[members-discuss] Request to amend the RIPE NCC Articles of Association

Nick, all

talk to the NCC, it's exactly that:

	Counting paper ballots: This is a manual process by which the cast paper ballots get entered into the same electronic voting system that the electronically cast votes end up in.  With 5 resolutions plus 6 candidates times 119 paper ballots and a 4 (or more) eyes verification this takes hours of possibly error-prone monotony.

My goal here is educated decision making and ensuring a wide democratic base.  Consequently I don't think voting should be opened before the end of a General Meeting and I'd even want people to have a bit more time to evaluate available choices, and maybe sleep over them.  But there are still provisions in the Articles that would allow passing resolutions (not very anonymously, btw.) by acclamation or by show of hands, excluding everybody not on site, and I don't want that to happen during a GM I was hindered to attend for whatever reason. Remember, the Voting Report states " 1,140 members registered to vote, and 608 members cast their ballots".  Only 119 of those were paper ballots.  The membership has increased significantly.  This will very likely continue for quite some years, so the ratio will probably become more biased.

I have no strong feelings about the duration of the voting period.  24 hours seems enough for me, but YMMV.

Mit freundlichen Gruessen,
Ulf Kieber
Head of NOC
green.ch AG


-----Original Message-----
From: members-discuss-bounces at ripe.net [mailto:members-discuss-bounces at ripe.net] On Behalf Of Nick Hilliard
Sent: Dienstag, 24. Juni 2014 13:07
To: Nigel Titley; members-discuss at ripe.net
Subject: Re: [members-discuss] Request to amend the RIPE NCC Articles of Association

On 24/06/2014 11:01, Nigel Titley wrote:
> We would like to hear more feedback from the membership on these 
> voting issues. Do members think there is a case for removing the 
> option to vote with paper ballot and by proxy?

As it's expired from my mailbox, Ulf's original email is here:

> http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/members-discuss/2014-May/001476
> .html

e-voting is demonstrably faster and more efficient than paper ballots, but it's not possible to guarantee voter anonymity.  The bottom line is that if you log into an online evoting system, you need to trust that the system will not associate your authentication token with your ballot.  All we can do is say that the RIPE NCC trusts BigPulse, and also expects it's membership to do so.

Regarding counting, there are several software packages which can assist with counting.  I've used OpenSTV and it works quite nicely.  I assume that as there are both e-votes and paper votes, that BigPulse's system also assists with this and that therefore the problem that Ulf identified maybe isn't as big as he perceives it to be.

No doubt BigPulse are a reputable company, but on principal I have problems with e-voting relating to privacy and verifiable trust.  On balance, I'm not convinced that Ulf's suggestion fixes more problems than it creates, and consequently I do not support it.

Nick



----
If you don't want to receive emails from the RIPE NCC members-discuss mailing list, please log in to your LIR Portal account and go to the general page:
https://lirportal.ripe.net/general/

Click on "Edit my LIR details", under "Subscribed Mailing Lists". From here, you can add or remove addresses.