Request to amend the RIPE NCC Articles of Association
Hello everybody, as a result of last weeks AGM and an intense discussion on the voting procedure I would like to request the Executive Board to put forward a resolution for the next General Meeting to abandon paper ballot voting. Reasoning: I inadvertently registered for electronic voting instead of paper ballot voting. By the time I realized my mistake I found out that the BigPulse electronic voting had already been set up and I couldn't change anymore. Then, after the AGM on Wednesday I actually was grateful, not having to make a choice in a matter of minutes, in order to turn in the paper ballots. I was also grateful that electronic voting only started at the end of Wednesdays AGM session, effectively preventing prematurely turned in votes. Not only took it some time and consideration putting six candidates in a row of preference. To make a good choice it was also essential to listen what each candidate had to say. I had enough time to sleep over it, talk to others, and re-read documents considering what had been said. This all added to a much more reflected vote. This also eases a number of things: Proxy Votes: No paper necessary anymore-register for electronic voting and forward the registration confirmation (which then should already contain the link to access the poll) to your proxy. Counting paper ballots: This is a manual process by which the cast paper ballots get entered into the same electronic voting system that the electronically cast votes end up in. With 5 resolutions plus 6 candidates times 119 paper ballots and a 4 (or more) eyes verification this takes hours of possibly error-prone monotony. That said, with the significant increase in the number of registered voters that the possibility to vote electronically and remotely stimulated, the possibility to vote by show of hands or acclamation seems at least questionable to me, since this would exclude the remote participants. This should be dropped as well. Best regards, Ulf Kieber Head of NOC green.ch AG
On 22/05/14 13:19, _Network Operation Center (NOC) wrote:
Hello everybody,
as a result of last weeks AGM and an intense discussion on the voting procedure I would like to request the Executive Board to put forward a resolution for the next General Meeting to abandon paper ballot voting.
Dear Ulf, all, Thank you for your mail on this. We have just had our first Executive Board meeting since the General Meeting and we brought this up for discussion. We would like to hear more feedback from the membership on these voting issues. Do members think there is a case for removing the option to vote with paper ballot and by proxy? On a slightly different issue, we have received comments asking that we open electronic voting before the General Meeting. However, the board would prefer that members cast their vote after the presentations and discussions on each issue so they will be fully informed before voting. We also feel that the current electronic voting window is sufficient to allow all members in the service region to cast their votes (some calculations show that if were to hold a General meeting in the easternmost timezone in the region then the westernmost zone (Iceland) would still have 2 hours of working time to cast their vote). However, if members believe that the voting window should be extended we would also like to hear from you. The Executive Board meets again in September, and we would appreciate hearing from the membership on these matters before we have our discussions there. Best regards, Nigel Titley RIPE NCC Executive Board Chairman
Hi Nigel and colleagues,
We would like to hear more feedback from the membership on these voting issues. Do members think there is a case for removing the option to vote with paper ballot and by proxy?
Yes and no. As a highly technical community, it is natural for us to call paper ballots a thing of the past. We all know that proper electronic procedures are not as safe but safer than paper ballots, not to mention faster, more eco-friendly, and more convenient. However as for proxy voting is an entirely different issue. I think this is such a great part of the voting process at RIPE that I'm not even sure if I misunderstood what is being proposed for removing. I understand that proxy voting allows people to delegate their votes, which is a great thing: Here, I don't have the (time|expertise|whatever) to decide on my vote, but I trust the judgement of this other colleage; I'll give him my vote trusting he will use it well. This allows for higher and more qualified participation, and it would be a step back to lose it. On a different topic, I'll proceed now to evaluate RIPE's efforts to clean the list of bots... :) -- Alfredo Sola http://www.solucionesdinamicas.net/
First, I am all in favour of goiing fully electronic. On 24.06.14 11:09, Alfredo Sola wrote:
I understand that proxy voting allows people to delegate their votes, which is a great thing: Here, I don't have the (time|expertise|whatever) to decide on my vote, but I trust the judgement of this other colleage; I'll give him my vote trusting he will use it well. This allows for higher and more qualified participation, and it would be a step back to lose it. I think proxy voting in the past was used in two cases, one is the one you described, but more commonly to be able to vote if you are not present.
