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3 Black Balls Vs 1 Black Ball

Benton

Premium Member
In a conversation last night this question was asked

Question: what is going to prevent a pissed off brother from another lodge from blackmailing every candidate in your lodge?

If we had been guarding the West Gate appropriately in the first place, that shouldn't be an issue, as we shouldn't have any brothers that are so petty.

I wonder how many people have experienced this type of brother first hand? There are some grumpy bretheren up here, but none that I would believe capable of doing something like this. Are we crying wolf?
 

Zack

Registered User
In a conversation last night this question was asked

Question: what is going to prevent a pissed off brother from another lodge from blackmailing every candidate in your lodge?

If the po'd is not a member of my Lodge he doesn't have a vote in my Lodge.
 

tom268

Registered User
I guess, you mean blackballing. Otherwise, I would say, the cops prevent him from blackmailing. *gg*

In my jurisdiction, visitors have no vote in a ballot. Only full members of the lodge in question.
 

Beathard

Premium Member
I have experienced this first hand. Almost 20 years ago. The lodge is now 1/4 the size it was, 1 officer is no longer a mason, and I have a problem returning there due to a lack of harmony that still seems to linger. But as I said that was 20 years ago. I'm not sure that it is something to worry about.

I am just looking at whether we have any safeguards to prevent the abuses of 30 years ago. There was a reason the rule was changed. I understand that it was a bad change, but we are not just going back to the way it was. We are going back with the baggage that slipped through the gate. There is a good possibility that we will be worse off for a long time.

BTW, I still support the change. I'm just looking for safeguards.
 

Bill Lins

Moderating Staff
Staff Member
If the po'd is not a member of my Lodge he doesn't have a vote in my Lodge.

In Texas, any Master Mason can vote on a Petition for the Degrees or a Petition for Advancement in any Texas Lodge. I suspect this is so that if a member of another Lodge knows of any reason a petitioner should be denied, he can do something about it. In my mind, this is another reason the 3 BB system should be retained. One balances the other, and vice versa. My $0.02.
 

jwhary

Registered User
If someone has a vendetta against the candidate, one black ball could do them in. I realize that is unMasonic but personalities sometimes get in the way of good judgement. To make a long story longer, I believe that it should be 3 black balls.
 

Bro.BruceBenjamin

Premium Member
I was blackballed once because I broke up with a gentleman's daughter. I have no ill will towards the gentleman however his lodge did loose out and they have gotten several warnings about not having enough people present to open properly. When I found out my response was this, "At least have the heart to talk to me man to man."
 

MikeMay

Premium Member
"At least have the heart to talk to me man to man."

No doubt...holding a grudge isn't healthy. If I offended someone I would want them to man up and tell me, maybe it was a perception that was misunderstood, maybe I need to man up and apologize. Either way, we should be making things right with those around us, not holding grudges...
 

JJones

Moderator
I personally dislike the requirement for 3 black balls for an unfavorable vote. This, along with rules intended to prevent us from discussing potential candidates, leaves an impression with me that Grand Lodge is more concerned with quantity than quality when it comes to membership.

Requiring three black balls instead of one also doesn't take a lodges membership size into account. We had 11 members (out of 40 or so) present at our stated meeting last night. This means that if we were to have voted on a candidate then almost 1/4 of those present would have had to vote unfavorably.

I've had to set through a few initiations by now that I honestly don't feel should have been allowed to have taken place. If I can't share my concerns beforehand and my single black ball doesn't matter then what can I even do?
 

JohnnyFlotsam

Premium Member
Crying wolf? I don't think so. It happened, exactly as described, in my Lodge the year before I was initiated. One PM and his cronies were carrying out a personal vendetta against the sitting Master by cubing every candidate. The end result was an expulsion and some suspensions, probation for the Lodge, and no small amount of disharmony. Yes, "the system" worked but it would have been better if those men had never been made Masons in the first place.
 

Beathard

Premium Member
you might have to go up to three black balls to reject in order to be fair to petitioners and ensure similar accessibility.

I am not sure that anyone has ever promised the general public, or even candidates, accessibility. But I do agree with a lot you are saying.

I asked G:M: Carnes about open discussion in the lodge prior to the vote. He was pretty short with me. His statement was this would ruin the peace and harmony of the lodge. If the candidate's friend is in the lodge and a discussion turns towards why the candidate should not be given a white ball, the friend could get upset. The peace and harmony of the lodge would take quite awhile to recover. This is what changed my mind on the subject.

If you look at how many candidates have been turned down over the last 30 years due to balckballs and the number of felons/masonic trials goin on now, you will see that the current process does not work. I am not sure that the proposed solution will work either. I believe that something must be done. I like a lot of your ideas, but I think we all need to consider this one carefully.

Maybe we should shut the gates with a 1-ball system, while research and discuss other systems that we can implement in the next few years to get it correct. I think, if the 1-ball system passes, we cannot drop this discussion until a better solution is found and implemented.

Just throwing another idea out there: How about a paper ballot system that contains the voters name. Only the secretary and WM has access to the votes. After an abuse of the 1-black system is identified, the WM and secretary can council with the member abusing the system. If it continues, there could be some judiciary solution - including loss of voting rights for a period to expulsion.
 
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Ashton Lawson

Premium Member
I have an idea, it's novel, but I think it might work.

Let's get a box and fill it full of white balls and black cubes. Every brother gets to vote. If all the balls are white, the candidate is elected; if they're not all white he's not elected.

