Election process (was re: [rpd] AFRINIC Board Elections - 2014: Call for Nominations)

[Owen DeLong]

On May 10, 2014, at 6:26 PM, Douglas Onyango <ondouglas at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Ni, et al
> On 10 May 2014 18:14, Nii Narku Quaynor <quaynor at ghana.com> wrote:
>> Very good discussion and outcome though I am a little confused about
>> decision procedure
> 
> +1 on this one. AFAIK, Nomcom's mandate comes from the BoD and along
> with it: the guidelines.  I am concerned that right now the decision
> to shift the vote tallying and results to election day is in
> contravention of the guidelines and I don't know if the board has
> sanctioned this or if a unilateral decision has been made by Nomcom.
> 
> Additionally I don't see the rush to get this done in Djibouti. I
> think this change requires technological and logistical adjustments
> that I am just not sure AFRINIC as assessed properly.

There are no technological adjustments required to delay the publication of
part of the election results until the full election result is available. There are
only minor logistical adjustments required.

While I agree that changing the election procedure on the fly is generally not
a good thing, this is a case where there is clear benefit to correcting a previous
oversight. Ideally, the BoD should confirm that they agree this is the right thing
to do and implement it for the elections coming up in (and leading up to) Djibouti.
I agree that nom-comm likely isn’t (and shouldn’t be) empowered to act unilaterally
in this case, but I cannot imagine how the change in question would be controversial.

Announcing a partial result while voting is still in progress can only serve to bias
the election. It is utterly antithetical to a fair and impartial election.

> On this basis, I would suggest  we start preparations to implement the
> new system immediately and possibly present the assessment Djibouti,
> but actually implement it in 2015 after we have a better understanding
> of the implications.

What’s being talked about implementation for Djibouti is merely the change to
not announce the e-vote results prior to paper voting. Any more significant
modifications were never intended for implementation this year to the best
of my knowledge.

Owen