[Npoc-discuss] Election Reporting situation

[Tapani Tarvainen]

Hi Glenn, all,

It was not normal protocol but indeed an error. Or actually
several errors:

First, ICANN voting software is... let's say error-prone. While
there's no practical way to implement email voting without the
system knowing who voted whom, it should not be easy for the
person running the election to see that, and now it's so easy
that it can happen by accident.

It is a design feature that the ballots are shown with ballot IDs.
That's not a problem as long as nobody else knows your ballot ID.
The idea is that you can see your vote has been correctly counted
even if you change your mind and vote again.

But as it is, the IANN staffer running the election can see who
voted how, and too easily: in this case it apparently happened
by accident. And that is where the second error occurred now:
the listing included emails and not just ballot IDs as it should
have (and did in NCSG elections).

The third error was sending the list to npoc-discuss (same error
occurred in ncuc and ncsg).

As for what should be done about it now: I don't see any benefit
in redoing the election. The damage has been done, and if a new
election would result in a different result it would only make
things worse.

In the future we'll have to take care this doesn't happen again.
Maybe we should consider doing the elections differently, with
some different software, but I can't see any way of avoiding
the possibility that whoever runs it screws things up.

So maybe just remind both whoever runs the election as well as
the Chair to remember this and make sure this doesn't happen
again is the best we can do.

Tapani


On Jun 04 17:22, Glenn McKnight via Npoc-discuss (npoc-discuss at icann.org) wrote:
> 
> Hi
> I  don't  know if the election reporting is a normal protocol for NPOC or
> its a simple error to reveal how everyone votes.   Regardless we have a
> serious  situation that needs to be addressed asap as it  will clearly be
> escalated and ignoring it isn't a good option.   A  reelection seems
> logical but not sure if it would generate any change in the results.    I
> assume we will see some statement in this discussion thread.
> G
> Glenn McKnight, MA
> Virtual School of Internet Governance
> Chief Information Officer
> www.virtualsig.org
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