The last one is easily replaced by electronic voting. The other could be handled by electronic voting - and a request to the trusted collegue; please tell me who to vote for. Or by a delegation/proxy mechanism in the voting system. You could do it today indirectly by registering the person you delegate to in the LIR portal and let him/her sign up to vote for that LIR too. ( I did this at the last election as the company I work for currently operates two LIRs.) Sincerely, ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Hans Petter Holen* Mobile+47 45 06 60 54 | Switchboard +47 46 40 40 00 |*Online Business Card* <http://people.visma.com/hans.petter.holen@visma.com> Visma, Karenslyst Allé 56, 0277 Oslo|http://www.visma.com <http://www.visma.com/>|Find us on Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/vismagroup> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emm Paper voting is fun...and if I am honest, I enjoyed the voting process on paper. otherwise it looks like an online questionnaire... But of course it can be a thing of the past, just like many other things( paper magazine for example, computer world just had its last paper issue)
On 2014年6月24日, at 下午6:15, Hans Petter Holen <hph@oslo.net> wrote:
First, I am all in favour of goiing fully electronic.
On 24.06.14 11:09, Alfredo Sola wrote: I understand that proxy voting allows people to delegate their votes, which is a great thing: Here, I don't have the (time|expertise|whatever) to decide on my vote, but I trust the judgement of this other colleage; I'll give him my vote trusting he will use it well. This allows for higher and more qualified participation, and it would be a step back to lose it. I think proxy voting in the past was used in two cases, one is the one you described, but more commonly to be able to vote if you are not present.
The last one is easily replaced by electronic voting. The other could be handled by electronic voting - and a request to the trusted collegue; please tell me who to vote for.
Or by a delegation/proxy mechanism in the voting system. You could do it today indirectly by registering the person you delegate to in the LIR portal and let him/her sign up to vote for that LIR too. ( I did this at the last election as the company I work for currently operates two LIRs.) Sincerely,
Hans Petter Holen Mobile +47 45 06 60 54 | Switchboard +47 46 40 40 00 | Online Business Card Visma, Karenslyst Allé 56, 0277 Oslo | http://www.visma.com | Find us on Facebook
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Alfredo, Nigel, all, there is a slight misunderstanding/misrepresentation here. My request was NOT about removing the possibility to vote by proxy. My original comment was: Proxy Votes: No paper necessary anymore-register for electronic voting and forward the registration confirmation (which then should already contain the link to access the poll) to your proxy. When you register for electronic voting you receive an email with a personalised link to the poll. What you do with that link (vulgo: if you use it yourself, or if you forward it to somebody else) should entirely be left up to the voter. Best regards, Ulf Kieber -----Original Message----- From: members-discuss-bounces@ripe.net [mailto:members-discuss-bounces@ripe.net] On Behalf Of Alfredo Sola Sent: Dienstag, 24. Juni 2014 12:09 To: Nigel Titley Cc: members-discuss@ripe.net Subject: Re: [members-discuss] Request to amend the RIPE NCC Articles of Association Hi Nigel and colleagues,
We would like to hear more feedback from the membership on these voting issues. Do members think there is a case for removing the option to vote with paper ballot and by proxy?
Yes and no. As a highly technical community, it is natural for us to call paper ballots a thing of the past. We all know that proper electronic procedures are not as safe but safer than paper ballots, not to mention faster, more eco-friendly, and more convenient. However as for proxy voting is an entirely different issue. I think this is such a great part of the voting process at RIPE that I'm not even sure if I misunderstood what is being proposed for removing. I understand that proxy voting allows people to delegate their votes, which is a great thing: Here, I don't have the (time|expertise|whatever) to decide on my vote, but I trust the judgement of this other colleage; I'll give him my vote trusting he will use it well. This allows for higher and more qualified participation, and it would be a step back to lose it. On a different topic, I'll proceed now to evaluate RIPE's efforts to clean the list of bots... :) -- Alfredo Sola http://www.solucionesdinamicas.net/ ---- If you don't want to receive emails from the RIPE NCC members-discuss mailing list, please log in to your LIR Portal account and go to the general page: https://lirportal.ripe.net/general/ Click on "Edit my LIR details", under "Subscribed Mailing Lists". From here, you can add or remove addresses.
Hi Nigel, I wouldn't mind switching to only electronic voting, but I don't have a strong preference. I do agree with the board that voting should only start after the presentations. I don't see a benefit in allowing voting by people not in posession of all the data. The length of the voting window seems good to me, but I'll leave that to the people more affected by it than I am as I am usually at the meeting itself. I haven't missed a RIPE meeting in 10 years ;) Met vriendelijke groet, Sander Steffann
On 24/06/2014 11:01, Nigel Titley wrote:
We would like to hear more feedback from the membership on these voting issues. Do members think there is a case for removing the option to vote with paper ballot and by proxy?
