[rpd] Fwd: Discussion about e-voting

[Adiel Akplogan]

FYI

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Adiel Akplogan <adiel at afrinic.net>
> Subject: Discussion about e-voting
> Date: May 12, 2014 at 15:46:01 PM GMT+4
> To: "members-discuss at afrinic.net List" <members-discuss at afrinic.net>
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> First of all thank you all for contribution to this discussion. While I have been providing my input to this off list to people involved. Let me clarify few things in this mail:
> 
> 1. The NOmCom does not run the election, but as per Article 10 of our Bylaws it is the "Election Committee" that does: http://www.afrinic.net/en/about-us/bylaws?start=9
> The NomCom however, at the end of their mandate provide the board with a report that contain their observation and recommendations. The board review them and task the Staff to implement them where relevant. 
> 
> The election committee work through the mailing list "ecom at afrinic.net" and is composed for 2014 elections of:
> 
> Mark Elkins (Chair, Chair of The NomCom 2014)
> Ernest Byaruhanga (Staff, Election coordinator),
> Guylaine Mootoo (Secretariat)
> Nirmal Manik (Member)
> Arthur N’guessan (Member)
> 
> 2. As explained before, the way the system is currently designed we need to close online voting some time before the start of the start of paper vote to ascertain that only people who have not voted only get paper ballot. Bearing in Mind that closure of the online vote and tallying it is two different things and are not interdependent, last year when we ran e-voting for the first time we give ourself some margin by tallying the online vote few hours  (12h) before the paper vote starts (the whole ceremony was recorded and available for consultation by any one who wanted it and That was announced during the AGMM). One of the reasons we did that was to avoid any surprise (in term of logistic) the day of paper election - Internet connection down, absence of trustee, etc (probably a bit anxiety for doing it for the first time)… The result known only by the trustees was then printed and sealed in an envelop signed by all the three trustees (Legal Counsel, Chair of NOmCom and CEO). The envelop was kept by the legal counsel and was only open at the end of the paper vote and added to the paper vote count. I understand that that is what is being requested: to revisit the process so that the tally happen at the same time as paper votes are being counted. This is possible and will done in Djibouti. It is just a matter of pure logistic that we will handle.
> 
> 3. There was a suggestion to improvement MyAFRINIC to have a dynamic validation of voting method. This will be assess, and a report will be presented to the community in Djibouti. Unfortunately it can not be developed and implement for this upcoming election. It is important to also understand that our voting system is not standalone one but is linked to our member portal (MyAFRINIC) and involves few other checks on member status, management of Proxy etc … which imply careful attention to any changes.
> 
> 4. A lot of comments have also suggested moving to 100% e-voting. That will be the ideal approach indeed, but my experience of our region suggest me to request for a bit of caution here. This has been debated lengthly within the board during the revision of the current bylaws. It appear that our objective should be to give as much chance as possible to members to express their votes. It is not inimaginable in our region to have someone unable to vote online (for many reasons I will not try to list here), if that ever happen, they must have the ability to roll back to other means of vote. What come up as evidence however is that we should gradually evolve toward getting ride of vote by proxy.
> 
> 5. We have tried to implement as much feedback collected from the last year AGMMM in this year guideline (which was published for comment) and we are continuously open to constructive feedbacks and input to our processes so to improve them. We also have to keep in mind that AFRINIC operate with very limited resources and more we ask more we will have to mobilise resources for their proper implementation (everything has a cost).  
> 
> In conclusion, for 2014 Board election, e-voting will stop few hours before Paper ballot starts, but the tally will take place at the same time paper votes count will take place. 
> 
> I hope this will help the discussion and reinsure people who have expressed some worries.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> - a.
> 
> 
> 

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