Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Who gets to vote?

[Rob Sandelin (Floriferous]

I would not give the ability to vote, or even to block consensus, to anyone 
who has not financially committed to the project. For example, many groups, in 
order to become a member, require a certain process which usually includes 
time involvement (some number of meetings) plus a financial investment.

I would only allow those who are members to vote. Typically a member is 
defined by a unit or household and so if a household is three people they only 
get one vote between them. If they can't agree amoung themselves, their vote 
is cancelled out.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood Cohousing
Cedar Village Permaculture Retreat Center

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From:   cohousing-l [at] freedom.mtn.org on behalf of Robin Allison
Sent:   Sunday, April 26, 1998 10:32 AM
Subject:        Who gets to vote?

Our group is in the process of writing an Organising Agreement and we
are trying to work out the finer detail of how we make decisions. Of
course we will be using consensus and hope to decide most issues in this
way, but we will revert to 75% majority vote where agreement can't
otherwise be made. 

The question is, does this generally mean one vote per (full member)
household, or one vote per adult (there may be 2 or 3 adults in a
household)? And what about Associate Members? I've looked through the
archives and it seems that generally renters don't get to have this
final say in decision-making, but I can't find reference to how other
groups have handled this issue of just how this final voting thing
happens.

We're probably going to finalise this on Wednesday so I'd really
appreciate hearing how other groups do it before then. Thanks!

Robin Allison
Waitakere Eco-Neighbourhood Cohousing Project
Auckland, New Zealand.
Where we've started having common dinners (before our meetings) even
though we haven't bought land yet!