Rob Weir was asked to comment on the USA vote. As we are so busy we just share the original mail with you that the IBM specialist said is "public news". I must confess I didn't understand the US ANSI voting process at all. The mail helped me to get what happened. Hope it is useful for you, too.
Rob's email answer-
The US vote in JTC1 is owned by ANSI and delegated to an industry forum
called INCITS. INCITS has an Executive Board (EB) as well as several
technical Subcommittees (SC's).When JTC1 issued the DIS 29500 5-month ballot back in the spring, INCITS
requested that V1, the committee with expertise in XML and SGML markup
languages, review the proposal and provide a technical evaluation. V1 did
this review, generated several hundred technical comments on OOXML.
However, when it came time for V1 to vote on its recommendation on July
13th, they failed to reach a consensus. So votes to approve, disapprove
and even abstain all failed to reach the required 2/3 consensus level. So
the comments were forwarded to the INCITS EB without a recommendation.Ordinarilly the INCITS EB follows the recommendations of its technical
committees. But since a narrow majority of the EB favored approval of
OOXML, they were able to control the language of the ballot, and sent out
an Approval ballot for OOXML. (This is something that confuses some
people. Before the EB can have a vote on something it must agree on the
wording of the ballot, of what question is to be asked. The approval of
the ballot language requires simple majority, though the approval of the
ballot itself requires 2/3.) This ballot closed on August 9th and you can
see the results here:http://ballot.itic.org/itic/tallyvote.taf?function=vote&committee=INCITS&ballot_id=2212
The ballot was defeated by an 8-7-1 vote, well short of the 2/3 required.
The INCITS EB met again in DC on 8/15 to discuss OOXML. Since again a
majority favored OOXML, a second Approval ballot was issued. This ballot
closed August 23rd and the results are:http://ballot.itic.org/itic/tallyvote.taf?function=vote&committee=INCITS&ballot_id=2341
The results were 12-3-1.
The EB will meet again on August 29th and confirmed the vote.
So, what happened between August 9th and August 23rd? Good question. If
you look at the two ballots, you will see that 4 members changed their
votes; Lexmark, GS1 and the three government agencies (Department of
Defense, Dept. of Homeland Security and NIST). The government agencies
had previously stated that they would vote as a bloc according to NIST's
instructions. If you look at their comments, you will see some big
swings.For example, GS1 in the first ballot (8/9) said: "NO - with the following
comment: I am opposed to approval with comments; it does not assure proper
vetting of the comments submitted. Clause 9.8 of the ISO/IEC Directives,
5th Edition indicates that the correct response, in order to be assured
that these technical comments will be addressed in a satisfactory manner,
is to disapprove (conditional) with comments."But on the 8/23 ballot they voted Yes with no comment.
On the 8/9 ballot NIST wrote: "Based upon the technical comments
identified, NIST believes that the US National Body should be voting for
conditional approval to DIS 29500. The JTC 1 procedures in clause 9.8,
Votes on Fast-track DISs, contain the note: ?[Note: Conditional approval
should be submitted as a disapproval vote.]? While this is advisory (i.e.,
should versus shall), it is the best way to ensure that the comments
submitted by the US National Body are given careful consideration. "But then on 8/23 they vote Yes with no comment.
So what happened between 8/9 and 8/23 that would cause three government
agencies to make a 180-degree change in their position? I have no
independent evidence on this, but I suggest that this is not a
coincidence: http://xml.sys-con.com/read/419573.htmI'd suggest reading the IBM comment on the ballot here:
http://ballot.itic.org/itic/tallyvote.taf?function=detail&response_id=115316Frank Farance's is also very good:
http://ballot.itic.org/itic/tallyvote.taf?function=detail&response_id=115320-Rob
