmond]

With the best will in the world we'll never find a consensus and certainly not on an unofficial and controversial forum. What we need is for somebody within the ECF (Sean possibly) to invite opinions, consider the options and present a proposal for the AGM next year that can either be accepted or rejected by Council. If the motion is successful a further year might be needed for the minutiae to be worked out and any new systems to be put into place.

[Roger de Coverly]

What we need is for somebody within the ECF (Sean possibly) to invite opinions, consider the options and present a proposal for the AGM next year that can either be accepted or rejected by Council.

The ECF Board have been instructed by the AGM to consider the issue of the voting balance between organisations and individuals. Given the existence of a Governance Committee, presumably that is invited or requested to do much of the research and leg work.

[David Sedgwick]

The ECF Board have been instructed by the AGM to consider the issue of the voting balance between organisations and individuals. Given the existence of a Governance Committee, presumably that is invited or requested to do much of the research and leg work.

That motion specified a two year timescale, appropriate in my view for a highly complex subject. The Board may feel that it's a task for an ad hoc specialist group rather than for the Governance Committee, although I would anticipate some overlap in personnel.

[Paolo Casaschi]

I'd suspect the most practical solution is that some of the Directors are elected by individual players and Council members with votes at the AGM are at least in part elected by players. The notion of nominating an organisation to represent you has some practical value. For many players, it would be their local club, except it wouldn't because clubs are not represented. Rather it would be the league or county that the club regarded as its primary affiliation,

This seems to me over complicated. Elections have a tendency to get messy, much better to have a very clean and simple structure with all board members elected in the same way, with each member having an equal weight into the election.

In France, you need to be a club member to get a licence to be allowed to play domestic league or tournament chess. In compensation, the clubs get to elect the FFE President.

Same in Italy. The member of the federation are the clubs. The club president is elected by club members; then the club president (or a delegate) votes for the federation elective offices with a number of tokens proportional to the number of members of the club. Also note, each player can only register with one club for the purposes of the federation, so there's no double-counting.

I'd say, either you do a plain OMOV or you setup a two-level system where each member picks one (and only one) voter that gets as many tokens as the number of people that picked him. Italian and French (and probably most of the rest of the world) use clubs for this, but it might not work here.

[Paul McKeown]

How about, "Don't Know" and how about, "Don't Care"?

It would be nice to have a *summary* pro and con each of the other choices, without actually having a debate.

[Paolo Casaschi]

How about, "Don't Know" and how about, "Don't Care"?

It would be nice to have a *summary* pro and con each of the other choices, without actually having a debate.

"Don't Care"? Why would you feel compelled to answer the poll if you don't care about it? Just ignore the thread and move on.

[Angus French]

The ECF Board have been instructed by the AGM to consider the issue of the voting balance between organisations and individuals. Given the existence of a Governance Committee, presumably that is invited or requested to do much of the research and leg work.

That motion specified a two year timescale, appropriate in my view for a highly complex subject. The Board may feel that it's a task for an ad hoc specialist group rather than for the Governance Committee, although I would anticipate some overlap in personnel.

Indeed. I'd like to see a group set up to investigate and I'd like it to produce a comprehensive briefing paper, with content which, roughly, might look like this:
- Background with a description of the current system (referencing the appropriate Articles of Association) and listing the reasons for change;
- Descriptions of representative democracy and direct democracy – what they are, the pros and cons of each, the circumstances in which each is commonly applied;
- Analysis of the voting systems employed by other organisations comparable to our own; and,
- Options for voting reform. How each would work and the pros and cons of each.

[Roger de Coverly]

This seems to me over complicated. Elections have a tendency to get messy, much better to have a very clean and simple structure with all board members elected in the same way, with each member having an equal weight into the election.

I don't think it practical to have an AGM that potentially 10,000 people can attend. So some form of restricted attendance and voting rights would be needed. Inevitably this is likely to enable proxy monopolists to continue this practice. Given that, is it sensible to have at least some if the Board not beholden to the Council vote holders? Apart from the cost of buying in a suitable election scheme, you could overlay the existing system with a handful of direct elections without much difficulty.

