Written Ballot

About

The NPDL Legislature consists of all member schools. To become a member school, please register or re-register here by October 31, 2023.

Each member school gets two representatives: one adult representative and one student representative (see roster of representatives).

The Legislature may vote via Written Ballot to amend the League Rules (Bylaws, Legislative Code, or Board Code). There will be two regular voting periods during the 2023-24 season:

  • The Fall voting period will be November 29 - December 5 2023.

  • The Spring voting period will be May 1-May 7, 2024. It will be run concurrently with Board elections.


The ballot form will be emailed to all representatives on the first day of each voting period.

Voting by Written Ballot is further described in Article III.

Proposal SUBMISSION

Any member school representative may sponsor a proposal to amend the League Rules.

Each proposal should focus on a single topic.

Each proposal should include:
- the text added by the proposal, shown in blue, bolded, and underlined,
- the text deleted by the proposal, shown in red and crossed out,
- the text of the affected sections that remains the same, shown in black,
- a summary of the proposal,
- a rationale for the proposal.

For examples of how to format your proposal, click here to view proposals from the Spring 2022 voting period.

Proposals don’t amend the League Rules, but they instead direct the Board to take some action.

Create your proposal on a Google Doc, then transfer document ownership to npdl.board@gmail.com.

Proposals must be submitted to the Secretary at npdl.board+secretary@gmail.com.

Proposal submission is further described in Article XXV Sections 6 and 7.

Proposal Vetting

Proposals must be vetted by either the Board or a legislative committee. If you want your proposal to be vetted by the Board, please indicate so in your submission. Alternatively, you can call for a meeting of a legislative committee to vet your proposal.

Before proposals are added to the Written Ballot, they must be submitted early enough to allow for a 10-day public comment period before either the Board or a legislative committee can vet it (Article III Section 3).

Legislative Committees

A legislative committee is a group of member school representatives who volunteer to meet to vet proposals. Legislative committee meetings are governed by Article III Section 3.

Legislative committee meetings:

  • are open to all representatives via teleconferencing,

  • must last at least 20 minutes,

  • are normally scheduled on weekdays between 4 PM and 7PM (Pacific Time),

  • must announce their meeting time at least 3 days in advance.

To be approved by a legislative committee, the proposal must be approved:

  • by a majority vote of the committee,

  • by at least 4 committee members,

  • by committee members from at least 2 different regions.

After a committee approves a proposal, the final draft and the vote count must be submitted to npdl.board@gmail.com within 7 days. The email must be received by April 24 in order for the proposal to appear on the May 1-7 Written Ballot.

Proposal approval

For each proposal, the Written Ballot sent to the member school representatives will include four options:

  • Yes

  • No

  • Abstain

  • Table until the next meeting of members

Note: the diagrams below assume a simplified scenario where all representatives in the league vote either Yes or No.

A Bylaw amendment passes if it it approved by:

  • 90% of the representatives who voted,

  • 20% of all representatives in the league.

A Code amendment passes if it it approved by:

  • two thirds of the representatives who voted,

  • 20% of all representatives in the league.

Any proposal that doesn’t amend the League Rules passes if it is approved by:

  • a majority of the representatives who voted.

Any proposal on which the majority votes No is rejected.

All other proposals are tabled until the next meeting of members.