My thoughts on who should vote on BAE decisions, for consideration by BAE members
by John Spritzler
November 23, 2025
In an earlier email I sent to BAE members on November 17, 2025 I expressed my opinion that only people physically present at a BAE meeting could vote when it makes a decision by majority vote (when a consensus cannot be achieved.) I've added some thoughts to my earlier words and combine them all here. It is because I believe this is an important foundational question (though not an urgent one) that I have devoted so much time to presenting my opinion in this somewhat lengthy article. I ask you to read the following, give it due consideration and let me and the other BAE members know your thoughts. I hope we can eventually reach a consensus on this question.
Unlike other decisions we will make, the decision about who can vote on BAE decisions is a fundamental one; it is part of the definition of what the BAE is and it sets a precedent for what we think a truly sovereign local assembly of egalitarians in the future will be. Deciding this question is akin to deciding what the constitution of a government says; it is more fundamental that just deciding whether or not to do this or that action or activity as an organization.
When we decided that we would make decisions by majority vote when a consensus cannot be reached, I interpreted (to myself) "majority vote" to mean a majority vote by only the BAE members who are physically present at the BAE meeting (as opposed to, say, proxies or people on a zoom call, or people not in communication with the meeting in real time at all: people who are not actually physically present.) But we never discussed this question. I propose that we clarify what we mean by "majority vote." What we mean by "consensus" in this regard is probably less of an issue since if there is ever any doubt about whether one exists then a majority vote would decide the issue at hand.
Here are my thoughts on this question.
I favor defining "majority vote" as a vote only of those physically present at an official BAE meeting when a quorum (the minimum number for which we should determine) is present. There are numerous reasons for this. Here are two of them, with additional ones discussed after I address the important question of whether it is fair to exclude from voting those who are absent from the BAE meeting.
#1. Important questions are best decided by BAE members who are able to directly see and hear each other so as not only to know the words people say, but how they say them, what their emotion is, whether there is irony or sarcasm or strong conviction or shrugged shoulders, and so forth. Also it's best if when people are speaking their mind they can see how the others are reacting, even if just with body language. This makes for a decision maximally informed by the membership.
#2. When the vote is only of those physically present at the meeting then the exact vote count (or determination merely of whether one side is a clear majority or not) is maximally transparent for all to see. In contrast, when the voters include people not at the meeting, the vote count becomes less transparent for all to see.
One of the big advantages of egalitarian genuine democracy based on SOVEREIGN local assemblies of egalitarians (such as what I expect the BAE to become one day) and voluntary federation of those assemblies, compared to our current "representative democracy" or "referendum-based democracy" in which millions of votes are (supposedly) counted to determine the result of a state-wide or national election is this. The vote count of Assembly members is totally transparent when only those present can vote; even if there are several thousand Assembly members in a convention hall an exact count could be done in front of everybody if any person requested it. In contrast there is absolutely no way that many millions of votes by people scattered over very large distances can be counted in such a transparent way because the final count must necessarily be based on many interim counts done by unseen people who must simply be trusted, or by computers that must simply be trusted.
If we only count votes of people physically present at the meeting, that does not mean ignoring people who cannot be physically present. It is possible to have hybrid zoom calls with most people physically together but some connected via zoom. In this case the people not physically present would still be able to speak and be heard.
Because some people can only attend a meeting on certain days of the week, and others only on different days of the week, it may make sense to have the monthly meetings alternate from one day of the week to a different one. Voting could even take place at each of the two different meetings with people who voted at the first instructed not to vote at the second (some people would have witnessed them voting at the first and could "remind" them not to vote twice if they "forgot") and then the vote counts combined for a final result, I suppose. (Just thinking out loud here.)
Is it unfair to require attendance of voters?
One person I have spoken to about this told me she thought people absent from the Assembly meeting should still be able to vote because it would be unfair to them not to let them vote. Here's why I think this is not true.
First, in this regard, consider that good social policies sometimes result in individual persons being annoyed or even angry at their enforcement, but this does not mean they are suffering from unfairness or that the policy is not a wise one.
For example a person who shows up at a restaurant without a reservation and cannot get a table for several hours because people with reservations get seated first may be annoyed or even angry, but they are not the victim of any unfairness, are they? The reservation system is a wise one.
Or consider a public swimming pool that has an adults-only hour when children are told they must get out of the pool. A child at this time may certainly feel angry, but are they suffering any unfairness? The adults-only-hour policy is a wise one.
