[council] Elections- How to

[Amadeu Abril i Abril <Amadeu@nominalia.com>]

Andrew McLaughlin wrote:

OK now my comnets on the methodology.

While all the methods you mentioned are vaild, I think we will not be
able to escape a combination of them all.

This would be my schedule:

October 8: closure of nominations (and also election of some
consituencies new NC embmers)

October 9-10: the weiend should be used to get evryone, incuding new
members, acquainted to the electoral mechanism. Also it could be used
to preparthe questions that each NC might be willing to submit to each
candidate in wiritng.

Monday 11. At the usual time, NCVteleconf in order to clean up all the
details and prepare the electoral process. Butn that time (beginning
of teleconf) the NC members should have sent the "fitst" ballot (in my
view tha one with three names in it) to the Secretatirat by e-.mail.
The secretariat who will anounce the tally during the teleconf. In
case the number of nominees is still very large (likely) a second
ballot with two votes per NC member sis sent to the Secretariat at the
end of the telconf.

Wednesday 13: Telconf where remaining nominess are invited to attned.
Disucssion with them.

Wednesday 13: new baloot, with one vote for eah NC member, is sent to
the secretariat immediatly after the telcoinf.

Thursday 14. In order to solve the issue, an online method that would
allow globval communication and party-to-pary disussion, ie a chat,
should be used. With all NC members presnet, we complete round after
round until we get done. The advantage of this method is that it is
much faster thatn telephone plus e-mail (as it is simultaneous for
disucsssion and voting) allows sedning messages to all NC members as
they are supposed to be presnet as in a atelconf, but also allow for
private disucssions and even using the pribate channel to vote to the
secretariat without this beeing seen by the group (unlike telephoen)

[sorry baobut this. I know that this means that I am propsoing
intensive hosrtrading method. But isn't this what the convention
method is about= What really counts about the convention is not that
everyboedy ids present at the sme place, but the existence of
"corridors" and coffe rooms where peole disucss the best move before
net round....=

Firday 15: we schedule a telconf to solvbe the remaining issues, if any.

I know that this is REALLY  time consuming. But we have a complicated
challenge before us (rectious: before the permanent NC...). Perhaps
the NC is done on Wednesday, but we have the duty to make all possible
arranbgemnts to prevent possible "accidnets".

Your thoughts....


Amadeu

> II.  VARIATIONS BY VOTING MEDIUM
> 
> BY TELEPHONE
> 
> To conduct a convention-style election by phone:
> 
>      - the secretariat emails a ballot (list of nominees) to the NC members
> for reference;
>      - the secretariat of the NC calls the roll for each round (rotating the
> list so that NC members are called in a different, random sequence for each
> round)
>      - each NC member states his/her vote when called;
>      - the secretariat tallies and announces the results;
>      - the secretariat determines and announces which name(s) to eliminate;
>      - the process is repeated until one nominee gets 10 or more votes.
> 
> Under this scenario, the NC members will be aware of each others' votes.
> The call could, but need not, be webcast.
> 
> One option would be to conduct the votes for the three Director seats on
> three different days, to break a single, long teleconference into smaller
> sessions and to allow the NC members to discuss, reflect and consult between
> the teleconferences.  The teleconferences could be scheduled on three
> consecutive days, or on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday sequence.
> 
> BY EMAIL
> 
> To conduct a convention-style election by email:
> 
>      - the secretariat emails a ballot to each NC member, along with a
> deadline for the ballot to be received;
>      - each NC member emails his/her vote back to the secretariat;
>      - the secretariat tallies the votes and prepares a new (reduced) list
> of nominees;
>      - emails the results and the new ballot to the NC, with the deadline
> for the next ballot to be received.
> 
> The disadvantage of this method is that it will be time-consuming and at
> least some NC members will likely miss the deadline for at least some rounds
> of voting.  At least 24 hours will be required for each round, unless the NC
> members agree in advance to check their email (for example) every 8 hours
> over the course of a 3-day period.
> 
> BY TELEPHONE AND EMAIL
> 
> To conduct a convention-style election by telephone and email, the NC uses
> the rules for a telephone election (above), but NC members send their votes
> to the DNSO secretariat in real time by email.  This allows for secret
> voting, but may actually lengthen the teleconference due to (i) the
> unreliability of email transmission, and (ii) the time required for the
> secretariat to read the emails and tally the votes.
> 
> BY ONLINE VOTING INTERFACE
> 
> Don mentioned the possibility of a specially designed online voting
> interface.  Perhaps he could post some details.
> 
> [The above is a rough outline.  I'll be happy to elaborate or modify based
> on comments from the NC.]
> 
> --Andrew