As it's expired from my mailbox, Ulf's original email is here:
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/members-discuss/2014-May/001476.html
e-voting is demonstrably faster and more efficient than paper ballots, but it's not possible to guarantee voter anonymity. The bottom line is that if you log into an online evoting system, you need to trust that the system will not associate your authentication token with your ballot. All we can do is say that the RIPE NCC trusts BigPulse, and also expects it's membership to do so. Regarding counting, there are several software packages which can assist with counting. I've used OpenSTV and it works quite nicely. I assume that as there are both e-votes and paper votes, that BigPulse's system also assists with this and that therefore the problem that Ulf identified maybe isn't as big as he perceives it to be. No doubt BigPulse are a reputable company, but on principal I have problems with e-voting relating to privacy and verifiable trust. On balance, I'm not convinced that Ulf's suggestion fixes more problems than it creates, and consequently I do not support it. Nick
On Tue, 24 Jun 2014, Nick Hilliard wrote:
On 24/06/2014 11:01, Nigel Titley wrote:
We would like to hear more feedback from the membership on these voting issues. Do members think there is a case for removing the option to vote with paper ballot and by proxy?
As it's expired from my mailbox, Ulf's original email is here:
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/members-discuss/2014-May/001476.html
e-voting is demonstrably faster and more efficient than paper ballots, but it's not possible to guarantee voter anonymity. The bottom line is that if you log into an online evoting system, you need to trust that the system will not associate your authentication token with your ballot. All we can do is say that the RIPE NCC trusts BigPulse, and also expects it's membership to do so.
Regarding counting, there are several software packages which can assist with counting. I've used OpenSTV and it works quite nicely. I assume that as there are both e-votes and paper votes, that BigPulse's system also assists with this and that therefore the problem that Ulf identified maybe isn't as big as he perceives it to be.
No doubt BigPulse are a reputable company, but on principal I have problems with e-voting relating to privacy and verifiable trust. On balance, I'm not convinced that Ulf's suggestion fixes more problems than it creates, and consequently I do not support it.
Nick
Well said Nick. One may think that paper ballots are low tech and old fashioned but I still see a point concerning anonymity. As far as I remember from what Fergal sais, all the paper ballots are converted to e-votes anyway. Regards, Daniel _________________________________________________________________________________ Daniel Stolpe Tel: 08 - 688 11 81 stolpe@resilans.se Resilans AB Fax: 08 - 55 00 21 63 http://www.resilans.se/ Box 45 094 556741-1193 104 30 Stockholm
On 24/06/14 15:47, Daniel Stolpe wrote:
Well said Nick. One may think that paper ballots are low tech and old fashioned but I still see a point concerning anonymity.
Just as a point of fact, the RIPE NCC doesn't get to see who voted or what they voted (and I'm sure you aren't suggesting this). If you outsource anything there is always a degree of trust involved. We looked at the costs of doing this in-house and it just wasn't economical. In the end we tried to take a middle road of allowing electronic voting to expand the franchise as far as possible, but retaining paper balloting and proxies for those really concerned about privacy.
As far as I remember from what Fergal sais, all the paper ballots are converted to e-votes anyway.
Yes, indeed, but there is no privacy lost in the process. All the best Nigel
Nick, all talk to the NCC, it's exactly that: Counting paper ballots: This is a manual process by which the cast paper ballots get entered into the same electronic voting system that the electronically cast votes end up in. With 5 resolutions plus 6 candidates times 119 paper ballots and a 4 (or more) eyes verification this takes hours of possibly error-prone monotony. My goal here is educated decision making and ensuring a wide democratic base. Consequently I don't think voting should be opened before the end of a General Meeting and I'd even want people to have a bit more time to evaluate available choices, and maybe sleep over them. But there are still provisions in the Articles that would allow passing resolutions (not very anonymously, btw.) by acclamation or by show of hands, excluding everybody not on site, and I don't want that to happen during a GM I was hindered to attend for whatever reason. Remember, the Voting Report states " 1,140 members registered to vote, and 608 members cast their ballots". Only 119 of those were paper ballots. The membership has increased significantly. This will very likely continue for quite some years, so the ratio will probably become more biased. I have no strong feelings about the duration of the voting period. 24 hours seems enough for me, but YMMV. Mit freundlichen Gruessen, Ulf Kieber Head of NOC green.ch AG -----Original Message----- From: members-discuss-bounces@ripe.net [mailto:members-discuss-bounces@ripe.net] On Behalf Of Nick Hilliard Sent: Dienstag, 24. Juni 2014 13:07 To: Nigel Titley; members-discuss@ripe.net Subject: Re: [members-discuss] Request to amend the RIPE NCC Articles of Association On 24/06/2014 11:01, Nigel Titley wrote:
We would like to hear more feedback from the membership on these voting issues. Do members think there is a case for removing the option to vote with paper ballot and by proxy?
