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Election process (was re: [rpd] AFRINIC Board Elections - 2014: Call for Nominations)
Owen DeLong
owen at delong.com
Sat May 10 13:13:55 UTC 2014
> There are some logistics which people may be missing.
> I see that there is a goal to move to 100% electronic voting, however
> until then.....
>
> Practically, the e-vote needs to be terminated some time before people
> collect their ballot papers. This is so that the ballot papers can be
> provided only to those entities allowed to vote because they have not
> yet exercised that right via the e-vote. In order to do this, logically,
> one needs to see which entities have used the e-vote so their
> representatives are not also given a ballot paper to vote with.
Actually, an alternative to this might be to in real time, be able to lock each voter
receiving a paper ballot out of eligibility for e-vote while leaving e-vote open. In
such a case, at the time the person requests a paper ballot, you could:
1. Lock them out of e-vote.
2. Verify they have not yet e-voted.
3. Issue the paper ballot.
In this way, you can leave e-voting open until the close of the election, but still
provide for paper voting as well.
By voter, I mean an entity eligible to cast a particular vote. Some persons are
multiple voters (such as Mark describes below) representing multiple voting
entities. In such a case, the above choice between paper and e-vote would
be on a vote-by-vote basis for each of the votes a given person is eligible to
cast. An optimization could make it convenient to make the election across
all eligible votes for a person in cases where the person wanted to, but that
would be optional.
> From a convenience point of view, the e-vote cut-off time is the evening
> before voting day. Names can then be checked. From the morning of voting
> day, paper ballots are issued to all still legible voters. This takes
> time. Paper Ballots are carried by their owners until they are
> "exercised" later on in the afternoon.
>
> I guess that in the process of checking the names of entities who have
> e-voted, one may also know how they have voted (though I might be
> wrong). I personally have no issues with this as long as the e-vote
> results are kept strictly confidential (as has been done).
If the system is properly designed, then the voter registration/admission
process does not have any access to the tally process.
> Once all the paper ballots have been submitted and counted, the results
> of the two systems can be safely merged into one election result and
> announced.
Yes. The e-vote tally should not be accessible to anyone until the paper
ballots have begun to be counted. In an ideal world, paper ballots would
be in a machine-readable form and could be scanned to produce a single
e-vote tally which includes both on-line and scanned votes.
> Due to the fact that I represent more than one entity, I have more than
> one vote to cast. Last year, I cast some by e-vote and some by ballot
> paper. I was happy to see that the system worked.
>
> Before asking for change, please carefully consider how one might do
> this better whilst we have both e-votes and paper ballot votes.
>
> ... and I believe I have the general details and reasoning
> correct... :-)
>
>
>> Regards
>> sent from Google nexus 4
>> kindly excuse brevity and typos.
>>
>> On 10 May 2014 07:04, "Noah Maina" <mainanoa at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ++1 suen
>>
>> I would lean on this suggestion as it makes more sense and
>> both online counting and physical counting should be done
>> simultaneously.
>>
>> Noah
>>
>> You got into the party when we all have had a fair share of
>> the drinks ;)
>>
>> The drunken part of me is therefore agreeing that the only fix
>> is to go electronic 100%. However the conscious part of me
>> still thinks it's not good ethics to have a voting means
>> shutdown before the other for the same election.
>>
>> In view of this, I will suggest that while closing of online
>> voting is done a day before AGM, it's actual
>> unlocking/counting of votes should be done same time with
>> counting of paper based. This means that as staff clear a
>> member for online voting such member is struck out from the
>> members list.
>>
>> Hope this is an acceptable compromise otherwise I am open to
>> why this isn't.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> sent from Google nexus 4
>> kindly excuse brevity and typos.
>>
>> On 9 May 2014 15:16, "Douglas Onyango" <ondouglas at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> Hi Seun, et al,
>> Sorry I am joining the party late, but given my
>> experience on the
>> Nomcom, my few cents are inline:
>>
>> On 8 May 2014 09:05, Seun Ojedeji
>> <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> - The electronic voting is starting before getting
>> the opportunity to hear
>>> from the contestants. In view of this, does it mean
>>> 1. There will be no time when the contestant will
>> speak to the community
>>> (i.e the only information posted on the website is
>> what will be used for
>>> both at online and f2f voting)
>>
>> My recollection is that the comment period, and the
>> feedback form
>> specifically is designed to allow pre-f2f online
>> engagement . It is
>> Nomcom's expectation that by the time of the f2f, the
>> electorate
>> should have interacted via this platform to form an
>> opinion on the
>> candidate. It is also for this reason that the speech
>> at the f2f is
>> trimmed to a minuscule 2 or so minutes.
>>
>>> 2. The speech of the contestants will be uploaded
>> before the electronic
>>> voting starts and further speaking opportunity
>> awarded to contestants
>>> present at f2f
>>
>> In the past, recorded speeches have only been for
>> candidates who are
>> not at the f2f in person and as such this is not
>> available to the
>> public until the other candidates are speaking --
>> typically minutes
>> from the voting.
>>
>>> - The closing date for the online voting has been
>> set to end before f2f; as
>>> mentioned in the last AGM why does the online voting
>> have to close earlier
>>> than the f2f voting?
>>
>> The online vote has to be tallied and our current
>> procedure specifies
>> that the tallying happens before the elections which
>> makes sense if
>> you asked me because three trustees have to unlock the
>> votes with
>> their private keys around the same time. Leaving this
>> until the paper
>> ballot is tempting fate: Internet connectivity or one
>> of the trustees
>> may just not be present. This can jeopardize the
>> entire exercise as
>> there might not be enough time to fix the issue.
>>
>> On 8 May 2014 14:48, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> If I recall correctly, there is only one person (the
>> CEO) who is able
>>> to obtain the results
>>> of the e-vote and he does this just before the f2f
>> vote.
>>
>> Not entirely accurate. The online voting system is
>> designed such that
>> the result is unlocked and tallied by three trustees.
>> These
>> individuals have to validate the result and as such
>> have knowledge of
>> it.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
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>>
>
> --
> Mark James ELKINS - Posix Systems - (South) Africa
> mje at posix.co.za Tel: +27.128070590 Cell: +27.826010496
> For fast, reliable, low cost Internet in ZA: https://ftth.posix.co.za
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