Governance Engine
Operational guide to drafting proposals, running open and anonymous ballots, setting proxy delegates, recording meeting minutes, and compiling board packets.
The Governance Engine Module
Democratic member control (Principle 2) is put into practice through the Governance Engine. This module gives steering committees and board administrators one place to draft proposals, run ballots, coordinate proxy voting, record meeting minutes, and compile board packets.
1. Proposal Lifecycle & Workflows
Every policy adjustment, financial investment, or bylaw amendment follows the same pipeline:
Drafting
A proposal is created with a description, category, quorum threshold, voting deadline, and ballot type.
Discussion
Members debate the proposal in its comment thread.
Voting Run
Members vote until the deadline. Each member's class voting rights decide whether they can cast a binding vote on it.
Resolution
After the deadline, it passes if turnout among eligible members meets quorum and Yes votes outnumber No votes.
When a proposal opens, active members receive an email notice with a link to review it and vote. New proposals and cast votes are recorded in the audit log.
2. Ballot Design: Open vs. Anonymous Voting
Different decisions require different ballot settings:
- Open Ballot: Records each member's vote alongside their name. Recommended for standard operational policies, board resolutions, and financial commitments.
- Anonymous Ballot: Stores the ballot separately from the record that a member has voted, so results show the tally without linking decisions to names. Each ballot gets a hashed receipt the voter can use to confirm it was counted. Recommended for board elections, salary reviews, or sensitive personnel votes.
3. Proxy Delegation & Cycle Protection
If members are unavailable for voting, they can delegate their voting power to another active member. The system checks delegations as they are set:
- Proxy Voting: When a delegate votes, ballots are also cast for the members who delegated to them and have not voted themselves.
- Proxy Cycle Detection: Members cannot delegate to themselves, and a delegation is rejected if it would create a loop (for example, A delegates to B, B to C, and C back to A).
4. Meetings, Minutes & Board Packets
Simplify administrative overhead:
- Board Packet Compiler: Bundles selected proposals and legal documents into a named board packet that you can open as a printable page and save as a PDF from your browser.
- Minutes & Task Extraction: Schedule meetings and record minutes as text. Write action items as checkboxes (e.g. "- [ ] File state forms") and click extract to turn each unchecked item into a task record.