[Npoc-discuss] Election Reporting situation

[Judith Hellerstein]

Hi All
At large uses the same software but their election choices were modified a bit and they have never had this issue happen. I guess because the staff there have been better trained and also examine the reports that come out from the system to ensure that the report that was generated only has the ballot ID. It seems our policy staff was not trained well as Andrea Glandon stated she did not even know this type of report was possible. As such she did not take the time to review the report before sending it out to the npoc list. She made the same mistake with ncuc but for sone reason not with ncsg . 

I would also say the prompts given were not. intuitive so perhaps they can work with other policy staff in training issues and see how other constituencies use the software and do not have these issues 

I cannot speak to whether the election should be redone since I was running against Emmanuel but I can say that the Sancity of the voting process was indeed violated and trust in the system was harmed. Whether this violation of privacy and sanctity of the election system is large and deep enough to necessitate a new election to regain people’s trust is for staff and leadership to decide but I do think there needs to be an in-depth analysis and for them to analyze the facts and maybe speak to other experts in this field. If they decide that the violation of the election sanctity rise to a high level which I think it did then yes, the best recourse would be to redo the election. 

Best
Judith 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 4, 2023, at 9:21 PM, Tapani Tarvainen via Npoc-discuss <npoc-discuss at icann.org> wrote:
> 
> 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
>> *YOUR SOURCE FOR INTERNET GOVERNANCE EDUCATION *
>> *Mobile  437-237-4655*
> 
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