spf-discuss
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Re: Initial Voting Procedures (updated 23:15pm Nov 14 2004)

2004-11-15 12:28:41
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First off, if your goal is to create a verifiable voting procedure, you have 
failed. There are still holes in your procedure. Second, the procedure is 
so complicated that only a few people will actually participate. Comments 
below.

My thoughts: First bylaws, then membership, then election of officers, in 
that order.

On Sunday 14 November 2004 11:39 pm, william(at)elan.net wrote:

1. The elections should be run by neutral party and can not be run
   by somebody who is a candidate for SPF council himself/herself.
   The person doing should insure that voting procedures are followed and
   everyone has equal opportunity to participate in the voting process.

This isn't necessary. I would feel comfortable allowing the president of the 
organization tally the votes. However you do it, someone has to be 
appointed the tallyman, who actually receives and counts the votes. That 
person should be someone who is mutually trusted and who is known for their 
character. Voting is a human process, subjective to human ingenuity for 
good or evil. Put someone fair in charge, and they will be able to outsmart 
the evil.

2. Everyone who has participated in spf-discuss and posted at least once
   prior to original call for nominations can vote (if entire list of
   people can not be created, then its everyone who had posted in the
   last 180 days prior to original call for nominations).

I would change that: People who want to help promote SPF should be allowed 
to vote.

This is the classical problem of defining membership. By definition, only 
members get to vote. What we have to do is define who the members are.

I don't believe limiting it to just people who posted would reflect the 
members you want in the group. There are many hundreds if not thousands of 
people who are actively supporting SPF and should be members who have never 
posted to this list. There are also many people who have posted and 
shouldn't be members because they oppose SPF.

When organizations are formed, the charter members compose the initial 
membership. These are people who have ratified the bylaws and expressed 
their support for the organization. The last thing you want is people who 
don't support the organization electing its leadership.

3. Voting takes place on the web with special form where people are asked
   to choose 5 candidates from the list of people who have accepted the
   nomination. Vote requires confirmation by email and address used must
   be one from which person previously posted on spf-discuss (see #2).

Too complicated. Just send in an email to the tallyman. We should have a 
list of valid email addresses of the members who are allowed to vote. The 
tallyman can challenge votes coming from unrecognized email addresses.

4. People are not allowed to vote more then once and its preferable that
   this be insured by technical means. If by chance more then one vote
   does happen, only the first one will be counted.

The tallyman would ensure this.

5. Election lasts for period of 7 days with at least one reminder sent
   to spf-discuss mail list 24 hour before election closes.

Again, not necessary. Two business days would be good enough, if you 
announced the date of the election in advance. In fact, 24 hours would be 
more than sufficient. I've run online votes before and 90% of the people 
respond within the first few hours of the polls being open.

6. All votes are collected and made avalable to the public within 24
hours after the end of voting process. Each person, his confirmed email
and his vote must be listed separately.

Not necessary. It is not a good idea to expose who voted for whom in a 
ballot vote. Anonymity invites many people to participate that wouldn't 
otherwise. Just make sure you appoint a fair tallyman.

7. After the votes have been published people must check their votes to
   insure its listed correctly and have 48 hours in which to post on
   spf-discuss mail list if there is a problem.

Not necessary. If someone wants to challenge the election, he has to raise 
an object to the procedure (For instance, saying that he knew he voted for 
X but his vote didn't show up.) This is of course standard operating 
procedure if we followed a set of rules that already had all these 
exceptions included, like, say, Robert's Rules of Order.

8. At the end of 10th day from the start of voting (unless serious
problems are found with presented list of votes) the summary is published
with list of how many votes each candidate received. The 5 people with
largest number of votes are asked to form SPF council.

Just have the tallyman announce the results, and have the president of the 
organization confirm them.

9. Initial council has no defined term but must come up with new election
   procedures and define its function and term (it SHOULD then call for
   new elections once this has all been approved or it MAY specifically
   make the poll and ask people on spf-discuss to confirm that existing
   council can serve reminder of the term)

Normally, people elect a president pro tem and secretary pro tem to 
spearhead the formation of the organization. This two-man team is the most 
efficient method, but not necessarily the most fair. However, the president 
pro tem and secretary pro tem are trying to optimize for two goals: quick 
formation and maximum initial participation of like-minded individuals.

10.Anybody can choose to resign from the council in that case the person
   with next highiest number of votes of those not elected takes his
place.

Not a good idea. Resign, yes, but filling vacancies shouldn't go to the 
losers of the election. There are better methods.

When you're ready to bow to historical precedence and the experience of 
human history, let me know and I'll help you walk through the formation 
process.

Otherwise, you've got a very bumpy ride ahead as you rediscover what has 
already been discovered. We don't need this - we need to get business done 
right away.

- -- 
Jonathan M. Gardner
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