Y'all,

This forum topic is an appeal under Article 9, Section h of the bylaws:

Any action of the National Committee may be appealed by Party members comprising 5 or more party members, said appeal to be transmitted or called to the attention of both the Chair and the Secretary. In the case of such appeal, the appeal shall be published to the Party's web site and the Party's membership shall be polled on the question of whether to sustain or uphold the Committee's action to suspend. The poll shall open within 10 days of the appeal's publication, and shall remain open for 10 days. The National Committee's action shall be overturned by a vote of 2/3 or more among voting members.

As the section says, such an appeal requires the support of five party members to become operant. I'm the first. I request the support of four others, to be rendered by commenting as follows: "I join this appeal."

The act of the national committee under appeal is the committee's act of constituting itself with three, rather than the required four, at-large members.

The relief sought is nomination and election of the required fourth at-large committee member under the same rules as those in Article 9, Section e (which applies to vacancies created by suspension of members).

Once the appeal becomes operant with the support of five party members, it will take 2/3 (of those voting) to overturn the committee's decision to constitute itself minus one member, after which (if the appeal succeeds), a fourth at-large committee member will be nominated and elected.

Some supporting argument:

- The bylaws require that national committee members be members of the party. To the best of my knowledge, None of the Above is not a party member.

- The bylaws require that candidates for at-large positions on the national committee be nominated and seconded, and that they accept the nomination. To the best of my knowledge, NOTA was not nominated, was not seconded, and did not accept the nomination for an at-large position on the national committee.

- The national committee handled the elections as best they could, given the means at their disposal. The bylaws call for election of at-large national committee members by approval voting.

Unfortunately, Drupal's native poll functionality does not support approval voting and the "Advanced Polling" module which we used in 2008 was offline for some time after Drupal evolved to version 6.x.

This meant that "approval voting" had to be simulated with a separate poll for each candidate, and somehow NOTA mistakenly got worked into the mix.

"Advanced Polling" is now available in beta for Drupal 6.x. I have installed it on the party's web site so that future at-large elections can be done in one poll via true approval voting (note to admins: Choose "binary poll" and under poll settings select "no limit" under "maximum choices").

Regards,
Tom Knapp

Update, 1935 Central Time, 06/07: The chair has acknowledged the appeal and indicated his intent to "set up a poll." I don't know if the poll is a poll on the appeal (2/3 of voting members to require the vacancy be filled), or whether it's actually to fill the vacancy. If the latter, presumably we'll see a nominations forum topic, etc. Thanks to everyone who supported this appeal.