To accommodate an increase in participation, the International Code Council’s 2016 online governmental consensus vote for Group B International Codes was extended an extra week, concluding on Nov 27. The demand resulted in more than 162,000 votes cast by eligible ICC voting members during the three-week period.

A total of 577 code-change proposals were considered in the OGVC. The maximum number of votes cast on a single proposal was 780.

“The total number of votes included 24,899 in a single day,” ICC Chief Executive Officer Dominic Sims said. “For comparison purposes, the single-day vote count exceeds the total OGCV vote count of 23,905 in 2014 and is more than 50% of the total votes cast in 2015. This increase is clearly a positive step forward for the building-safety and fire-prevention industry, which we believe will continue in future code cycles.”

In other ICC news, the organization applauds the United States Senate for passing a wide-ranging bill that will include $170 million to address lead in Flint, Mich., drinking water and $558 million to provide relief to drought-stricken California. After the Senate approved, President Obama quickly signed the bill into law.