Second batch of evidence relating to the Bartolotti complaint (Case 2)
Max Evidence 16 Report of ERO to WGPC
Jan19 2013
Report of ERO to WGPC January 19th
2013
After being co-opted onto Wales
Green Party Council late in 2012, I oversaw the nomination and election of
officers to WGPC, to be in post for the year 2013.
During the nomination process, I
received an inquiry from Anne Greagsby, regarding rule 6viii of the
constitution. This rule relates to the number of consecutive years an officer
can serve as a member of WGPC. The only
records I could find at the time were those of my predecessor in the role of
ERO, Keith Ross, these were supplied to me by Max Wallis. Unfortunately, these
records only go back to the AGM of 2005 and it was these records that I used to
make the decision that I gave to the AGM in November 2012. This decision was
not challenged at the AGM and will continue to stand.
Since the AGM I have been
supplied with further records by Chris Simpson, these date back to the AGM of
2005. Using these, I am creating a data base of WGPC election results, which I
will, when the time comes, pass on to my successor as ERO.
I am quite amazed, that there is
no central record archive I could access to find this information. I think we
should, as a matter of urgency set up a central archive for this and other
data, so that council members can access it.
During December 2012, WGP held an
election by postal and electronic ballot, to elect WGP Spokesperson, Deputy
Spokesperson and a Regional Representative. All posts had only one nominee and
the nominated members were duly elected. Spokesperson: Pippa Bartolotti: Deputy
Spokesperson, Christopher Were: and Regional Representative, Jane Cooke.
During this election, the Single
Transferable Vote (STV) was used; this gave me some concern regarding the
understanding of party members of the STV system. Some ballots were returned to
me with simply an ‘X’ or ‘√’, one came in with a number for each candidate e.g.
Spokesperson ‘1’, Deputy Spokesperson ‘2’ and Regional Representative ‘3’, plus
a number of other variations. For this election, if it was clear who the member
was voting for, I counted the ballot. I must add that this had no impact
whatsoever on the outcome. (Ballots received = 29, of which 2 were disqualified
- 1 received after close, 1 not certain that the vote was for candidate or
RON). A further 7 could have been disqualified for being marked with an ‘X’.
In future elections using the STV
system, I suggest that the ballot paper be redesigned, so that it carries clear
instructions on how to complete it and that it carries a note that ballot
papers marked in any other way e.g. ‘X’ or ‘√’ will be invalid and not counted.
I would like to suggest, the
Local Party Development Officer contact all local parties, asking them to discuss
the STV voting system, so that all members understand how the system works and
to impress on their members, the importance of taking part in the nomination
and election processes. Hopefully, that may go some way to improving turnout at
these elections.
John Evans
WGP ERO
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