I am happily willing to concede that proxies can lead to undemocratic results.

However, the current situation also produces undemocratic results if we assume that Supporting Members should have rights similar to those of Attending Members. (You're allowed to make a different assumption, of course. :) ) As it stands, Supporting Members have no ability to participate in the Business Meeting and -- if we assume again that that's an important right -- then that's fundamentally undemocratic.

I agree that popular ratification would improve the situation.