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Indeed the board has been exploring how to allow as many members as possible to vote. I am afraid our legal counsel advised us that electronic voting is not legal in the Netherlands, and the current proxy mechanism is the only viable form.

- In Norway public votes on important questions (like joining the EU or not) does not have a legal foundation - they are only advisory to the parlament.

This type of an advisory voting process is often called polling or "opinion polling". Imagine the following scenario. 1. RIPE NCC publishes an omnibus plan that will be voted on at the AGM. This plan is composed of several distinct items that have been grouped together for the single approval vote. 2. RIPE NCC sets up a website which allows registered RIPE members to express their opinion of each of the distinct elements of the omnibus plan. Because this is an electronic opinion poll, the choices are more than simply yes or no. Probably it would be best to have 5 choices (Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Don't Care, Agree, Strongly Agree). And because it is an opinion poll, each registered RIPE member can change their entries any time up to the day before the AGM. 3. The day before the AGM, RIPE NCC compiles the results of the opinion poll into a short simple graphical presentation. 4. At the AGM, the poll results are presented early in the agenda as an information only item with no discussion. There should be at least an hour between the presentation of poll results and the vote on the omnibus plan to ensure that people do not confuse the two items. They are separate things. This accomplishes two things. First, it gives people an opportunity to express their opinions on planned actions and to see the opinions of other RIPE members. It isn't as detailed as the KPMG study, but it is better than nothing at all. Secondly, this satisfies the request for electronic/Internet participation in the decision-making process and should be acceptable under Netherlands law. It will also show how much real demand there is for member participation because if members don't use the opinion polling system then they really don't care what RIPE NCC does with their money. --Michael Dillon