During the just-completed USCF Executive Board meeting, Bill Goichberg
made two proposals for governance re-structuring. The second was
obviously intended to stop Sam Sloan from winning another election to
the USCf Executive Board. Fortunately, neither of these proposals had
any support. Even Paul Truong, not generally known to be a big fan of
Sam Sloan, could not support them. Nevertheless, Goichberg kept at it,
arguing again and again in favor of these proposals. This consumed
more than one hour and probably was the longest debated motions of the
entire meeting. It seems certain that Goichberg will be bringing them
up at future meetings. Here they a

Recommedations for governance restructuring, Sun (Open)
Patron EB members
Revised EB election voting method

The first proposal for 'Parton EB Members" was similar to Goichberg's
imposition of "Patron Players" in the US Championship. Under
Goichberg's plan, anybody can buy a seat on the USCF Executive Board
upon payment of $50,000. Eric Moskow and Marcus Roberts were mentioned
as possible persons who might want to buy a seat.

Since nobody liked this idea, Goichberg moved on to his second plan.

The second plan was for "Revised EB election voting method". Goichberg
stated that the purpose of this plan is to stop "fringe candidates"
from being elected again. Everyone in the room realized that by
"fringe candidate", Goichberg was referring to Sam Sloan.

Goichberg's plan is essentially a version of the instant runoff. Every
voter will list the candidates in order. For example, if there are 10
candidates, the voter will number the candidates 1-10. Then the votes
will be counted by computer. The candidate with the lowest number of
votes in the first round will be eliminated, the order of the
remaining candidates will be revised by the computer, and then there
will be a second round of voting. This process will continue until
finally there will be only four candidates left and they will be
elected.

The reason for this plan is that Goichberg will tell his minions to
put Sam Sloan last. Even if only a small minority put Sam Sloan last,
Sloan will be eliminated in one of the early rounds of balloting.

There were many objections to this plan and several alternate
proposals. Concerning one of the proposals, Goichberg said, "Somebody
else who is also terrible might be elected".

Even Paul Truong, in opposing Goichberg's plan, said that "that
person" (meaning Sam Sloan) was not going to be elected again, so
there was no need for Goichberg to worry about it.

Still, in spite of all this opposition, Goichberg persisted, again and
again. Finally, Jim Berry, who had been silent throughout almost the
entire meeting, tugged on Goichberg's shoulder, pointed at the agenda,
and said, "Next item". Only then did Goichberg give up (probably only
for the time being) and move on.

Sam Sloan

samsloan wrote:


The second plan was for "Revised EB election voting method". Goichberg
stated that the purpose of this plan is to stop "fringe candidates"
from being elected again. Everyone in the room realized that by
"fringe candidate", Goichberg was referring to Sam Sloan.

Goichberg's plan is essentially a version of the instant runoff. Every
voter will list the candidates in order. For example, if there are 10
candidates, the voter will number the candidates 1-10. Then the votes
will be counted by computer. The candidate with the lowest number of
votes in the first round will be eliminated, the order of the
remaining candidates will be revised by the computer, and then there
will be a second round of voting. This process will continue until
finally there will be only four candidates left and they will be
elected.

The reason for this plan is that Goichberg will tell his minions to
put Sam Sloan last. Even if only a small minority put Sam Sloan last,
Sloan will be eliminated in one of the early rounds of balloting.


Not long ago, I watched a debate involving the top
candidates of the Democratic Party. The big names
all did fairly well so there was no big "winner" or "loser"
of the debate among them. However, one of the non-
contenders established clearly that he was not really
a Democrat, but rather a Libertarian (running as a D.).

When the debate was over, the news channel
conducted a poll of the audience, expecting thereby
to perhaps resort the pecking order of the top three or
four names. Instead, they got a nasty surprise: because
of the way the poll question was worded, it was a non-
contender, a Libertarian, who "won" -- by a wide margin!

You see, it was hard for voters to pick "who won" the
debate since most of the serious candidates did about
equally well, more or less, so they went with the guy
who stood out from the pack, who was most unlike the
others (like say, Sam Sloan). So it would be unwise to
assume that the Bill Goichberg plan would have worked,
even if effected. It is possible -- however unlikely it may
seem -- that more than a few voters would put SS at the
very top of their lists, because he is different, because he
stands out.


-- help bot

Bill Goichberg wants to change the election rules so as to make it
impossible for Sam Sloan to be elected again.

Goichberg's basic plan is to make the rules so that if enough voters
vote "no" on a particular candidate, that candidate will not be
elected.

But Goichberg, as usual, fails to recognize the danger to himself.
There are a significant number of anti-Goichberg voters out there. (I
am not one of them.) Goichberg gets elected each time because he runs
big-money tournaments and therefore his name is known. However, if the
"no" votes were counted in the way that Goichberg advocates, the
result might be that he would be eliminated.

Sam Sloan