Hello HantsLUG
Before the recent AGM I raised yet again the question of remote voting,
and was reminded that what was lacking was a proposal for how to
implement such a system.
So, as promised, here is such a proposal for discussion by the committee
and the membership.
I can put the proposal on the wiki if required, but here it is in plain
text form.
cheers
Chris
--
Chris Dennis cgdennis@???
Fordingbridge, Hampshire, UK
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HantsLUG Remote Voting – a suggestion
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Chris Dennis, cgdennis@???, 20 October 2008
Background
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It has been discussed for years, and suggested again recently[1], that
it would be good to have a way of allowing members to vote at AGMs (or
EGMs) even if they can't attend in person. What is lacking is a
mechanism to allow this to happen: the following is a suggested
mechanism put forward for consideration by the committee and members.
Is there a sufficient demand for what I shall call 'remote voting' to
make it worthwhile to implement it? My vague recollections of previous
discussions on the mailing list suggest that there is.
The motivation for this is to allow more people to take part in HantsLUG
decisions, rather than to encourage people not to bother turning up to
meetings.
My initial idea was to extend the role of ‘returning officer’, as
defined in the constitution, to include the job of dealing with remote
votes. But a better plan seems to be to create a new role for collation
of remote votes, to be passed on to the returning officer for elections,
or to the chair of the meeting for resolutions. The new role of
'collator' will need to be defined as someone trustworthy – probably has
been a voting member for a reasonable amount of time; may or may not be
on the committee; can be allowed to vote, since the process will be open
to scrutiny (unless we change to a secret ballot system for any or all
votes).
It wouldn’t really matter if the ‘collator’ were in fact the same person
as either the returning officer or the chairman of a meeting.
The proposal as it stands is complicated by the inclusion of votes on
issues other than the election of officers (which I shall call
'resolutions'). It could be simplified by restricting remote voting to
just the election of officers: that would remove the dilemma about
whether the returning officer would be allowed to vote at all. The role
of collator could then easily be absorbed into that of returning officer.
I have made some fairly arbitrary suggestions about the timetable for
the process.
[1]
http://www.hants.lug.org.uk/lurker/message/20080930.155102.8e1ccb6f.en.html
Definitions
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as used in the rest of this document.
Collator: a new role (the name is open to discussion) of someone to
administer the extra ‘remote’ part of the voting process.
GM / general meeting: either an AGM (annual general meeting) or EGM
(extraordinary general meeting), as defined by the constitution.
Election: a vote to elect a member to one of the committee positions.
Resolution: any other vote at a general meeting, such as to adopt a
change to the constitution or to accept the treasurer’s report.
Remote voting: the process of using email or a written letter to take
part in voting at a general meeting. (I’d welcome suggestions for a
better phrase than ‘remote voting’)
Requirements
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Appointment of a ‘collator’ prior to (how long before?) a general
meeting by the chairman, as is currently done for the role of returning
officer. Whether or not the collator would be able to vote at a general
meeting is a matter for discussion. Since the current voting process is
open to scrutiny (no secret ballots), I can see no reason for the
collator to be disqualified from voting.
The following addition to the constitution would define appointment of
the collator (subsequent paragraphs would be renumbered):
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8.3 Collator
A Collator shall be appointed by the Chairman to administer Remote
Voting for each General Meeting. The Collator must have been a Voting
Member of HantsLUG for at least two whole years. (In the event of no
Voting Member fulfilling this requirement, the Chairman may appoint a
Member as Collator at his discretion.)
---
At some point before a general meeting, the collator will, in
consultation with the returning officer, publish list of things to vote
on, i.e. officers for the coming year and any other resolutions. This
list will be published on the website 14 days before the general
meeting. Note that the current constitution does not specify a
timeframe for the publication of the list of proposed officers. Such a
list could be formatted to look more like a ballot paper, e.g.
---
Chairman
Alice (proposed by X, seconded by Y) [ ]
Bob (proposed by P, seconded by Q) [ ]
[other officers likewise]
Resolution A: That the constitution should be amended.....
For [ ]
Against [ ]
Resolution B: That the treasurer's report be accepted
For [ ]
Against [ ]
[this would presumably require that the treasurer publish their
report before the meeting]
---
The list of registered voters, which already exists (in theory), needs
to be checked by the collator as being up to date. Such a check is
already required to ensure that a general meeting is quorate and that
members present are entitled to vote.
The collator would call for registered voters who wish to vote remotely
to send their completed ballot papers (that they've either copied into
an email or printed off) to the collator, either by email or post. The
deadline for such votes being received by the collator will be 2 days
before the meeting.
Before any voting takes place at a general meeting, the collator will
need to identify each member present and check (a) their fitness to vote
as defined by the constitution, and (b) whether they have already sent
in an email/postal vote. If a member is present who has already voted,
they will need to decide whether to stand by there email/postal vote, or
discard that and vote in person.
For each election on the voting paper, the collator will pass to the
returning officer the count of votes for candidate. The returning
officer will will add these counts to the votes of those member present
at the meeting, and announce the results in the usual way.
For each resolution on the voting paper, the collator will pass to the
chairman the count of votes for and against. The chairman will will add
these counts to the votes of those member present at the meeting, and
announce the results in the usual way.
These procedural rules could be included in the constitution if required.
Other changes to the constitution
---------------------------------
Section 7.2 defines a quorate general meeting as being eight voting
members or ten percent of the voting membership. The number of those
present could/would be supplemented by the number of valid voting papers
held by the returning officer. Would there would still need to be a
minimum number actually present, or could a general meeting consist of
just the collator and a pile of voting papers? That would be extreme. I
suggest this as a replacement for the existing section 7.2:
---
7.2 General Meetings
The quorum for a General Meeting of HantsLUG shall be eight (8) Voting
Members, or ten percent (10%) of the total Voting Membership,
whichever is the greater. If a quorum is not achieved by members
present, a quorum can be made up of four/5% members present, plus
another four/5% valid voting papers.
---
Security
--------
Registered voters supply their email addresses as part of the
registration voters [do we allow members who don't have email
addresses?], so only votes from those addresses would be accepted. Are
we worried about identity theft or fraudulent voting? I don't really
think it's likely to be an issue. Email votes with PGP-style encryption
and/or signing would be ideal, but difficult to set up. Votes from
non-registered email addresses will be discarded (although if there is
time and the collator is so inclined, they could look into the issue and
get the member concerned to register). Votes by post will be checked by
comparing the signature and other details with those on the voter's
registration form. If more than one voting paper is received from the
same voter, the collator will need to look into the matter and act as
they see fit.
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