Saturday, April 6, 2013

Oppose biased election ballot @Vancity - vote for Williams, Barrett, Yaron

A dominant majority of the Vancity board are using their control of information flowing to Vancity members, to tighten their grip on power over the credit union. Taking advantage of voters who are too busy to search for other info sources, the controlling group ensures that their recommendations are the only info conveniently available to members. I have documented this in a series of posts since April 2012 -- see votermedia.blogspot.ca/search/label/Vancity

Notably this year, one of the board's "recommended" candidates -- Bob Williams -- is not a member of the controlling majority (details in this report, from page 8). So I plan to vote for him. Challengers to the dominant group can help improve democratic competition and thus accountability to members.

I also plan to vote for Lisa Barrett and Gil Yaron, for the same pro-democracy reasons why I voted for them last year.

Vancity members can vote by Friday April 26, via mail or online.

3 comments:

Mark Latham said...

I should acknowledge some constructive response from the Vancity Board on a few of the election rules issues raised by me and others. Quotes from this message from Patrice Pratt, Chair of the Vancity Nominations and Election Committee:

"We revised the election guidelines to clarify information about campaigning, including how candidates can express their personal views on issues. This clarified that candidates are free to express their personal views on current issues affecting Vancity and the financial industry, but may not commit the Board to a specific course of action if they are elected."

"Candidates may now use endorsements and testimonials in their campaign material."

These positive changes help make the election process more democratic, which I appreciate as a Vancity member. Depending on how they are implemented, the changes could increase my estimate of Vancity's democracy score from 22% to as high as 27% on this spreadsheet.

So there is still a long way to go.

Anonymous said...

Thank you. I fully agree.

Paul Johnston

Mark Latham said...

Article in today's Georgia Straight: Vancity election recommendations generate controversy