It's radical, but I think it will work. :001_tongue:
 

Benton

Premium Member
I asked G:M: Carnes about open discussion in the lodge prior to the vote. He was pretty short with me. His statement was this would ruin the peace and harmony of the lodge. If the candidate's friend is in the lodge and a discussion turns towards why the candidate should not be given a white ball, the friend could get upset. The peace and harmony of the lodge would take quite awhile to recover. This is what changed my mind on the subject.

Being aware of that potential fact, I honestly don't think it deters me at all. In other jurisdictions, if you black ball someone, you have to state why you blackballed them. How is it any different?

My biggest problem now is that, if I'm not on the investigation committee and I don't know the man personally, I don't *really* know who we're bringing into the lodge. With our lodge, which is small and struggling a bit because of the older age of all the Masons (I bring down the average a LOT), I worry that the IC won't always guard the West Gate as well as they should, for fear of paying the bills and keeping the doors open.

So, my problem really isn't with the balloting process, but the investigation process. Our investigation form that the committee fills out, frankly, doesn't tell me hardly anything about the man. It tells me that he knows how to answer our questions with the answers we want to hear. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. A deceitful person could easily fly under the radar if he wanted to.

I understand the GM's point. But going back to the one ball system will, in some lodges, also disrupt the harmony. How is that disruption any better than another?

I don't think there is a good solution here, but I do think there are less bad solutions, and I do think we can find one less bad than going back to the one ball system.
 

Tx4ever

Registered User
J Jones
Requiring three black balls instead of one also doesn't take a lodges membership size into account. We had 11 members (out of 40 or so) present at our stated meeting last night. This means that if we were to have voted on a candidate then almost 1/4 of those present would have had to vote unfavorably.
If you have 1, 2 ,or 3 UNfavorible investigations why would you have any problems getting 3 BB's with 11 members? If your voting UNfavorible without any UNfavorible investigations then there lies the problem and i would like to see the 1/4 precent to reject.
 

Christopher

Registered User
So, my problem really isn't with the balloting process, but the investigation process.

I agree completely. I really couldn't care less about one ball versus three balls. Anyone who wants to express his grudge with one black ball will be able to find two friends to make it three. This has been said by multiple people over and over and I have yet to hear a decent argument against it. If you wanted to keep a few bad apples from spoiling the bunch, you're going to have to really up the amount of black balls needed, such as 1/4 of the votes or a 1/3 of the votes.

But the only reason anyone has made an issue about the number of black balls and worked so hard to keep it low, is because the investigation process is such rubbish. This whole business about one black ball rejecting, with all the abuse and exploitation inherent in it, is solely a product of the horrid secrecy surrounding the whole investigation process. If you were able to share incriminating information about a candidate with the rest of the lodge, you wouldn't need to be able to reject him with your vote alone. Get rid of the secrecy, up the number of black balls required significantly, and you get rid of the abuse. Besides, a black ball has no accountability. If you stand up in open lodge and say something against a candidate, then that can be followed up on and investigated and either proved or discredited. How is that less fair to anyone? And while I agree that we never promised accessibility to anyone, we do purport to be an organization made up solely of "good men". If we're going to be serious about that then we need to be serious about both really investigating new candidates and clamping down on abuse by current members. Even if you can argue that switching to one black ball serves the first purpose, you can't possibly argue that it serves the second.

Ruin the peace and harmony of the lodge by having an open and honest conversation about provable facts? With all due respect to the Grand Master, if that's true then we have some very grave problems in our Fraternity indeed. If Masonry can unite men of every creed, nation, political opinion, etc., why on earth can't it bridge an opinion divide on a candidate? With all this grudge-holding going about in lodges, no wonder we're having a hard time retaining members.
 
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Tx4ever

Registered User
Lets talk The peace and harmony of the lodge , A brother ,top line recomends his son , grandson, friend, lets just say he would be great masons , 3 investigators give him a favoroble report, and unjustly 1 brother for what ever reason drops the BB , I would think this would greatly effect the peace and harmony,you may even lose a good brother or 2. Or the WM trys to protect justice and contuines the vote until midnight ,would this effect the peace and harmony? At least with 3 bb ,the bad apple has to gain 2 other cronies, which semi protects the system.
 

JJones

Moderator
If you have 1, 2 ,or 3 UNfavorible investigations why would you have any problems getting 3 BB's with 11 members? If your voting UNfavorible without any UNfavorible investigations then there lies the problem and i would like to see the 1/4 precent to reject.

I think you really hit the nail on the head with that. The investigation is the first step of the process and I think we are taking steps in the right direction to fix that. I suppose my issue with black balls would become somewhat of a moot point if investigations were more in depth. My grandfather once told me that investigating committees used to talk with a potential candidate's neighbors and employers as well before coming to a decision, though I'm not sure anyone really has the time or drive for anything like that now.

Requiring one black ball would still have it's merits though, as one member might know something about a candidate that other's aren't aware of and you aren't supposed to speak of new candidates.
 

Beathard

Premium Member
I wonder if they are going to allow much discussion on this one at Grand Lodge. It could be fun.
 

Preston DuBose

Registered User
As much as I really want to spill the beans about some recent events in our lodge, I don't think it's appropriate to share that kind of thing in a public forum. However, I will note that due to events in the last 12 months we now have an informal policy of asking candidates to join us during meals prior to the stated meeting for a few months before submitting a petition. This gives more members a chance to get to know the candidate and makes us more comfortable when it comes time for a ballot. Of course it also works both ways and gives the candidate a chance to get a feel for the lodge and its members.
 
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