[chapter-delegates] e-voting system for ISOC board

[Alejandro Pisanty]

Hi,

to put in two cents. We have now started doing e-voting in our 
institution, UNAM, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, which has 
273,000 students and 30,000 people in the academic payroll. We have not 
run a vote for the whole universe; we did one for the 30,000 academics 
last year.

Even in a closed institution the problems of authentication are daunting. 
And so are several others. It is true also that there are even companies 
which do online voting for a fee (we used a good one in the ICANN At-Large 
election several years ago), but they have absolutely no responsibility in 
the definition and proper management of the voters' list. However, the key 
to the integrity of the whole election is on the list.

I think we have to very frank and candid about the weaknesses of our 
chapter membership lists, or at least the inhomogeneity in their quality 
across different chapters, in order to put together a sensible system. Up 
to now I would not bet the house!

Further, you may know that e-voting (ambiguous term - there are many 
disparate forms and definitions) has been proposed for the expatriate vote 
of Mexicans living abroad (there would be up to 5-10 million voters living 
in the US) and it's a no-no. Many of us in ISOC have direct experience 
that doesn't say "don't do it", just certainly says, as I read Jim, "here 
be dragons."

Alejandro Pisanty


.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty 
Director General de Servicios de Computo Academico
UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
Tel. (+52-55) 5622-8541, 5622-8542 Fax 5622-8540
http://www.dgsca.unam.mx
*
---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, www.isoc.org
 Participa en ICANN, www.icann.org
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .



On Fri, 18 Mar 2005, James M Galvin wrote:

> Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 14:53:12 -0500
> From: James M Galvin <galvin at elistx.com>
> To: Franck Martin <franck at sopac.org>
> Cc: chapter-delegates at lists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [chapter-delegates] e-voting system for ISOC board
> 
> Franck,
> 
> E-voting is hard.  I know this.  I'm a technologist and I've devoted 
> considerable resources to understanding the problem and the potential 
> solutions.
> 
> Consider the issue of identity.  In a physical voting system we accept 
> certain flaws in identifying people because we apply procedures commonly 
> referred to as "check and balances".  These procedures include things 
> like witnesses, physical signatures, and physical presence among other 
> things.  We know the system is not perfect but it is pretty good and in 
> general it is extremely difficult to bias or swing an election.  In 
> essence, there exists a trusted infrastructure within which the election 
> takes place.
> 
> That trusted infrastructure does not exist on the Internet.  It might be 
> possible to create it, but then you will find it is not possible to have 
> one that works everywhere, all the time.  People expect ISOC to ensure 
> that it reaches out to everyone, all the time.  We certainly do try but 
> you have to admit it can be difficult some times.
> 
> Even without that issue, it is a significant undertaking to build a trust 
> infrastructure.  It is not something that you can just "turn on" one day. 
> It will take time, perhaps years, for it to include a majority of our 
> members.
> 
> My request for proposals was not a trick.  It was a serious question.  I 
> have read all the suggestions to date but I simply do not have the time 
> to respond to each and every one.  I was hoping that someone would feel 
> really excited about their suggestion and they would want both to repeat 
> it and to fill out some of the details.  Principles always sound like 
> good ideas until you get into the implementation details.  Besides, I may 
> have overlooked something so getting help is a good thing.
> 
> Jim
> 
> PS.  Consider too, that if e-voting were easy, everybody would already be 
> doing it.  And by that I mean a system that scales to tens of thousands 
> of people with little if any manual intervention and works everywhere in 
> the world.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --On Wednesday, March 16, 2005 11:54 AM +1200 Franck Martin 
> <franck at sopac.org> wrote:
> 
> > James,
> >
> > Nice trick ;)
> >
> > I know it too. It is called send back the work to the person who asked
> > for it..
> >
> > So here is my trick:
> >
> > Please review the whole thread because numerous propositions were made
> > on how to make a free member vote. You may have missed all these
> > discussions but hey, we have an archive! ;) ( I give you a hint,
> > because I'm really nice with you, it has to do with the indonesia
> > chapter)
> >
> > And here I pull the rabbit from the hat:
> > As VP Chapters and I'm sure there is a VP membership, the onus is on
> > YOU to propose us a system. Members give objectives to the board and
> > the board implements them (not the other way). I think there is
> > sufficient literature out there for you to come with an acceptable
> > system, where a member will be identified (not by money) and given a
> > right to vote for one or more representatives.
> >
> > We are making progress...  :)
> >
> > Cheers
> > PS: Assume you are lucky, because I did not ask you to do a state of
> > the art in e-voting and explaining the advantages and disadvantages of
> > each system in regards to ISOC
> >
> > James M Galvin wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > --On Wednesday, March 16, 2005 10:25 AM +1200 Franck Martin
> > > <franck at sopac.org> wrote:
> > >
> > >> the heart of the problem is that! one member = one vote
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > So, let's explore this.  In detail.
> > >
> > > If you have a suggestion for how we can achieve this let me ask that
> > > you do the following.
> > >
> > > Please start a new message with a relevant subject line for each
> > > suggestion.  I will promise to participate in a detailed discussion
> > > of  each suggestion so we can explore whether or not it will work for
> > > ISOC.
> > >
> > > Jim Galvin
> > > VP Chapters
> 
> 
>