NASHVILLE (BP) — The debate over how to increase participation at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting isn’t a new one. But even advances in technology don’t solve some of the inherent problems in remote participation, SBC Executive Committee (EC) members agreed last week.

It’s not as much a matter of technology as it is polity, SBC EC President and CEO Jeff Iorg stressed in remarks to trustees.

“The Southern Baptist Convention is currently webcast and available to anyone who has access to the internet,” he said.

But assuring that anyone with internet access also be able to vote on every matter at the convention becomes “very problematic,” especially in close votes.

In 2021, there were 14,300 ballots cast at the time of the SBC presidential election in Nashville. Out of four candidates, 586 votes separated the top two. A runoff between Ed Litton and Mike Stone brought 13,131 ballots, with only 556 more cast for Litton.

Another runoff occurred the following year between eventual president Bart Barber and Tom Ascol. The most recent presidential election, won by Clint Pressley, featured two runoffs.

Recent annual meetings have also included votes over topics of high interest such as ministry roles for women and the title of pastor.  

“The challenge is assuring every messenger — from American Samoa to Alaska to Puerto Rico – can have their vote counted every time,” Iorg said in additional comments to Baptist Press. “The technology does not exist for us to make that guarantee. 

“We can and do broadcast the meeting globally, but we cannot yet assure every vote can be counted. That’s why it’s a polity issue as well as a technology issue.”

From the late 1980s into the mid-‘90s a series of motions addressed the possibility of allowing registered messengers to vote even if they were unable to attend in person or chose not to. The Executive Committee declined them all.

As communicative technology advanced into the late ‘90s and new century, other motions came forward in 1997 and 2001 to study the feasibility of holding regional/satellite meetings for the annual gathering. They were declined as well, with the EC citing the complexity and costs of conducting convention business in that manner regardless of the technology’s availability. There were also concerns over such a move’s impact on the group dynamic that is associated with the annual meeting.

The EC showed a willingness to incorporate technology that streamlined the proceedings, as shown by a 2005 recommendation to revise Bylaw 8 to allow for online registration.

The topic was also introduced in a motion at the 2011 SBC annual meeting asking for online live messenger participation. It was declined in the EC’s report to the convention the following year.

A motion brought at the 2018 annual meeting called for another feasibility study on remote participation. Messenger Dale Jenkins of Washington also asked for the EC to “explore enabling technologies for the purpose of increasing participation.”

Executive Committee members referred to previous studies in declining the motion the following year. That included the “inappropriate prioritization” of diverting missions dollars toward technologies for which there was no model of its usage in a deliberative group setting such as the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting. Furthermore, the dependability of conducting business and voting with integrity was not guaranteed, to say the least.

At that same 2019 meeting, Tennessee messenger Dennis Golden made a motion calling for all Southern Baptist senior pastors to be capable of casting their votes for president and vice president remotely. The motion cited travel costs for most pastors as a primary rationale for remote voting.

The response (adopted by the EC in 2019) was delivered in 2020, but only through the EC’s report in the 2020 SBC Annual. There was no meeting, remote or otherwise, that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following a “renewed examination,” the EC declined Golden’s motion. Although Zoom and other technologies were practiced and well-known by this time, so were the drawbacks. The EC again cited, among many others, dependability issues for conducting business among a group the size of the SBC.

The issue has also been discussed at the state level, such as in 2014 when messengers to the Baptist General Convention of Texas declined a motion to study remote voting in multiple locations for that convention’s annual meeting.

Last week, Iorg echoed previous reasons when the EC declined yet another motion regarding remote voting brought at this year’s annual meeting in Indianapolis. Conducting convention business includes voting, giving one’s opinion on motions and calling for a point of order. Consider the mechanics and variables in play doing it worldwide in real time.

The EC also declined to recommend amendments to the SBC governing documents allowing virtual participation or electronic voting by messengers not present at the annual meeting.

In the report that will be delivered to messengers at next June’s annual meeting in Dallas, EC members acknowledge a desire “to see the maximum number of messengers” participate. Iorg told trustees at their recent meeting that in-room electronic voting is being investigated to speed up and streamline the process.

Iorg also repeated reasons given decades earlier in defense of gathering together in a group setting.

“The Southern Baptist Convention, in its name, implies a convening,” he told EC members. “Our polity calls for that.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Scott Barkley is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press.)