[Lnc-business] mail ballot on whether or not to elect a new At-Large member by mail ballot

[Daniel Wiener]

I still haven't decided on how I'll vote on this motion.  While there are
advantages and disadvantages, in principle I have no objection to holding
an election by email ballot.  Given that we're still two months away from
our next meeting, this might be an appropriate circumstance to do so.
However, there are several technical concerns I have.  Unless those
concerns can be satisfactorily answered, I will vote "No".

1.  The exact method of voting must be specified before hand.  The motion
should have contained that specific detail, but I'm willing to let the
Chair make a ruling on the procedure to settle the matter.  Although I've
expressed a preference for Condorcet, I'm not wedded to that.  Maybe other
LNC members will prefer Approval Voting or straight IRV or something else.
But I want to know the procedure ahead of time in order to factor that into
my decision.

2.  The motion says that "As always, Regional Representatives will
coordinate voting with their Alternates."  Our standard operating procedure
is for Alternates to vote whenever they want, but their votes will only
count if the Representative has failed to vote by the end of the balloting
period.  I don't see how that would work in this case if we use the
Opavote.org web site which Ruth previewed for us.  Looking at that web
site, I see no provision for conditional balloting.  Either an Alternate's
vote would be counted along with the Representative's vote, or (to prevent
double-voting) the Alternate must not be given an email balloting link in
the first place.  But then the balloting would have ended before the
Alternate could be sent a link to vote in the Representative's place..
Perhaps there's a way to solve this problem (somehow escrow Alternates'
votes against the chance they'll need to be counted?).  But it must be
solved before I'll vote for the motion.

3.  The Opavote.org web site appears to provide good security for balloting
secrecy, including encryption, so that specific ballots cannot be traced
back to individual voters.  I think that's excellent.  But in light of the
previous disagreements we've had on the topic, I want to make sure everyone
understands this feature up front.

Dan Wiener

On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 11:30 PM, Daniel Wiener <wiener at alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> I am still mulling whether to support or oppose this motion.  However, I
> would prefer to use the Condorcet method rather than the traditional IRV
> method if we were to adopt this motion.  I believe that Condorcet falls
> within the generic definition of "an instant run-off voting procedure" as
> stated in the motion, and is ultimately a fairer procedure for obtaining a
> true majority preference.  The website Ruth is using to tally the votes (
> opavote.org) does support Condorcet as well as traditional IRV and Single
> Transferable Voting (STV), so one method would be just as easy to select as
> any other.  And even if we defeat this motion and decide to conduct the
> election at our November meeting, there's no reason why we can't do it
> electronically on the spot via the OpaVote web site.
>
> Dan Wiener
>
> On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 6:24 PM, Ruth Bennett <bennettruthaz at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> *I move that we fill the At-large vacancy as follows:
>>
>> Self-nominations are currently open. An additional announcement will be
>> sent to the State Chairs list. Nominations are closed as of OCT 5, 2012.
>>
>> Each nominee is encouraged to submit a one page "application" to the
>> Chair and the Secretary to include:
>>      Name
>>     Address
>>     Telephone number/s
>>     Email address/es
>>     Year joined the National LP and member number
>>      Any Party offices - national or state - ever held
>>      Any candidacies for public office
>>     Any potential conflicts of interest
>>     An acknowledgment that all travel expenses are the responsibility of
>> the nominee
>>
>> All applications must be received by the Secretary and the Chair by OCT
>> 5, 2012
>>
>> Additional resumes or CVs may be included.  The Secretary shall
>> distribute nominee information as received. The Secretary will make
>> available an instant run-off voting procedure no later than OCT 6, 2012
>> Balloting will end on OCT 16, 2012.
>>
>> As always, Regional Representatives will coordinate voting with their
>> Alternates.
>>
>> Motion made by Ruth E. Bennett
>> Co-sponsored by Michael Cloud, Tim Hagan and Vicki Kirkland
>>
>>
>> *
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lnc-business mailing list
>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>
>>
>
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