IIUG Voting Problems
Not a technical Informix issue: a member complained that IIUG board elections appeared unfair — votes seemed not to be private, and a candidate (the webmaster) had allegedly seen who voted for whom, with a promised move to an independent third-party voting server supposedly never happening. Board and nominations-committee members replied that the election is run solely by one outgoing and two former board members, with technical administration sub-contracted to an independent third party (as it also was the previous year), so no candidate has access to voting data. It was also noted that the president is chosen by the board, not the membership, and changing that would require amending the bylaws.
Auto-generated by DrWatson from the posts below — may be imperfect; read the full thread.
Folks, I just received IIUG email for the BOD elections and wanted to bring up a very serious issue for our organization. Two years ago, when I went to Las Vegas for the conference, the very first person who said anything to me on the show floor was Stuart Litel, who asked me why I didn't vote for him for President. After going ballistic over the question itself, I raised an issue with the Board. The elections were held over the website, and Stuart was the webmaster. He gave the voting results to the counters, and obviously he poked around to see who was voting for whom. At least, I hope that's all he did. First of all, these votes are supposed to be private. Why are they not? Second, and more troubling, how is it that people who are running for office are also managing the voting process? How bad does it look when the folks running for office also count the votes? Board members told me at the time that the problem would be corrected next year by running the vote over an independent, third-party server. It didn't happen. Why not? So why do we get the privilege of having hanging chads in OUR elections? Joe Lumbley Dallas TX
Joe Lumbley wrote: > I just received IIUG email for the BOD elections and wanted to bring > up a very serious issue for our organization. [....] > > First of all, these votes are supposed to be private. Why are they > not? > > Second, and more troubling, how is it that people who are running for > office are also managing the voting process? How bad does it look > when the folks running for office also count the votes? To answer your first set of questions - although I am a board member, I do not have access to the voting data. No one currently running is involved in the voting process. The elections are handled by one outgoing and two former board members. Period. They have been given total authority by the IIUG board to make any and all decisions for the elections. No one running for the 2005 board is in any way responsible for counting the votes. > Board members told me at the time that the problem would be corrected > next year by running the vote over an independent, third-party server. > It didn't happen. Why not? I will have to let the former/outgoing board members who are handling the current voting process answer that question. -- June Hunt
"Joe Lumbley" <joe@lumbley.com> wrote in message news:89bbdd95.0411170637.641c9597@posting.google.com... > Second, and more troubling, how is it that people who are running for > office are also managing the voting process? How bad does it look > when the folks running for office also count the votes? The election is being run in its entireity by a Nominations Committee comprising myself, a Board member not standing for re-election, and two former Board Members (Hal Maner and Fred Hubbard). We alone collected and validated the nominations: neither existing Board members nor anyone else had sight of this process. Existing Board members, including the IIUG Preseident, will have learnt of the list of candidates from the same announcements as every other IIUG member. We have sub-contracted the technical administration of the election to an independent third party. No-one other than this administrator and the Nominations Committee members will have access to voting data or results. > Board members told me at the time that the problem would be corrected > next year by running the vote over an independent, third-party server. > It didn't happen. Why not? The election *is* being run on an independent, third-party server. If you look carefully you'll see that the Voting page, http://www.iiug.org/iiug/election/2005ballot.html, links to an external site. Your concern that anyone standing for office has access to or influence over the voting process, or that it is in anything other than entirely fair and transparent, is therefore completely unfounded.
Hello Joe, Just to add to what Neil already explained: last year's election was also handled on this independent third party server, just like this year. We did go through some pain to make this happen because we took this very seriously - the pain being, extra effort and it costs IIUG money to run the elections on the third party setup versus the in-house setup we have. After reading this post, I am very glad to see that we made the right decision by using the third party server last year as well as this year - it has been worth the extra effort and money spent. Thank you for your feedback, and we are glad that it has been addressed when the Board said it would be addressed (now, if only the US Prez. election were also... hmmm.. nah.. let me not go there!). Best regards, Hal Maner former IIUG Board Member Member of the nominations committee, 2004 Elections, 2005 Elections "Joe Lumbley" <joe@lumbley.com> wrote in message news:89bbdd95.0411170637.641c9597@posting.google.com... > Folks, > > I just received IIUG email for the BOD elections and wanted to bring > up a very serious issue for our organization. > > Two years ago, when I went to Las Vegas for the conference, the very > first person who said anything to me on the show floor was Stuart > Litel, who asked me why I didn't vote for him for President. After > going ballistic over the question itself, I raised an issue with the > Board. The elections were held over the website, and Stuart was the > webmaster. He gave the voting results to the counters, and obviously > he poked around to see who was voting for whom. At least, I hope > that's all he did. > > First of all, these votes are supposed to be private. Why are they > not? > > Second, and more troubling, how is it that people who are running for > office are also managing the voting process? How bad does it look > when the folks running for office also count the votes? > > Board members told me at the time that the problem would be corrected > next year by running the vote over an independent, third-party server. > It didn't happen. Why not? > > So why do we get the privilege of having hanging chads in OUR > elections? > > Joe Lumbley > Dallas TX
<<now, if only the US Prez. election were also... hmmm.. nah.. let me not go there>> Golly gee, I wish the US election were as clean as the IIUG's. Then we wouldn't have a president who struts around like a penguin in heat showing everybody how important he is, pissing off everybody just for the sake of pissing them off, messing with the elections process, bullying and attempting to disenfranchise voters, crying to everybody about how hard the job is, and espousing the attitude of "If you don't like it, leave" ;-) ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups ---= East/West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---
"Joe Lumbley" <joe@lumbley.com> wrote in message news:<419bd2b4$1_4@127.0.0.1>... > <<now, if only the US Prez. election > were also... hmmm.. nah.. let me not go there>> > > Golly gee, I wish the US election were as clean as the IIUG's. Then we > wouldn't have a president who struts around like a penguin in heat showing > everybody how important he is, pissing off everybody just for the sake of > pissing them off, messing with the elections process, bullying and > attempting to disenfranchise voters, crying to everybody about how hard the > job is, and espousing the attitude of "If you don't like it, leave" ;-) > > Gee Joe, I guess somebody has pressed your buttons on this one. Let me make everybody aware that as a body the membership of IIUG does not elect the president. That dubious privilege is currently entrusted to the board members. We may not agree with that policy but that is the way it is. If we are dissatisfied with the way that the affairs of IIUG are being run and want to make changes then I suggest we start proceedings to get a change to the Charter and ByLaws. Donning tin-hat as I type. Malcolm