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[rpd] Discussion about e-voting
gift
gift at itibots.com
Tue May 13 08:44:14 UTC 2014
Dear All
The purpose of proxy votes in the corporate world is to allow a member
who for what ever reason is not able to attend an AGM to exercise their
right by appointing someone to vote at such meeting on their behalf. The
point here is that there is only one opportunity and one type of voting
usual ballot or show of hands. If there is no proxy then the member is
disenfranchised. In the case of AfriNIC, there is an alternative vote
being online vote which would suit the absent member.
The issue to be asked therefore, if we do away with proxy votes will we
violate any member rights considering they have an alternative form of
voting which apparently suits their absence at the meeting? The solution
could be either f2f ballot voting or e-voting and nothing else.
The other question to debate is whether there is any reason to limit the
number of resource members any individual can represent. I believe a
reasonable limit can be imposed rather than leave it open ended.
Certainly where one is representing many members they tend to carry
their views along to the vote. Is this necessary a bad thing? May be not
entirely as the individual will be putting their vote where their money
is as some of the multiple representations may be based one's
investment. But there is room for regulation here.
On general corporate governance standards and independence, my view has
been the board (or member of) should not be directly involved in the
running of the elections (by what ever definition) other than by way of
policy. As the sitting executive they have a direct interest. But then
this seems to be the model for member driven organizations from ICANN to
RIRS where board members occupy a representative and ownership role
which often appears conflictual depending from which angle one looks. A
board member is supposed to have the best interest of AfrINIC at heart
yet he also has personal interest about certain views and choices; out
going and incoming directors etc. They participate in choosing Nomcom
and then sit in Nomcom and certainly the opportunity for undue influence
exists as they are the appointing authority for the supposed colleagues
in Nomcom. As knowledge and experience on these matters increase within
AfriNIC community, I would advocate that there should be no member of
the board in Nomcom. The CEO can support Nomcom adequately policy and
admin wise. Best corporate governance standards discourage an individual
playing multiple/dual roles which have a potential conflict of interest.
I guess democracy is dynamic a number of these issues
regards
GS
On 13/05/2014 10:01 AM, Andrew Alston wrote:
> Again, I would argue that this is actually normal practice.
>
> Going back to the corporate example before:
>
> An individual sits on 5 boards, he can vote on all 5 boards.
>
> On board 1, comprising of 15 members, with a quorum of 10, 4 members cannot make a board meeting, and assign proxies to one individual to vote on their behalf. At this point, said individual on board 1 carries his own vote, and 4 proxies. Have seen that happen before in several cases.
>
> What I *WOULD* like to see is that the proxy form contains a field where the member organization assigning the proxy specifies on the proxy form which way the individual casting the proxy shall vote, or an optional "discretionary" box. So when the proxies are allocated, the individual can be forced by the member organization assigning the proxy to vote in a particular way, or can specifically be granted the discretion to choose who he/she casts the members vote for.
>
> This would eliminate a lot of the potential problems, where someone shows up with 5 proxies, and can potentially be influenced at the meeting to throw all his/her proxies behind a single candidate, since the votes are already indicated on the proxy ballot.
>
> Just a thought
>
> Andrew
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Walubengo J [mailto:jwalu at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2014 10:29 AM
> To: Andrew Alston; Nii Narku Quaynor; ademola at ng.lopworks.com
> Cc: rpd at afrinic.net
> Subject: Re: [rpd] Discussion about e-voting
>
> @Ademola,
>
> jst to complicate matters abit with the following hypothetical case. I can carry 5 Proxies and still have additional 5votes for the companies of which I am a Director/Owner. Total votes individual cast =10.
>
> walu.
> Lesson Learnt: A proxy vote is not necessarily the same as a resource member vote. Or so i think.
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Tue, 5/13/14, ademola at ng.lopworks.com <ademola at ng.lopworks.com> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: [rpd] Discussion about e-voting
> To: "Andrew Alston" <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>, "Nii Narku Quaynor" <quaynor at ghana.com>
> Cc: rpd at afrinic.net
> Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2014, 10:03 AM
>
> Dear,
>
> If it has already been agreed to, I'm sure it was well reviewed by your noble selves, then it should be 5.
>
> And that implies that an
> individual could vote as many as 5 times while acting as a proxy.
>
> Fair enough except
> any case of abuse is shown.
>
> Regards,
> Ademola Osindero
> CEO/Consulting Director,
> Lopworks Limited
>
> www.lopworks.com
> Original
> Message
> From: Andrew Alston
> Sent:
> Tuesday, May 13, 2014 7:48 AM
> To: ademola at ng.lopworks.com;
> Nii Narku Quaynor
> Cc: rpd at afrinic.net
> Subject: RE: [rpd] Discussion about e-voting
>
> The limit on proxies was
> already reviewed and reduced to 5 after the fiasco in Tanzania a few elections back.
>
> This is as defined in the bylaws (I believe it's in section 12.12, but I'm open to correction).
>
> Do you propose
> to reduce this still further?
>
> Thanks
>
> Andrew
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ademola at ng.lopworks.com
> [mailto:ademola at ng.lopworks.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2014 9:40 AM
> To: Andrew Alston; Nii Narku Quaynor
> Cc: rpd at afrinic.net
> Subject: Re: [rpd] Discussion about e-voting
>
> Hi All,
>
> My point is this is easily prone to abuse and would lead to Animal Farm situation.
