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Re: [atlarge-discuss] Panel Mandate options

At 06:37 a.m. 26/02/2003, you wrote:

Hi, Joop,

Before I volunteer to watch the Polling Booth, I need to know
what is really involved. It's easy enough for me to offer
to receive copies of e-mail ballots and count the votes off-line;
anything that requires me to be online is more complicated since
I have very little time for using Web interfaces and such, especially
if there is much of a learning curve -- I have a *lot* of work to
do over the next couple of weeks, and all too little brain to do it
with!
Hi Judyth,

I did not realize that web access is so difficult for you that you could not quickly read the Poll Watcher basics put up in the Forum http://www.icannatlarge.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=309

I'll copy them here for you.:
quote
Pending the election of a Polling Commission, Polls can be undertaken as a private initiative in a bottom-up fashion.

To add to the credibility of their results, neutral and broadly respected Watchers need to be engaged.

These watchers need to be able to answer email within 24 hours.
These watchers should have the following rights:

1. Get the outgoing Ballot message in advance (for comment and amendments)
2. Get copy of all correspondence with voters
3. get Polling Options and background story 24H in advance before it goes on the PB website (for comment and improvements)
4. Get list of all the voters names or email addresses (strictly in confidence) as soon as the Ballot goes out.
5. Get copy of all actual raw voting results from the database (strictly in confidence) as soon as the voting closes.
6. Get list of all bouncing addresses.

The Watcher's duty will be to report on the Poll and declare the Polling results reliable or unreliable within 4 days after the closing of the Polls.
unquote


Much as I like the idea of using the Polling Booth for gathering
input, I am still extremely hesitant about conducting official
votes on the Web.

Given that only one person in two in most developing countries has
any Internet access at all, and many of them have limited,
intermittent access which can be a problem for dealing with the Web,
not to mention that some of them have to pay for their connections
by the minute or kilobyte transferred. E-mail tends to be more
economical of both time and money, which is a good thing for
people in lower-income situations.
I have much experience with poor people in parts of the developing world (Philippines) and web access is actually easier for most than email-only accounts. Poor people do not have computers with email clients.
They access the internet via Internet cafe's (average cities have HUNDREDS and most small towns have a few that are packed with people) and have an email account through a web interface (Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.). Many think that the web is all there is.

Many do not have telephone connections at home. Many poor people now use cellular phones, but still do NOT have landlines. (We waited 11 years for our landline)


Also, as you've seen, I'm quite concerned about the security
and privacy aspects of Web-based voting systems, as well as
the difficulties of verifying the identities of voters and
of doing a recount when results may be disputed. (BTW, so are
most governments and other organizations.) Hence my earlier
recommendation of a two-step process for e-mail ballots, whereby
membership and eligibility to vote are checked first, then
identifying information removed before the ballot is passed
on for the count.
I think your proposal for a two step verification is excellent and it can be practiced when handling Booth votes as well.
I would be more than happy to let the watchers help me in sorting out the final full voters' list.
Should we send ballots to members who indicated that they don't want announcements? In case of bounces, should the corresponding names be listed on the website with a request to update to a working email address?

Maintaining vote anonymity is a much harder thing. If I run the polls without watchers, it is only 1 person who has theoretically access to confidential data. To analyze raw results is not easy, but in theory database query scripts could be written.

The more watchers there are, the more anonymity can be compromised.

If you use Elisabeth Porteneuve's (Kent Crispin's?) email votebot, you do not know how many people will get the confidential data. How watertight is ICANN's GNSO secretariat?

An email address, from where the email votes are distributed to watchers is dangerous, as you cannot know for sure who else is on that distribution list.

I regard email voting as less secure than sending votes to a single webserver, because emails can be spoofed but login to a server can be made secure.


The Booth does the counting and displaying automatically, so that saves work and mistakes.
For verification the PD administrator sends the raw database output to the watchers.

Anyway, I can understand that you don't want to commit, but I will include you in my emails to the watchers anyway, so that you can judge the system for the next time.
The members have asked to be polled frequently, so there will be a next time.


From our little test-run of the Polling Booth, during which I
myself was unable to vote due to technical difficulties and
other members were not even invited to cast their ballots,
That had nothing to do with the system. Abel Wisman, Thomas Roessler and David Farrar were not on my list, because they had publicly requested to be removed.
This time, I will add them back, unless they protest now.

I
don't think your system is yet at the point where I'd recommend
adopting it as our official method of voting. That's not to
say it couldn't be at some point in the future, if provision
were made for those who can't vote via the Web, but it would
not be my preference now.

The topics look good, though I'm too rushed right now to
know whether they are what the group as a whole wants right
now and I do have some concerns about the process by which
the questions were chosen last time around.
The process this time is that I ask appointed Watchers for their approval and for amendments, simply in order not to be acting unilaterally.

The *proper* process should be that there is an elected Polling Committee who will jointly decide on all text and options used in the Booth and in the Polling Notices.



-joop-



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