As it's expired from my mailbox, Ulf's original email is here:
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/members-discuss/2014-May/001476 .html
e-voting is demonstrably faster and more efficient than paper ballots, but it's not possible to guarantee voter anonymity. The bottom line is that if you log into an online evoting system, you need to trust that the system will not associate your authentication token with your ballot. All we can do is say that the RIPE NCC trusts BigPulse, and also expects it's membership to do so. Regarding counting, there are several software packages which can assist with counting. I've used OpenSTV and it works quite nicely. I assume that as there are both e-votes and paper votes, that BigPulse's system also assists with this and that therefore the problem that Ulf identified maybe isn't as big as he perceives it to be. No doubt BigPulse are a reputable company, but on principal I have problems with e-voting relating to privacy and verifiable trust. On balance, I'm not convinced that Ulf's suggestion fixes more problems than it creates, and consequently I do not support it. Nick ---- If you don't want to receive emails from the RIPE NCC members-discuss mailing list, please log in to your LIR Portal account and go to the general page: https://lirportal.ripe.net/general/ Click on "Edit my LIR details", under "Subscribed Mailing Lists". From here, you can add or remove addresses.
On 24 jun 2014, at 12:01, Nigel Titley <nigel@titley.com> wrote:
On 22/05/14 13:19, _Network Operation Center (NOC) wrote:
Hello everybody,
as a result of last weeks AGM and an intense discussion on the voting procedure I would like to request the Executive Board to put forward a resolution for the next General Meeting to abandon paper ballot voting.
Dear Ulf, all,
Thank you for your mail on this. We have just had our first Executive Board meeting since the General Meeting and we brought this up for discussion.
We would like to hear more feedback from the membership on these voting issues. Do members think there is a case for removing the option to vote with paper ballot and by proxy?
I agree with this.
On a slightly different issue, we have received comments asking that we open electronic voting before the General Meeting. However, the board would prefer that members cast their vote after the presentations and discussions on each issue so they will be fully informed before voting.
We also feel that the current electronic voting window is sufficient to allow all members in the service region to cast their votes (some calculations show that if were to hold a General meeting in the easternmost timezone in the region then the westernmost zone (Iceland) would still have 2 hours of working time to cast their vote). However, if members believe that the voting window should be extended we would also like to hear from you.
I also prefer to open the voting window also only once all presentations and discussions have been had. Best regards, - kurtis - --- Kurt Erik Lindqvist, CEO kurtis@netnod.se, Direct: +46-8-562 860 11, Switch: +46-8-562 860 00 Franzéngatan 5 | SE-112 51 Stockholm | Sweden
Hi Nigel, all, On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 11:01:04AM +0100, Nigel Titley wrote:
We would like to hear more feedback from the membership on these voting issues. Do members think there is a case for removing the option to vote with paper ballot and by proxy?
As for abolishing the paper ballot, I support this in principle. Some members have made good points though, regarding the secrecy and anonymity of electronic ballots. On a positive side, not needing time to vote during GM leaves more time to debate the agenda points... IMO this issue may need further debate and careful judgement. On the issue of proxies, is there data on what percentage of the vote is by proxy? On one hand, abolishing proxies prevents the accumulation of disproportional voting power in very few hands; OTOH, it may lead to a reduction in "turn-out". Not yet sure which side to take... (full-disclosure: I usually vote a few (electronic) proxies myself)
On a slightly different issue, we have received comments asking that we open electronic voting before the General Meeting. However, the board would prefer that members cast their vote after the presentations and discussions on each issue so they will be fully informed before voting.
With the Board there, voting w/o debate is fundamentally undemocratic.
We also feel that the current electronic voting window is sufficient to allow all members in the service region to cast their votes (some calculations show that if were to hold a General meeting in the easternmost timezone in the region then the westernmost zone (Iceland) would still have 2 hours of working time to cast their vote). However, if members believe that the voting window should be extended we would also like to hear from you.
I think 24h is sufficient. rgds, Sascha Luck
participants (10)
-
_Network Operation Center (NOC) -
Alfredo Sola -
Daniel Stolpe -
Hans Petter Holen -
Kurt Erik Lindqvist -
Lu -
Nick Hilliard -
Nigel Titley -
Sander Steffann -
Sascha Luck