How Do We Vote on the Constitutions?

This final week, the members of the 84th General Chapter of the Capuchins began voting on each of the 12 chapters of their revised constitutions. At the end of Tuesday, they had approved 4 of those chapters, though chapter one will likely need to be voted on again because of procedural shortcomings. The process is exhausting.

This is the third phase of the process to approve Constitutions during this chapter. During the first phase, language working groups submitted proposals to change each chapter. Those proposals were considered by a commission composed of other delegates who then delivered a new version of the proposed chapter. In the second phase, public hearings were held to consider the new version, after which yet another new version was created.

In this third stage, that last new version is being presented to the entire Chapter. It must be voted on paragraph by paragraph, each of which must receive at least two-thirds approval. Formal amendments submitted only by groups are considered in a strictly parliamentary process. However, after all the advance work, few amendments are actually delivered during this final phase.

Since there are 186 proposed paragraphs to the revised constitutions, there will be more than that many votes. There are also numerous ordinances requiring the same two-thirds approval. They will form a lower-level collection of regulations that can be changed by a future general chapter without Vatican approval. We also have to vote on the titles of chapters and articles in the constitutions. So, we are taking well over 240 votes.

Up until now, we have been taking non-sensitive votes using electronic devices. But, sadly and oddly, each of those votes takes almost 10 minutes because of the time to prepare the equipment for each vote. Election of officials was by secret written ballot because of its importance. Votes on the Constitutions are being done on long paper ballots that look like old-time voting ballots in the USA. We haven't seen this type of ballot for a long time. But it certainly saves time here, and probably lots of money to purchase or rent a faster system.

I include some pictures of the processes.