Actually it's difficult to have a meaningful debate without knowing where the constitutional issue on charity conversion is going. It appears to be accepted wisdom that part of the ECF's activities need to be removed to a separate body if it is to obtain charitable status for the remainder. As to whether the new body should be above, below or parallel to the ECF in organisational structure and how it would be financed appear undetermined. I suppose you could try to decipher the questions and charts to establish what structure was being considered. Charitable status itself is likely to put constraints on how the ECF is governed.

[Ian Kingston]

I've voted 'Other' because the various don't address the fundamental structural problem of the ECF, which is a mess. They all strike me as an exercise in deckchair rearrangement on a not-quite-sinking ship.

I like the idea of clubs being the basic unit of federation, doing away with Council. Some provision would need to made for those who don't have a club, but the basic idea has the virtue of simplicity and clarity. Instead of a communication line that goes (for example - there are lots of variations):

Member > Club > League > County > Council > Board

we could have:

Member > Club > Board

which looks like a good compromise. You don't get OMOV, but you do get a representative who knows you. Clearly congresses don't get a say, so it might be sensible to give them one or more votes each.

Is there an obvious reason why this wouldn't work? (Apart, obviously, from Council not being willing to vote itself out of existence.)

[Roger de Coverly]

Is there an obvious reason why this wouldn't work?

The obvious reason is that it requires everyone to be a member of a club or be disenfranchised. That's the case in France and Italy as part of their compulsory licensing.

Juniors taking part only in Junior events generally are not members of clubs in the conventional sense.

(edit) Company law requires an AGM and a definition of who has the right to vote at such a meeting. If you presume that only one attendee per club is permitted to attend and vote, then a Council like structure is always going to be needed to define the voting rights. (/edit)

[Ian Kingston]

Is there an obvious reason why this wouldn't work?

The obvious reason is that it requires everyone to be a member of a club or be disenfranchised. That's the case in France and Italy as part of their compulsory licensing.

I quite explicitly stated that those who are not members of clubs would have to be catered for.

Juniors taking part only in Junior events generally are not members of clubs in the conventional sense.

If they are ECF members then they can vote either via a club (if they are a member of one) or through the non-club-member route.

(edit) Company law requires an AGM and a definition of who has the right to vote at such a meeting. If you presume that only one attendee per club is permitted to attend and vote, then a Council like structure is always going to be needed to define the voting rights. (/edit)

Is that an insurmountable problem? Isn't the 'Council-like structure' the club delegates who attend the AGM? I confess to knowing next to nothing about company law, so this could be a show-stopper. But it doesn't seem to be in other countries.

[Gerry_Jepps]

I don't think it practical to have an AGM that potentially 10,000 people can attend.

I can't really see 10,000 ECF members clamouring to attend the AGM. In practice attendance would likely be restricted to some fraction of the 3% or so of players who actually take any interest in ECF matters. Probably these would mainly be County reps etc. tasked by their organisations to attend and report. There would be a few fresh faces of course. But that might not be a bad thing.

[Roger de Coverly]

Is that an insurmountable problem? Isn't the 'Council-like structure' the club delegates who attend the AGM? I confess to knowing next to nothing about company law, so this could be a show-stopper. But it doesn't seem to be in other countries.

Of course it is, but that's why a Council like structure is inevitable if you want or require to limit the potential attendees at an AGM. The likely practical consequence of one voter per club is that a group of clubs get together, as part of a League or otherwise and send one voter with proxies from the remaining clubs.

UK law isn't the same as French or Italian law, so whilst there are large numbers of possible structures, many would not be legal, particularly if charity law comes into play as well. It's already established that a ban on proxies, that unincorporated bodies such as leagues and counties may employ isn't legal under the Company Law that the ECF has had to follow ever since it was set up as a Company limited by Guarantee.

By contrast having a special franchise for the election of some but not all of the directors is legal provided you structure the articles of the Company to require it.