[tei-council] Electing a TEI Technical Council Chair for next year.

[Fabio Ciotti]

I agree wit Brett on the theoretical point of view. Secret vote is a
guarantee for the freedom of the voters. But there are also some
social and etchical concerns: imagine that member A is a friend of
member B. Now B and C are standing for election. A really think that C
would be a better choice but he has a special personal relationship
with B. If the vote is open A is in a controversial situation, as you
can imagine: either he risks to break the mutual trust with his friend
or he votes for a candidate less fit for the role.
I could add a number of other hypothetical situations, changing some
parameters, in which open vote even in a small community could bring
to personal or collective crisis.
Now let's say that this situations will probably never happen in the
Council, but in setting rules valid erga omnes for the future we must
consider even the less probable conditions.

That's why I suggested that iff there is only one candidate and iff
nobody ask for secret vote the choice can be an open expression of
unanimous consensus. In this case we can of course use e-mail in this
list to express the vote.

If there are more than one candidates or if one member of the Council
(why, even if there is only one candidate? Because he doesn't want to
vote him but doesn't feel to make it explicitly for instance) asks for
a formal and secret election then the current Chair will set up the
system for the secret ballot (opavote or else).

In my previous mail I was suggesting that the senior member (but
senior in what sense, age or years spent serving in the Council?)
would be the one managing the election and counting votes (in analogy
with what happens for Rectors election in Italy), since the current
chair in theory can have the interest to favour someone that share his
own views. But if the voting system is anonymous this is not any more
a real issue. So he can be the current Chair or a member designated by
him. I would keep the exclusions of members standing for election, as
a formal safety norm. I think an outgoing member would be the better
and safer choice, as James said.

I also agree with Martin that members must explicitly set forth their
candidacy, for the reasons he mentioned, but also because to be the
Chair is a responsibility and require and explicit act of assumption
of responsibility (we wouldn't elect someone who doesn't want to be
elected. The only context where this happen, to my knowledge, is the
election of the pope...).

In practice I think that most of the times the council will designate
its chair with an open and shared consensus towards the most adequate,
skilled and willing member. But it would be better to define a Common
Law that can lead to a correct and not controversial election even in
he case of a more conflictual composition of this body.

Fabio



2013/10/31 Brett Barney <bbarney2 at unl.edu>:
> Well it certainly is a surprisingly lively thread, isn't it?
>
> I don't have a horse in the race, really, but I am a bit surprised that anyone would advocate "open voting" systems on the grounds that they promote harmony. They might tend to promote toing of the party line, but that's faux harmony at best, I'd say. Nor, I think, does privacy = secrecy. One way to read the Snowden story is that the man was exposing a secret government program to invade privacy. Allowing individuals privacy is not the same as allowing powers-that-be to operate in secret.
>
> And yes, James, if when the dust settles someone needs to set up the opavote thingy I'm still willing.
>
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