Bylaw 1: Allow Members to Vote by Absentee Balloting (& Elimination of Proxy Voting)
According to DCEC bylaws, members can only participate in the voting process if they are present at membership meetings. At member meetings, such as the Annual Meeting, members vote on electing directors, deciding on changes to the Cooperative's bylaws and other business matters that may come before the membership. Members who cannot attend member meetings currently cannot cast a vote but are able to assign their voting right to another member (without certainty as to how that vote will be cast) who does attend the member meetings by signing a "Proxy". DCEC bylaws currently allow an attending member to cast up to three proxy votes in addition to their own vote.
Many cooperatives have adopted bylaw changes that allow their members to vote by absentee balloting in the event they cannot or choose not to attend member meetings. DCEC typically has only 100-150 members attend member meetings out of a total of 5,200 members. Based on this historical level of members participating in the business process, a significant minority of members currently decide on business issues of the Cooperative. Allowing members to vote by absentee balloting would allow members to participate in membership voting if they are not able or are interested in attending member meetings in-person while also avoiding an assignment of their voting right to another party by proxy.
