[OSGeo-Discuss] Voting process (Re: OSGeo Membership and/or upcoming elections)

[Jorge Sanz]

2014-05-16 17:14 GMT+02:00 Jeff McKenna <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com>:

> On 2014-05-16, 12:06 PM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
> >
> > - maybe this is the most interesting, the Open Source Initiative used
> > "evote" (https://github.com/mdipierro/evote), will paste the full email
> > from OSI:
> >
> > ****
> > At the Open Source Initiative, we just used E-Vote to conduct a member
> > election, and I was pretty happy with the process (I was the admin):
> >
> >   https://elections.opensource.org/
> >
> > We contracted with E-Vote's author, Massimo DiPierro, to set it up for
> > us, which he did a fine job of.  I expect we'll continue to use it.
> >
> > It does use people's email addresses to send them their ballots, but the
> > ballots themselves are anonymous.  (Technically, the election admin
> > could use database access to figure out who did what, I suppose, but
> > that's the only point of trust; the election itself can be verified by
> > others without anyone's identities or votes being revealed.)
> > ****
> >
> More on the evote project (I wonder if we should contact Massimo), the
> 'features' listed on the OSI site:
>
> - The system is open source and anybody can check the source code. The
> code is small and written in the Python language. This makes it easy for
> professionals in the field to check it.
>
> - The system can run as a service and one installation can run mutiple
> elections. Anybody can login into the system, create a new election,
> register voters and managers, and customize the ballot using an easy to
> use WYSIWYG interface.
>
> - The system communicates with voters and managers by email.
>
> - Voters do not need to login into the system to vote. They only need to
> click on the link in the notification email, fill a web form and submit.
>
> - Each voter can only vote once per election.
>
> - Results are computed automatically at closing of the election and
> published.
>
> - Voting is completely anonymous. Even a hacker with a complete database
> dump of the system would not be able to link voters to ballots.
>
> - Each voter can check at any time that his vote has been properly
> recorded and not alatered.
>
> - Each voter can independenty and at any time perform an election recount.
>
> - Upon voting, each voter receives an email recipt containing a copy of
> their filled and anonymized ballot.
>
> - Managers are notified by email when a new vote is cast and receive a
> copy of the anonimized ballot.
>
> - All ballots, anonymized and digitally signed, are published, along
> with instruciton to verify the digital signature.
>
>
>
> -jeff
>
>

Hi Jeff, all

After spending some time and several trials with opensource.org system I
haven't been able to perform a successful vote test. We need to create as
many questions as votes and even it seems to work, afterwards it doesn't
collect the votes correctly. It's a pity because I like the system,
apparently is meant for asking just one question of the three types offered
(ranking, select or multiselect). With more time I would try to solve the
issue I came across. It was funny to see Karl Fogel has opened several
tickets on this project (he's the author of the "Producing Open Source
Software" classic book).

On the other hand, and that's important, I think we need to know who is
voting to identify which charter members are not active on their only
required activity for the foundation so far. That system focuses seriously
on anonymity and for this matter at least the CRO needs to know who is
voting and who is not.


On the other hand I've done some tests with opina and I think it fits all
our requirements.

1) Import a CSV of contacts into the system http://i.imgur.com/WWh24mI.png
2) Customize the invitation mail http://i.imgur.com/o2OPHfu.png
3) Select a private survey sending a different password to any member
http://i.imgur.com/hM5EG6D.png
4) Receive an email http://i.imgur.com/K2OdjQF.png
5) Access the survey (you have the choice to save and continue later)
http://i.imgur.com/nIcgmKs.png
6) Track who voted, see results and export to CSV and SPSS formats
http://i.imgur.com/BlHOvZe.png

All that can be used as a service for free, there is no pricing model, and
if we are going to use it a lot we can think afterwards on installing it at
our server (I'm wondering if we can use this type of survey soft to ask
ideas and feedback to our members, but that's another story).

What do you think?

-- 
Jorge Sanz
http://www.osgeo.org
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jorge_Sanz
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