As ICOM’s General Assembly draws close, several points about voting rules need to be clarified for the participants, and I urge the Secretariat to enlighten us about the following questions, preferably by a posting here on ICOM-L and on ADCOM-L: 

A national committee has five votes, but few countries can afford to send more than one person to the meeting in Paris, normally the chairperson of the national committee. Can that person dispose of all five votes of his/her national committee? The form to be sent in beforehand underlines that five names must be filled in, but this is clearly unrealistic. It is of crucial importance to know if the chairperson can have all five votes, and if not, how many?

Next, the question of proxies comes up. Again, the forms are confusing. Who can be a proxy, and how many proxy votes can a single person have? In the case of ICOM Norway, a few other members will participate in the GA/Advisory meetings in various capacities such as presidents of international committees, member of the Executive Council etc. Can such persons be proxy voters for their national committee? and again: how many votes are allowed per person – considering they already have votes in their own right, as international committee presidents and maybe other proxies from those committees?

The confusing text of the forms sent out may be a leftover from the times when General Assemblies were held only in combination with the triannual General Conferences; then the number of participants from each national committee would normally be higher and the question of proxies less difficult. With annual General Assemblies, we urgently need to know how to deal correctly with the issue of voting rights. I wonder how other national committees have handled this question?

The Secretariat needs to clarify these questions for us and it must be done as soon as possible – the General Assembly is only twelve days away as I write this on May 28th. 

Sincerely,
Leif Pareli
Chairman of ICOM Norway

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