On June 14th, we had our Annual General Meeting. After the reports of our Chairman, Treasurer and Auditor, and the discharge of the outgoing committee and and auditor, we voted in our new Committee. Peter Munro will re-join the committee as Co-Chairman, Jan Könighaus being the other Co-chairman. They will take over from David Clark who led the OUSL through many successful years. David will remain active on the committee, which will also be strenghtened by our new Member Lidiya Cherneva. Mette Ahlefeldt and Harriet Hansen-Stone will step down however. We thank them gratefully for their commitment during the event-ful past years.
After the formalities, we enjoyed a talk by committee member Dan Schmit, who gave an overview of the different electoral systems in Europe. We learned about the purely proportional system (e.g. Netherlands, Denmark), regional representation of constituencies (UK), two-round voting (currently happening in France), and single transferable vote elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We saw that German voters cast two votes, one direct vote and one for a party or list. Of course we also reviewed the Luxembourg System, where voters receive as many votes as there are candidates in their constituency.
A lively Q&A and discussion followed, as is usual at OUSL meetings. We thank David and Marilyn Clark for their hospitality, and the drinks and snacks they prepared for the very enjoyable AGM.
