Alatar,
It has been a challenge from the beginning to balance the internet time of the committee members against the need to move efficiently through the work.
There have been some votes where people were excluded by the timing, and other votes where we waited and waited and people just never bothered to vote.
Neither Voronwe nor I has ever closed a vote when that last member's vote could potentially alter the results. In this case, we were down to the wire here, and if we didn't close the votes after 32-36 hours we would have delayed ratification by an entire week, delayed the opening to mid-July, and made a much larger number of people unhappy.
Cerin is right about MS options available to us for the design of the ratification vote. There is as much opposition to a Tolkien-centered MS as there is support for it. We could not possibly have offered the members only two options, and if three then four because there has to be a none-of-the-above.
Looking at the statement we ended up with, it is not a horse designed by a committee. It is quite nice, in my opinion, even though it is not the combo I voted for.
We would unnecessarily jeopardize the quorum if we held a PM vote, and jeopardize the 2/3 needed if we offered alternate texts to the members. Then we would really have an angry mob on our hands.
If you look at the discussion thread in the B-forum, I am finding it possible to take suggestions from the members as long as they improve the sense without changing it. As long as everyone behaves reasonably, and we are careful in the kind of variations we give rein to, I think that the members
will feel that we are ending up with the best possible compromise under the circumstances.
I am fond of chiding my closet-Stalinist friends that what is necessary for democracy is not people who are willing to hold elections but people who are willing to lose elections. Honoring the majority without trampling on the minority often means that the only thing you can distribute with absolute fairness is dissatisfaction.
Jn