[EC-NCSG] Concerns about the voting process

[marie-laure Lemineur]

Dear Robin, GNSO Secretariat staff and NCSG colleagues,

I am writing this email to express our concerns about the voting process
since as NPOC Executive Committee, we have noticed "behaviours" of the
system that might provoke a certain level of confusion in some NCSG voting
members. Our concern is that  as a result, this might deter some members
from voting, which of course would be counterproductive. The specific
features that we have identified as problematic are the following:

1/ As most of us are aware of, in some cases it has been necessary to
resend several times the ballots and we finally received it. Our
 understanding, based on the explanations we have already received,  is
that this happens sometimes with this voting system. Nevertheless, we came
to the conclusion that this is not at all convenient and that we should
find a way to overcome this problem since this may cause not only some
voting members  -who are absorbed attending their regular activity, or who
simply neglect to oversee these kinds of details- to miss the fact that
they have not received the ballot, but also, it may discourage them from
actively taking the  time to look for the ballot in the spam folder and, if
needed,  take the time to email you and/or the GNSO secretariat to request
the resending of the ballot.
Even if it is impossible to measure the impact that this technical problem
could have on the voters? behaviours,  in our opinion, a "friendly-user"
voting system should not impose such a burden on any voters and as such
should avoid have some of us going through all these steps since it
encompasses the risk that we might end loosing votes.

2/ When the voting members receive the "courtesy email" as indicated below
in the snapshot -the reminder that if we have not voted yet, we should do
it- the email  includes an active link to vote again is needed. If for
example, in my case, I had already voted and I receive this reminder email,
I was wondering what would prevent me, the receiver, from abusing the
system, click once again and vote again?
And let?s assume it is possible to do it and I did it, the other question
than would be,  does the system realise that I am trying to abuse it since
I would be voting twice when my organisation has the right to vote only one
time for being  a small organisation ?
Another similar example would be the case of Rudi Vansnick who is the
representative of ISOC Belgium, which qualifies as a large organisation
(two votes) and who is also an individual member of NCUC (one vote). This
means that he has received 3 ballots in total and 6 courtesy emails (since
it looks like we each receive double courtesy emails as indicated in item
number 3 that follows). Therefore, if he had wanted to abuse the system, it
looks like he could have voted nine times instead of three times.  Could
someone please clarify if our understanding is correct or not? Or is the
system able to detect these kind of abuses as we  would hope so ? Since of
course, we have not tried to abuse the system, we are unable to answer this
question.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[image: Inline image 1]
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
3/ As illustrated in the above snapshot, all emails received (whether the
actual ballot or the courtesy email) mention the following sentence at
bottom of the email "The URL below will take you directly to your
individual ballot". Once again, this can lead to confusion since in the
NCSG we have  two categories of voters: individual members and
organisational members. A voter who has a dual condition as an individual
member and a representative of an organisation, while reading this
sentence, might wonder if the received ballot corresponds to his vote as an
"individual member". And than he realises that all emails mentioned this
sentence.
Another issues is that, this particular voter, has no way of
differentiating the organisational ballot from the individual ballot since,
if we are not mistaken, the text of the ballot is the same for all ballots
and as a consequence does not allow to distinguish one category of vote
from the other.

4/ The other feature that is really confusing,  is that as illustrated in
the snapshot below and above  in the courtesy email, where it reads "voter:
EMAIL ADDRESS...." there is a number indicated. In my case, I received two
courtesy emails and one indicated number 1 and the end of my email address
and the other number 2. Is this number, the actual number of courtesy email
sends in sequence ?  In the case of a voting member who is individual and
an large organizational  representative, like in the case of Rudi Vansnick,
this is also confusing since he received a double courtesy email for each
ballot i.e. he has received 6 courtesy emails each with either 1 or 2
indicated.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

SAMPLE # 2

[image: Inline image 2]
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

5/ Finally, we were wondering if  we are sure that each organisational
members voter has a clear idea that he/she is identified either as a large
or as a small organisation in other words,   are we certain that each
member is aware that if labelled as a large organisation they will have the
right to vote twice -and as a consequence should expect to receive two
ballots- and if labelled as a small organisation they will be able to vote
one time -and should expect to receive on ballot-

Most importantly, we should not forget that many voting members are
newcomers to NCSG which means that this is the first time they go through
this election process. If those of us who have some experience with the
tally system are puzzled by the mentioned features, it is highly possible
that some new NCSG members got  even more confused. And we would want to
avoid this and its possible negative impact.

In conclusion, in light of all the concerns raised and the questions asked,
we would greatly appreciate if on one hand, a clarifying email   was send
to all NCSG voting members since the voting period closes next Monday 14
October at 24 UTC and if on the other hand, a meeting was scheduled in
Buenos Aires with the parties involved - pertinent NCSG-EC members and
 ICANN GNSO staff- so that we discuss possible ways to improve the system
for future elections.

Best regards,

Marie-laure
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.ipjustice.org/pipermail/ec-ncsg/attachments/20131012/e661af0f/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Captura de pantalla 2013-10-12 a la(s) 10.12.47 AM.png
Type: image/png
Size: 37611 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.ipjustice.org/pipermail/ec-ncsg/attachments/20131012/e661af0f/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Captura de pantalla 2013-10-12 a la(s) 9.31.02 AM.png
Type: image/png
Size: 53432 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.ipjustice.org/pipermail/ec-ncsg/attachments/20131012/e661af0f/attachment-0003.png>