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<p>Mo: <br>
</p>
<p>Thank you for sending this out. It's good that we have a clearly
stated election process, and that the process be clear before we
add the specific candidates and opinions about which candidates to
choose.</p>
<p>I have some suggestions about the elections process as stated in
the document you sent, <i>2021 UASG Election Process and Timeline
2021-02-04.pdf</i> , section "2021 UASG Election Process". <br>
</p>
<ol>
<li>The process does not state that how many Chairs and how many
Vice-Chairs are to be elected. Yes, the "UASG Structure" above
says that these numbers are "1" and "2-3" respectively. Still,
for clarity it seems good to state what the purpose of the
process is. I suggest adding an item before old #1, reading
something like, "The election will elect one Chair and [2-3
Vice-Chairs]".<br>
</li>
<li>The process does not state what kind of votes are cast and
what method is used to count votes. I support using the same
methods as last year, as described in <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://uasg.tech/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Call-for-Nominations.pdf">https://uasg.tech/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Call-for-Nominations.pdf</a>>,
namely preferential ballots, counted with Instant Runoff Voting
for the single Chair, and Scottish STV for the 2-3 Vice-Chairs.
These methods are among the best ways to elect single and
multiple winners for a group like UASG. I suggest adding between
old #5 and #6, something like: "For the single Chair position,
voters will cast preferential ballots ranking their choices, and
the counting method will be Instant Runoff Voting
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="https://www.opavote.com/methods/instant-runoff-voting"><https://www.opavote.com/methods/instant-runoff-voting></a>",
and "For the 2-3 Vice-Chair positions, voters will cast
preferential ballots ranking their choices among all candidates,
and the counting method used will be Scottish STV
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="https://www.opavote.com/methods/single-transferable-vote#scottish-stv"><https://www.opavote.com/methods/single-transferable-vote#scottish-stv></a>."</li>
<li>The process does not define how we will decide whether to
elect 2 or 3 Vice-Chairs. There are several rules which we could
use. We should state what rule we will follow. I suggest adding
it as part of the entry for the Vice-Chair method above. Some
rules we could use:</li>
<ol>
<li>If there are 1, 2, or 3 candidates for Vice-Chair, they will
all be elected by acclamation and they will not be voted on. <br>
</li>
<li>If there are more than 3 candidates for Vice-Chair, they
shall be voted on and 3 shall be elected.</li>
<li>If there are more than 3 candidates for Vice-Chair, they
shall be voted on, and an option "Only 2 Vice-Chairs" shall be
added to the ballot. Voters may rank "Only 2 Vice-Chairs" the
same way as any other candidate. The top two candidates shall
be elected. If the option "Only 2 Vice-Chairs" is among the
top three finishers, there shall only be two Vice-Chairs,
otherwise, there shall be three Vice-Chairs, and the
third-place candidate shall also be elected. [Note: this
curious option means that voters who think some candidates are
unsatisfactory, and a Vice-Chair seat should be left empty
rather than be filled by those candidates, may rank "Only 2
Vice-Chairs" above the unsatisfactory candidates, and the
counting will respect their wish to the extent possible.]</li>
</ol>
<li>I have no problem with the diversity intent of rule # 4, but I
think it is a mistake to enforce this at the nomination stage.
Suppose there are two candidates in one organization, "M. Good"
and "M. Bad". Rule #4 says that M. Bad can prevent voters from
supporting M. Good by submitting their own self-nomination
first! Instead I suggest that we implement the rule at the
vote-counting stage of the Vice-Chair election. As soon as a
candidate is elected during the counting process, we disqualify
all other candidates from the same organization or company, and
continue (or restart) the counting process. This lets voters,
not nominators, choose whether to support "M. Good" or "M. Bad".
There is no need for this diversity rule in the Chair election,
because only one Chair is elected. I suggest a rule about
eliminating Vice-Chair candidates during vote-counting be added,
and old rule #4 be deleted.</li>
<li>Rule #1 does not clearly say that sock-puppets are forbidden.
It should. By saying "the subscribers… are… the electorate", it
implies that email addresses, not natural people, are the
electorate. I suggest rewording it to say, "The electorate
consists of the natural persons subscribed to the UA-Discuss
mailing list on [the date of record for the electorate]. Each
person may cast at most one ballot. Sock puppets are forbidden."
<br>
</li>
<li>Rule #8 addresses sock puppets as well. Move it to right after
rule #1.</li>
<li>Rule #1 (and the Election Timeline below) are not clear about
the time at which the UASG-Discuss subscriber list creates the
electorate. Rule #1 says "the date of announcing the election".
But the Election Timeline puts the label "Announcing the
starting of the elections" onto a 10-day period. I suggest
adding a separate entry to the timeline, labelled something like
"Date and time of record for the electorate". Make it a specific
UTC time; dates (interpreted with time zones) can span 48 hours.
<br>
</li>
<li>Rule #6 says the election process will be managed by a
specialised elections service provider. Who? Why not just say
Opavote? And it says, "the final results will be audited and
confirmed." How? By whom?</li>
<li>I suggest adding a sentence to Rule #6. "A detailed report of
the vote counting steps, along with anonymised raw ballot data,
shall be published, for transparency and for community
auditing." Opavote provides reports and ballot data as a normal
part of its service.<br>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Also, a few comments about the Election Timeline:</p>
<ol>
<li>Dates without times or time zones are ambiguous in a global
community. I suggest saying "all dates are UTC", or adding UTC
times to each date.</li>
<li>The voting period should have times and time zones added;
dates alone are too ambiguous. If the election starts at 00:00 5
March UTC and ends at 23:59 15 March UTC, that is 11 days, not
10. If it starts on 5 March anywhere in the world, and ends on
15 March anywhere in the world, that is 12 days (00:00 5 March
UTC-13:00 to 23:59 15 March UTC+12:00). Only if the election
period is defined as a specific time and time zone can it be
unambiguously 10 days. The voting period in days should match
the duration between start and end times.<br>
</li>
<li>Suggest adding a timeline entry, "Date and time of record for
the electorate". I would recommend it being the same time as the
self-nomination period begins, or when the list of candidates is
announced. There's a risk of a candidate packing the UA-Discuss
with their supporters. The choice of date and time of record can
encourage or discourage this.</li>
</ol>
<p>I hope this is helpful. Can you tell I am interested in electoral
process?<br>
</p>
Best regards,<br>
<p> —Jim DeLaHunt, Vancouver, Canada<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2021-02-04 12:37, Mohamed Elbashir
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">Dear UA
Community, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">Find
attached the UASG 2021 elections process and timeline,
it will be published on the UASG.tech website.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">Thank
you!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">Best
Regards,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt">Mohamed
(Mo) Elbashir<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#595959">Universal
Acceptance (UA) Program Manager<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#595959;background:white">The
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN)</span><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#595959">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#595959">One World, One
Internet<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
. --Jim DeLaHunt, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:jdlh@jdlh.com">jdlh@jdlh.com</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://blog.jdlh.com/">http://blog.jdlh.com/</a> (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://jdlh.com/">http://jdlh.com/</a>)
multilingual websites consultant
2201-1000 Beach Ave, Vancouver BC V6E 4M2, Canada
Canada mobile +1-604-376-8953</pre>
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