Joop Teernstra wrote:
> Thank you Diane. You had a password, so you could go inside. Did you
> actually vote and observe what happens? You can still do so.
I tried the freebie site because the 48 hour voting limit had passed by the time
I got there.
> Actually our whole voters' roll has been authenticated by the membership
> committee.
> This was the main reason for the delay with our election. It took time to
> verify all members' domains.
> The unique passwords are generated by the system. It is very easy to
> generate new passwords for every election to increase security.
Imagine having to do this for 5000 voters who aren't even required to have
domain registrations. We recommended such a password system back in January.
> Nobody else can vote (at least not on the items that are not "open to all"
> or open to a group-password) and nobody can vote more than once on any
> passworded topic.
I saw the same person listed twice as a candidate, by the way.
> Add secured servers and backend software to merge mailings and
> >personnel costs to do mailings, tech support, answer member questions, etc.
> >Please, folks, the MAC put in a lot of time looking at various gruesome
> details
> >that you're not taking into account.
> >
> I still believe that dishonesty of the voters is not the central problem
> and that web based voting can easily be audited after an election in case
> the results are challenged.
The Committee disagreed. 99% of the voters may be honest, but the remaining 1%
can do so much damage.
The MAC debated *when* to authenticate an election, before or after. We felt it
was much more difficult to "undo" an election, particularly because people who
have been elected will be more inclined to contest the review, questions about
political motivation would arise, the election would be delayed indefinitely
until the matter was resolved, etc. We recommended having the review process
occur before the election. Check that the software works, check the
authenticity of the voters, check that the distribution of enrollment is within
norms, and then let 'er rip. After that it would be up to the membership
population to notice any problems and flag them.
Diane Cabell
http://www.mama-tech.com
Fausett, Gaeta & Lund, LLP
Boston, MA
