Ballot Results

Errata: when this post was initially published Motion 2C was listed as having passed. In fact, having achieved <70% of the vote, it has not been passed.

Congratulations to all those who have been elected, and a big thank you to those who supported in particular motions 5 and 6, bringing the association into the modern day.

Where can we see the number of votes cast, please? The BCA page says "The full breakdown of the votes is available here." but there's no link.

kay said:

Where can we see the number of votes cast, please? The BCA page says "The full breakdown of the votes is available here." but there's no link.

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Third line from the bottom on Ari's post has a link in it 

kay said:

Where can we see the number of votes cast, please? The BCA page says "The full breakdown of the votes is available here." but there's no link.

Click to expand...

The "here" is itself a link, as is the case with this post. My apologies if this in unclear, I can adjust the formatting when I'm back at my desk.

Alternatively I have attached the linked document to this post (for logged in UKCaving users).

Fascinating stuff.

Removal of 10.1 fails to achieve the grade but the merger of committees who asked not to be merged does pass.  Interesting.

Congrats Russell, commiserations Rostam. 

The link worked for me - gave me access to the PDF (think people might have been expecting another window or something to open).

Ian Ball said:

Fascinating stuff.

Removal of 10.1 fails to achieve the grade but the merger of committees who asked not to be merged does pass.  Interesting.

Congrats Russell, commiserations Rostam.

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When you look at the 10.1 votes I think it's safe to say from the abstentions a sizeable proportion don't care about it

As for the committee's - the BCA needs far less people in it, both for efficiency reasons and a basic lack of volunteers. The whole council would work better reduced to 10 people maximum.

Well done to all those who put themselves forward for election, and also to those to make the process happen.

Knowing sod all about caving politics myself, I hope the result(s) are a step forwards.

Chris.

Thought I had it in the bag  :-[ No in all seriousness thanks to all those who voted for me, 46% of the vote isn't too shabby.

While I'm sad to have lost, a little embarrassed and disappointed, I'm surprised at how much I had overestimated my support. That probably reflects how divided caving is at the moment, kind of appropriate to be stuck in an echo chamber I guess. I've got a fair amount to reflect on and some time away from council can only be good for my sanity. Good luck to the new (old?) team and I hope they find the stability promised.

Here's to being the first proper loser in BCA history 

I wouldn't worry about it Rostam, you were both standing on similar platforms.

The "here" is itself a link, as is the case with this post. My apologies if this in unclear, I can adjust the formatting when I'm back at my desk.

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That's what I assumed. But it didn't work for me when I clicked on it. Maybe a browser issue.

At least now you get to go and

2xw said:

When you look at the 10.1 votes I think it's safe to say from the abstentions a sizeable proportion don't care about it

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Or they were totally confused by it, or didn't feel qualified to comment, not knowing the full implications of any option. I know people who genuinely care, but didn't know what the best option was,  so would likely have abstained and let those with a better understanding make the decision.

I think we'd have a very different result for that motion if we'd have used runoff/ranked choice voting, as I imagine many of the "delete" vote would rather see a rewrite than no change at all.

aricooperdavis said:

I think we'd have a very different result for that motion if we'd have used runoff/ranked choice voting, as I imagine many of the "delete" vote would rather see a rewrite than no change at all.

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I was wondering how long it would take for someone to suggest  the motion failed because the membership didn't understand the motion/the motion was badly worded or the membership just plian got it wrong.

I disagree with nearlywhite on a lot of things, but he has won my respect for the way he has taken the ballot result. Not many would be as gracious  as he has been

He is an example to everyone on all sides of the debate

aricooperdavis said:

I think we'd have a very different result for that motion if we'd have used runoff/ranked choice voting, as I imagine many of the "delete" vote would rather see a rewrite than no change at all.

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I don't think this is remotely true, looking at the numbers.

619 people voted.

The total of each of the three choices was 619 (between yes, no, abstain) so everybody selected one option in each of the three votes.

The total votes cast in favour of any of the three motions is 681, so clearly people voted to support more than one option, on the basis that the most popular would pass.

I suspect that the vast majority of those who voted to remove it entirely also voted for the rewrite.

Likewise, I'm certain a good proportion of people voted against all three and another good proportion abstained on all three.

I'm not sure how the data was collected and if it is possible to see how any given (anonymous) voter responded to the various polls, relative to each other. For example were people who voted for 2A more likely to also vote for motion 2B and 2C.

darren said:

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to suggest  the motion failed because the membership didn't understand the motion/the motion was badly worded or the membership just plian got it wrong.

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I don't think that at all! I'm not at all invested in this motion, so I'm not trying to justify why it didn't pass. Rather I'm thinking about this as the person responsible for running the vote and operating the voting website. We've worked hard to make the site as easy to use and accessible as we possibly can, and I genuinely think a ranked choice would have been easier for voters, and the results more informative, than what we used. You shouldn't have to think in detail about how the votes will be counted when you cast your vote, it should be easy to convey your preferences, and I think a ranked choice would have been easier.

PeteHall said:

I suspect that the vast majority of those who voted to remove it entirely also voted for the rewrite.

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Interesting, I hadn't assumed that, but you're right if that's the case a change to ranked choice wouldn't make the slightest difference.

We could extract that info from the voting data, but I feel a bit uncomfortable about doing so as it's more analysis than your average voter might expect. I'll make some enquiries and see what I can do.

What happens now with 10.1 Ari, anybody?  The 2020 AGM voted overwhelmingly to find a new form of words to change it.  The vote for that was something like 450 for, 60 against.  I presume that is still a live result as there was no vote which overruled it or found a new form of words.

It doesn't seem like there wasn't much clear thinking in offering three different options.  Some have already said this may have split the vote.  In any case they all failed, but what if they had all passed?  That would have caused an equal problem.

Going back a year the proposal was that council would find a new form of words and support that for change.  If council had done that and asked the membership to back it then I suspect it would have been a success.

Well done to the BCA team for putting the ballot together; It is a lot of work for a voluntary organisation.

Providing a choice of three options for the Section 10.1 question was not ideal.

We know that each voting individual had the option to give their vote to one, two, or all three of the options. However, the problem is that when you present multiple choice, many people will feel the need or desire to pick just the one they most prefer, rather than vote for multiple that they would accept.

For me, the interesting statistic would be what proportion of people gave their vote to at least one of the three options, versus the number who voted against all three. This will give a readout of what proportion of people voted for some kind of change to this section of the constitution, versus the number who clearly rejected all change.

If the number who voted for at least one of the three options is >70%, then I think it will re-emphasise the desire for change expressed at the 2020 AGM, just that a consensus on what the change should be has not yet been reached and more work lies ahead for the new BCA team.

Ps; I'm not questioning the result; more questioning what can be learned from this ballot and what action should be taken forward. Badlad is spot on that this result conflicts with the 2020 AGM result, so maybe the correct solution has not yet been found; or maybe the multiple-choice way the question was asked was doomed to failure from the start.