----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Bob Bragar <bobbragar@yahoo.com>
To: pcalegi@tin.it; anthony.sistilli@gmail.com; patriciaferrari@gmail.com
Cc: Susan Haug <susan.haug@sitglobal.net>; Shari Temple <shari_temple@yahoo.com>
Sent: Mon, January 25, 2010 10:26:57 PM
Subject: DPCA Bylaws - Supplementary Votes
Dear Trish, Peter, and Anthony,
In connection with your review of DA's bylaws, we would like to propose the following:
a. To leave the existing vote structure in place, which gives up to four votes for country committees with up to 1,000 or more members.
b. To give up to four more supplementary votes to larger country committees as follows:
i. One additional supplementary vote with membership above 2,500.
This would benefit Spain , Mexico and Italy , and give growth incentive to committees that are close to 2,500 members ( Switzerland , the Netherlands , Japan , the Dominican Republic , and Australia ).
ii. One additional supplementary vote with membership above 5,000 ( Germany and France ).
iii. One additional supplementary vote with membership above 7,500 (no countries at the moment).
iv. One additional supplementary vote above 10,000 ( UK and Canada )
This system would acknowledge larger membership and activity.
It is true that the larger committees represent a larger number of interested members, but this is not necessarily in direct proportion to their size. It is something of a fiction that we "represent" our membership, most of whom do not know or care about our work at DA at the international level. In the Netherlands and Germany , the vast majority - more than 95% - of our members are interested only at election time, and only look to us for help with voter registration
We also value participation by many country committees and would not want to lose a valuable voice from the smaller committees. The people who make the effort to run an active and viable country committee should have a meaningful vote, even if that committee is relatively small. It takes a lot of time, work, and expense to keep a country committee going. This should be acknowledged in our voting structure.
It is also important to keep our system relatively simple. Excessive complexity will create problems.
Thank you for considering this proposal.
Regards,
Bob Bragar
Chair, DA Netherlands
Shari Temple
Chair, DA Germany