Bylaws Amendment: Allow election of unfilled Coordinating Committee seats for remainder of 2015-2017 term (Bylaws Committee)

Proposal: Bylaws Amendment: Allow election of unfilled Coordinating Committee seats for remainder of 2015-2017 term (Bylaws Committee)

Background: GPCA Bylaws governing filling Coordinating Committee vacancies are designed to call for a special election occurs whenever a seat is vacated by someone who was elected.  But the Bylaws do not call for a special election for seats sot filled by election in the first place.  In those case, if a seat is not filled by election in the first place, it remains vacant until the next time the seat is up for election. This is part of the effort  to hold Coordinating Committee elections on a regular schedule and encourage people to run for the regular terms - and has been successful in that. 

However at present a different issue is in play, and this proposal would provide a one-time exception to this rule.  The issue is that owing to not enough people running and attrition, the Coordinating Committee is down to 13 members out of a possible 24, and had been as low as 10 until a special election was held to fill three mid-term vacancies.  At the same time the need for active Coordinating Committee member doing the work is enourmous for our volunteer-led party.

In the May/June 2016 Coordinating Committee elections, there are six female and six male two-year seats up for election for 2016-2018. There are ten female and ten male candidates running for those seats.  

There are also three female and three male seats open from the 2015-2017 term. This proposal would allow the currently scheduled elections for six female and six male seats to elected those twelve, along with six more - the three female and three male one-year terms.  The first six finishers would win the two year seats. The next three would win the one-year seats.  The GPCA voting page software is designed to do this automatically, but simply adjusting the number of seats, and then the software will tell us the order of finish.

Proposal: That on a one time basis, GPCA Bylaws 8.4.5 shall have the following sentence added on at the end "Notwithstanding this, in the May/June 2016 Coordinating Committee elections, after the first six finishers win the six female and six male two year seats, the next three finishers will win the three vacant female and three vacant male seats from the 2015-2017 term.", so that it should ready as follows:

8-4.5 Upon a mid-term vacancy occurring on the Coordinating Committee (but not a vacancy occurring as a result of any seats not being filled during an annual regular election), the Coordinating Committee shall publish a Notice of Vacancy and Call for Candidate Submissions to the active County Organizations, for candidates seeking to fill the remainder of the vacated term.  Notwithstanding this, in the May/June 2016 Coordinating Committee elections, after the first six finishers win the six female and six male two year seats, the next three finishers will win the three vacant female and three vacant male seats from the 2015-2017 term.