On MASCA AGM.
Well, MASCA AGM’s ended and I think you would figure that out even from my last post. Anyway, here’s a few thoughts of mine about it. I would have to say that I was quite unhappy when I came to find out that the voting system has not changed, that every club still gets 6 votes which totals 18 votes which then produces a high risk situation of a tie happening when it becomes 9-9. There I was, thinking to myself, OMG, why didn’t I think of asking them to change the constitution early on. Well, I actually then had a look at the constitution and I realized a lot of things. The constitution doesn’t really explain the conduct required to run an election. It’s basically the MASCA National Constitution which is why some clauses are irrelevant to the ACT Chapter (like how certain posts are inexistant). Due to this, I then realized that MASCA can basically develop a proper way of running elections that would be agreeable to all and of which I have been pushing in a way which is to make total number of votes a number that would be hard to get a tie with. This can be done in various ways, reducing votes to five per club or increasing votes to 7 per club.
When I read the constitution and realized it doesn’t state anything about number of votes, then it became obvious that this change can easily be done for next year’s elections. Why did we start off with 6 per club? I have no idea. I have a feeling that it was because that was what the previous committee did and this went on until last year when we had a tie. It was obvious everyone was clueless on what to do. Nobody had seen a tie before!! Then it was decided that we would re-vote in hopes that people would change their minds. That did not occur. Realizing the tie cannot be broken, the decision was made that the ones who were voted in already can make the decision on who can be in the committee. This then created a precedence (although this year, there was no re-vote before the elected ones were given the decision to choose).
Now, realizing on how this has created a precedence, this vicious cycle has to stop. Because it is a very very flawed system. I do not know how much I can stress on the flawedness of this system. Thank God the tie occurred at posts that already had elected people in. The question really is, what happens if the chairperson’s votes were tied? Will the old committee pick the Chairperson? It just doesn’t work. I think we should be thankful a lot of the committee were already uncontested or else, who knows how many more bizarre circumstances we would have faced. It might even have come down to whomever became chairperson would have had the opportunity to pick the people into the committee.
Then people might start thinking of random thoughts like, what if there were 21 votes but it became a three way tie? What if 1 person abstained and it tied at 10-10? Yes, these questions would arise but I think most people would agree that the chances of these situations happening is waaaayyyy less than a 9-9 hung vote. And so, I do hope a change will occur next year. Please!!!!!