>
> On Andrew's example of board directorship, a Director is allowed to cast a vote "on the board of each company he or she is present". That is completely different from the director trying to cast a vote on a platform including many companies he or she represents. The later is the case of Afrinic.
>
> To be lenient, it is worth reviewing the limit on proxy votes as stated by Nii Quaynor.
>
> Regards,
> Ademola Osindero
> CEO/Consulting Director,
> Lopworks Limited
>
> www.lopworks.com
> Original
> Message
> From: Andrew Alston
> Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2014 7:22 AM
> To: Nii Narku Quaynor; ademola at ng.lopworks.com
> Cc: rpd at afrinic.net
> Subject: Re: [rpd] Discussion about e-voting
>
> Form my perspective, its a
> completely different issue.
>
> People wearing different hats is part of life, and part of standard business. Let me give you an
> example:
>
> An individual
> holds directorships on multiple boards (this is very common in business, and I can point to several examples).
>
> That individual has the right
> to vote within the board structures of each entity that he represents. Same thing.
>
> Or,
> to put this another way, when an individual votes at the AfriNIC elections, he does not vote as himself, he votes as a member. If the member chooses to designate him the right to vote, that is their right as member. To restrict an individual from representing multiple organisations would be equivalent to saying, if you¹re a director of one organisation, you cannot hold a directorship in another. If this were to happen, it might be noted that this would potentially exclude a lot of people from current and past boards who do hold directorships in other organisations.
>
> As stated by Ademola, one
> voice, one vote. The only thing is, it is still one voice one vote, where one voice = ONE MEMBER, the people actually costing the votes are the members, NOT the individual who is merely the instrument through which the members voice is heard.
>
> That¹s my opinion
> anyway
>
> Andrew
>
>
> On 5/13/14,
> 8:45 AM, "Nii Narku Quaynor" <quaynor at ghana.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Just curious.
> How different is this multi hat different from holding >proxy? I recall Afrinic has a limit on proxy?
> >
> >> On May
> 13, 2014, at 0:20, ademola at ng.lopworks.com
> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> What I find rather absurd is one person having multiple votes. What >>kind of election is that? It should be one voice one vote and that >>should mean one individual one vote.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Ademola Osindero
> >> CEO/Consulting Director,
> >> Lopworks Limited
> >>
> >>
> www.lopworks.com
> >> Original
> Message
> >> From: Owen DeLong
> >> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2014 11:14 PM
> >> To: ademola at ng.lopworks.com
> >> Cc: mje at posix.co.za; rpd at afrinic.net >> Subject: Re: [rpd] Discussion about e-voting >> >> I¹m sorry, but I think that is absurd. All it accomplishes is to >>force organizations to scramble trying to find additional individuals >>to cast their votes. It serves absolutely no useful purpose whatsoever, IMHO.
> >>
> >> Owen
> >>
> >>> On May
> 12, 2014, at 3:03 PM, ademola at ng.lopworks.com
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> One individual one vote,
> irrespective of how many member
> >>>organizations you are affiliated
> to. Once an individual's identity is
> >>>associated with a member, then the
> person will cast vote for only
> >>>that member and no other member.
> >>>
> >>>
> Regards,
> >>> Ademola Osindero
> >>> CEO/Consulting Director,
> >>> Lopworks Limited
> >>>
> >>>
> www.lopworks.com
> >>> Original
> Message
> >>> From: Owen DeLong
> >>> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2014 10:58
> PM
> >>> To: mje at posix.co.za
> >>> Cc: rpd at afrinic.net
> >>> Subject: Re: Fwd: [rpd] Discussion
> about e-voting
> >>>
> >>>>> 2. Going forward IMHO I
> think we should discouraged multiple
> >>>>>voting by an individual for
> different members since the
> >>>>>probability of voting
> differently is low and this only goes to >>>>>increase votes across one side only. A "polished form" of election >>>>>rigging. I know some will argue one can still like gin with >>>>>different credentials and vote one sided but then :) >>>>> >>>>> Could someone from the community enlighten me on this please.
> >>>
> >>> To
> echo what Mark said in slightly less confrontational languageS( >>> >>> One member, one vote. Each member should be able to choose who casts >>>the vote on behalf of that member.
> I see nothing wrong with members
> >>>who wish to have the same person
> represent their interests doing so.
> >>>It is not election rigging if 25
> different member organizations all
> >>>select the same person to cast
> votes on their behalf. Presumably each
> >>>member organization is capable of
> choosing a voting representative
> >>>who will vote in a manner
> consistent with their desires and
> >>>interests. Likely if they were each
> forced to choose a different
> >>>person in order to avoid being
> disenfranchised as you propose, you
> >>>would simply see a larger group of
> voters who are potentially less
> >>>informed and less motivated. I do
> not think that would be beneficial
> >>>to AfriNIC, to the community, nor
> to the members.
> >>>
> >>> It seems to me that this is not in
> any way equivalent to stuffing
> >>>the ballot box or rigging the
> election. If those organizations all
> >>>pick the same person to represent
> them, either they trust that person
> >>>to share their ideals/needs/wants
> or they trust that person to vote
> >>>as they instruct on their behalf.
> In either case, that person is
> >>>legitimately exercising the vote
> designated by the member
> >>>organization on behalf of each
> member organization.
> >>>
> >>> Owen
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rpd
> >>
> >>
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Gift Shava
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