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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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