[IDNO:588] Re: [Membership] Speaking of verification (and saving

Karl E. Peters (bridge@darientel.net)
Mon, 28 Jun 1999 07:48:39 -0400


Dear Joop, (and others concerned)
This is a thought process for voting to be compared with others:

As soon as membership, even provisionally, exists, we should institute
voting with individual passwords and software to prevent multiple voting by an
individual. Voting for candidates and specific rules changes and such should be
announced a few days ahead and not be allowed to persist more than a few days at
most. (The reason for this is that under the current system, there is no urgency
to vote and no immediate feedback as to final decisions because voting might
continue for weeks and events change before it is complete.) Assuming all of the
above, voting should be anonymous or with id available only for the archives. A
roll call vote makes sense more for committees and work groups.
I personally believe we should NOT display voting in progress for the same
reasons that results in the east are not supposed to be broadcast and influence
voters in the western USA. People have a tendency to be on a winning side
whether right or wrong and I believe that with an announced and timed election,
results will be available soon enough AFTER voting is completed and a quorum is
judged to have participated. Should we lack a quorum, the entire vote should be
re-done, not the original extended. Conditions and news change daily and a long
extended vote will end up being a vote on numerous situations over time and not
really a single vote. (Make sense?)
Comments (named or anonymous) are possible and should be accessible
separately from but convenient to the results. There should be notice that the
comments will be displayed in the voting process, however! This may not be
obvious to people accustomed to secret ballots!!!

Yes/No , FOR/Against voting should be used whenever an elections committee has
drafted a well thought out ballot that is not confusing or ambiguous, in other
words, that lends itself to an up or down vote.

More subtle voting (such as polling/voting on a scale of -5 to +5) is most
appropriate for issues like names suggestions and so forth.

-electing from a list of (people/things) one tick only per voter.
-voting for a list of (people/things) multiple ticks possible per voter
Both of these should be used depending on whether a vote is for a single seat or
multiple seats, such as for committee membership. Ideally, committees should be
for terms where people are rotated on and off at different times. This way we
would have a "Class of 2,000" officers where one third of the committee members
would be re-chosen each year (or term, if not year). This would mean we would
elect one person for each class on a three year rotation with one being elected
for one year and one for two and one for three the first election, then each is
elected for three years after that, but rotate one off each term, with
possibility of re-election if the group so desires.

Should we look at term limits or are we truly democratic?

> -approval/disapproval voting for a list of (people/things) multiple ticks
> possible.

Basically discussed above.

> The security is rudimentary (cookies), but the whole system is simple and
> transparant and can be audited by an independent party if an election result
> is questioned.

GOOD! Accountability is a must!

Sincerely yours,
Karl E. Peters

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