Regarding the fairness or unfairness of the attendance requirement for voting:
Of course it may be easier for some to attend an Assembly meeting than for others. The Assembly can do things to address this problem while still requiring attendance to vote.
For example, people who are wheelchair bound and who live on an upper floor of a building with no elevator nonetheless go to doctor appointments and so forth by being transported by professionals trained to know how to do that. The Assembly could, if necessary, make this service available (by paying for it before we remove the rich from power or by having it be provided like any other public service after that.)
It may be simply inconvenient for somebody to attend a particular Assembly meeting because it conflicts with something else such as a vacation or a birthday party or a funeral, etc. This can happen to anybody, and when it does they may have good reason to be annoyed at not being able to vote at that meeting. But I don't think they would have good reason to feel they had been subjected by the Assembly to any unfairness if there is a good reason for the "attendees only" voting policy. The person who couldn't vote in this situation experienced bad luck, perhaps; but not unfairness.
In all likelihood the number of people who can never attend an Assembly meeting because of some physical limitation will be very small. The Assembly, in trying to reach a consensus, will take the views of such people into consideration so it's not as if the "attendance required to vote" rule means they have no voice. I don't, however, think the Assembly should forsake the important benefits (see additional ones below) of requiring attendance to vote just in order to make an exception for this small number of people. The "attendance" rule is valuable.
The “must be present to vote” rule is not some new idea I invented:
Roberts Rules of Order strongly disfavors absentee and proxy voting, stating:
It is a fundamental principle of parliamentary law that the right to vote is limited to the members of an organization who are actually present at the time the vote is taken in a regular or properly called meeting. (See Roberts Rules of Order, Section 45:56, from a Google search.)
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Rationale: The principle is based on the idea that members should participate in the full debate and potential amendment of a motion before casting their vote, allowing them to adjust their stance based on the discussion." [source: this Google search, Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised]
"If any members are absent, the members present at a regular meeting act for the entire membership, subject only to such limitations as established by the body’s governing rules (quorum requirement)." [source Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, online here (PDF))
Here are additional reasons why I support the attendance requirement.
#3. If only those present at the Assembly can vote then there is no ambiguity about who can vote. In contrast, if people not present at the Assembly can vote then there is ambiguity about who can vote.
For example, can only an absent person who is seen and heard by the assembly and who in turn sees and hears members of the Assembly via some electronic connection be allowed to vote?
What about an absent person who is not seen or heard by the Assembly and does not see or hear the members of the Assembly, in other words a person who is not informed by the views and information and emotions expressed by the people present at the assembly?
What about persons who have never come to an Assembly meeting or even said they consider themselves to be a member but who may have told a BAE member that they intend to join and attend the next BAE meeting? Does the Assembly have to consider its decisions to be not final because the votes of such possibly unknown persons remain to be counted in the future? The BAE would never be able to make a majority-rule decision in this case.
Allowing absentee votes weakens the Assembly:
#4. If attendance at the Assembly meeting is not required to be a voter, then this would weaken the motivation of egalitarians to attend the Assembly meetings and to figure out how to make the Assembly meetings take place so that as many egalitarians as possible can attend. This in turn would lead to lower attendance at the Assembly and consequently a lower quality of decision-making compared to decision making by people in face-to-face proximity. It would also result in the Assembly being viewed with less respect, as not quite a real serious governing body (when we have removed the rich from power.)
Allowing absentee votes makes the Assembly less accountable to the public
#5. When Assembly decisions are made by only those present at the Assembly meeting, then if a person hears about a decision and disagrees with it they can come to the next Assembly meeting and say why the decision should be reversed and ask the Assembly to reverse it. In this case the Assembly, as a body (a governing body in the future), is 100% accountable for its decision in the sense that it can, right on the spot, reverse its decision by a majority vote of those present, without there being any argument that it cannot do that because this would require having all the people who voted the first time re-vote the question, with some of those voters being perhaps unreachable.
In other words, with the attendance-only voting rule the public always knows who, exactly, is the Assembly: it is the quorum of people assembled at the current official Assembly meeting, period. The public also knows exactly who is accountable for Assembly decisions at any given time--those present at the current meeting, period. If absent people can vote then it becomes very vague who constitutes the Assembly and who is accountable for a past decision and able to reverse it.
I hope I've been persuasive, but if not, so be it. The BAE will decide the question as it wishes.