[Lnc-business] Election Buddy in tonight's test run

[Caryn Ann Harlos]

I also noted something with the Q&A box is that items which were deemed to
be not privileged etc were just dismissed.  I didn't disagree with any of
those decisions, but the body has a right to see that or they cannot know
if rights are being violated or objections silenced.  They should not be
expected to simply trust.  As I said, every decision seemed right to me,
but I don't have the right to waive that right for everyone else to be able
to see for themselves.

Dan is getting with me tomorrow to turn over the projection duties to me.
However, I did not get an answer as to why this wasn't assigned to me in
the first place.  I will ask tomorrow.  I would hope that it is not
unreasonable for an officer to expect to get an answer when a question is
asked of staff.  I think Dan is doing a bang-up job.  But I have yet to be
invited to any training or planning session by staff for this convention
despite my multiple requests to be kept in the loop.  I had to learn about
OpaVote's issues when the rest of the members did.

I thank Ms. Bilyeu for bringing up at the meeting that I was being pretty
obviously pushed aside.  Publicly.  I know that things have been tense and
right now the chair and I are not BFF but we should expect everyone to be
allowed to do their jobs and to be treated professionally.  I don't feel I
was.  And by the end of the night, the dozens of messages I got from
members asking me the same question, this really bothered a lot of people,
some of them most definitely not my personal supporters but people who
respected the office who felt that the office was being disrespected.

And just like I asked about the partiality of the chair in a message
earlier this week in that social media poll, I expect I will get the same
answer for this.  The Verizon pin drop.  And the fact that most of the LNC
seems to think this ignoring of direct questions is acceptable by their
silence is just as troubling.  When EVH was blatantly disrespected during
the May 2 meeting by waving her hand and being passed over multiple times,
I spoke out about that despite the fact that she and I were on the opposite
side of that motion.  She had a right to be heard.  I have a right to not
be ignored regarding valid questions.  Ever since the concerned LNC members
sent out that letter last October with concerns that was ignored by the
rest of the LNC, it seems like we care more about not making waves than
doing the oversight that is our job.  There is not a person here I would
not stand up for if they were being ignored in the discharge of their
duties and my past actions on behalf of those who might be opposite me on
issues proves that.

*In Liberty,*

* Personal Note:  I have what is commonly known as Asperger's Syndrome
(part of the autism spectrum).  This can affect inter-personal
communication skills in both personal and electronic arenas.  If anyone
found anything offensive or overly off-putting (or some other social faux
pas), please contact me privately and let me know. *



On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 10:55 PM Alicia Mattson via Lnc-business <
lnc-business at hq.lp.org> wrote:

> By the way, I was attempting to raise a point of order about this matter in
> the Q&A box, which is where we were instructed to raise privileged motions,
> but it was never addressed by the chair.  From my limited-by-admins
> perspective, it felt like I was being ignored.  I am told by my delegation
> chair who could see the Q&A that it had lots of other posts in it, and it
> could have been lost in the noise.
>
> The Q&A box tonight was a mystery that I noted, and others noted, but there
> was never a good explanation for the selective/restricted view that the
> participants had of that information.  Out of all the traffic that was
> apparently in the Q&A box, I only ever saw about 15 seemingly-random items
> posted by others.  I have no idea what the rhyme or reason was for which
> things I could or couldn't see.
>
> -Alicia
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 9:43 PM Alicia Mattson <alicia.mattson at lp.org>
> wrote:
>
> > I need to point out something important from the Election Buddy voting
> > software which was demonstrated during tonight's test run.
> >
> > RONR p. 263 notes that it is "a fundamental principle of parliamentary
> law
> > that the right to vote is limited to the members of an organization who
> are
> > actually present at the time the vote is taken in a regular or properly
> > called meeting."
> >
> > Yet the Election Buddy vote conducted during tonight's test sent ballots
> > to all delegates, not just those who were actually present in the
> meeting.
> > The shared screens weren't visible for that long for me to catch the
> > details, but it probably also went to the alternates in addition to the
> > delegates, since the one emailed to us earlier today had over 1300
> > recipients and not just 1046.
> >
> > Obviously in a live scenario, it must be limited to only whoever was
> > present and eligible to vote at that time, which could be a blend of
> > delegates and alternates.
> >
> > Again I'm going to emphasize that Convention Rule 10 requires that when
> > votes are submitted by delegation, the delegates must vote with written
> > ballots which are submitted so as to constitute an audit trail.  The
> > chair's instructions on these test runs for delegation chairs to collect
> > their votes however they wish is not compliant with our rules.  We'll
> have
> > no audit trail when it's being done 51 different ways.
> >
> > Since we're being placed in webinar mode, I have no way of knowing
> whether
> > there are 2 or 30 delegates present at the meeting from any given
> > affiliate.  Only a delegation chair knows.  This plan makes it VERY EASY
> > for a theoretically naughty delegation chair (not mine - 'cause Mimi is
> > awesome and trustworthy!!) to stuff extra votes into the submitted
> tallies
> > without anyone noticing.
> >
> > -Alicia
> >
> >
>