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Re: What's wrong with voting at Nats?

Yes there will be discussion and debate at national business meeting about
Constitution bylaws
Evidence code suggestion Ken Brodha-Bahm committee
Topic selection

However remember constitution bylaw changes go out for national mail vote 
anyway. Lets remember our process before we get all worked up about 
incorrect process and procedure.

Lets do debate these issues by
l. Commenting on Ceda L
2. Perhaps sending opinion letters to editor CEDA ExEC Secretary for 
inclusion in future mailings
3. Arguing them at tournaments before nationals in forums

National business meeting is rather short and rather packed with 
business. Lets cooperate and do the best we can.
Steve Hunt 

On Mon, 26 Feb 1996, MICHAEL BRYANT wrote:

> Pam Stepp asks everyone to not push for a vote on topic reform at the
> Nats business meeting. Several implications:
> 
> 1. By not discussing and voting at Nats, we lose the most democratic
> forum possible. Open face-to-face democracy, with the largest
> collection of national voters, clearly seems preferable to closed
> ballot mail surveys.
> 
> 2. Having just left an organization that seems incapable of finding
> it's own past notes of meetings, it just seems that CEDA is better
> served by keeping the votes and discussion in the open.
> 
> 3. The discussion made possible in an open vote is far more conducive
> to democratic decision-making than in mail votes.
> 
> 4. Giving up the above advantages out of some overblown fear that
> this might "rip" CEDA apart seems to be literally throwing the baby
> out with the bathwater. If people committed to teaching debate can't
> respect open and democratic debate without alluding to vague fears of
> the damage to CEDA tradition and attempts to preclude a democratic
> vote, then we may indeed be in more trouble than first surmised.
> 
> If the debaters were the ones voting on this, the vote wouldn't even
> be close. We should be beware of those that always claim to be
> speaking on behalf of the students. If your concerns are the burdens
> placed on the students, why not open this vote even more and allow
> the students themselves vote? Really, why not?
> 
> bear
> 
>  
> 
>
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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