Absentee voting?

[Flyingroc Chung]

A recent conversation with Claude brought up the topic of absentee voting, and I'm asking the nstadt community whether anyone needs to vote in the coming elections, but wont be able to log in to SL. I am thinking for example of my situation last winter where I went on an extended vacation to my home country (the Philippines) and was not sure I would be able to get a connection fast enough for SL.

Right now, if you are not able to log in to SL in the week starting July 15, you can't touch the voting booth to get your password. But aside from getting your password, voting is web-based. I could possibly send the citizen his password via email if someone needs it (and the SC allows it). But first, does anyone currently need this facility?

[Sudane Erato]

I think we should assume that there will be people who need this. At every election so far it has been an important feature. This is vacation time for much of the world, and SL may not be accessible.

Salzie is planning a number of "reminder to vote" emails. If we can get this feature in place, she can include in that those emails a notice that this feature is available. Those folks could then reach you for the password.

I've found that getting every last person to vote can really be a problem... not everyone reads the forum, where most info about the election is disseminated. And, with only 33 people (approx), every vote counts!

I'm sorry on my part for not mentioning the issue earlier in the development process.

Sudane

[Kazuhiko Shirakawa]

[quote="Sudane Erato":3ikbxiae]Salzie is planning a number of "reminder to vote" emails.[/quote:3ikbxiae]
That's a very good idea, and I’m glad it’s been decided on. Thank you, Salzie, and everyone else involved in this.

[quote="Sudane Erato":3ikbxiae]not everyone reads the forum, where most info about the election is disseminated.[/quote:3ikbxiae]
Indeed. I just came back to the forums after about three weeks of absence during which I hadn’t found the time (thus I missed most of the opportunities to hear campaigning, for example). So I’m all the more glad that there’ll be email notification.

(I presume the emails will contain links to the various parties’ platforms.)

/Kaz

[Salzie Sachertorte]

I will include links in the emails - also you can look at the individual factions' threads in the forums to see their stands on issues as well as at the faction page at the website.

Please note that there are currently two active factions in NFS.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

I love your enthusiasm, guys, but we're discussing this issue at the SC level at the moment.

Although not everybody has replied yet, so far, the issue of "absentee voting" is not favourable, for several reasons.

The first is a fundamental democratic principle — voting is in secret, personal, and not transmissible to other citizens.

The whole point of having a whole week for elections is exactly because we wished to allow a larger number of people participating (and thus avoiding the ones that aren't in-world at the moment).

The other issue, however (often "confused" with absentee voting) is "presential voting", ie. being physically in front of the voting booth to be able to vote. In fact, this was not deemed necessary — since actually the voting booth just "checks" for an avatar, and the voting is done on a web site instead. So there is no "presential voting" — remote voting is certainly what we have — but this is fundamentally different from "absentee voting".

In the past, we went from just 2 days of voting to a whole week, to give people time and opportunity to be in-world during at least one day to retrieve the "voting token" from the booth. While I can agree that sometimes a week is not enough, I would see as the only possibility retrieving the "voting token" earlier, and do the web-based voting at a later time (ie. during the "voting week").

What we can effectively do is allowing further technologies that allow the voting process. Beyond having access to a web server, an alternative could be, for instance, email voting. In some cases, mobile phone operators allow a SMS-to-email feature that would allow people to vote without even requiring web access. The idea being that while most people won't be able to get SL access (ie. a fast enough computer and broadband), it's likely they'll be able to access a computer with web access for just 5 minutes, and it's highly likely they'll be able to have a mobile phone If all else fails, well, like iRL, you won't be able to vote...

As said, this has been the opinion held by a majority of voting SC members.

The only alternative I see for the future:
[list:d40gf65f]
[*:d40gf65f]change the legislation[/*d40gf65f]
[*:d40gf65f]create a system of "pre-voting". This will need somehow to be a rather more complex system, where the voting booth is fully operational, say, a month before elections, and you can somehow cast a vote there, but it'll get encrypted into the database, so that no one is able to tamper with it until election day[/*d40gf65f][/list:u:d40gf65f]

Let me remind you that if there is anything "sacred" in Neufreistadt, it's the citizen's ability to [i:d40gf65f]vote[/i:d40gf65f]. Changing the system — just because it's technologocially [i:d40gf65f]easy[/i:d40gf65f] to do — to allow people to somehow "pass their votes" to someone else, no matter how trustworthy they may be — is a dangerous violation of the fundamental principle of "one citizen, one vote". Although I understand that most people mean well with this proposal, I haven't seen a bill from the RA changing that fundamental principle, and this is far more than a simple bureaucratic procedure. Just a few days away from the upcoming elections, it's truly a very bad precedent to change the voting procedures, and redefining some principles that are fundamental.

I would seriously encourage the RA to think about introducing appropriate legislation to allow voting outside the "election week" period, one that guarantees that votes are secret, personal, and non-transmissible.

[Sudane Erato]

Gwyn, there's one key point here that I'm not following.

What we refer to by absentee voting is exactly the procedure that we have had in place for certainly the last two elections; possibly the first one, too, but my mind is fuzzy. Because I was very involved in collaring people to get to the polls and vote, I can even remember the names of some of the people who were forced by circumstance to vote by receiving an emailed PIN.

Indeed... *not* allowing absentee voting would be a dramatic and unfortunate change in a longer standing precedent! (Longstanding for NStadt, that is ).

I sincerely hope that there will be a system in place to allow for this. With just 33 citizens in our voting rolls, it is of the absolutely highest concern that every person have an opportunity to vote, even if they can't get in-world and get their PIN from the booth.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something of your argument ???

Sudane

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Yes, the point being, if you get a "token", you're not truly voting — just validating your citizenship.

That's allowed And as FR said, voting is done web-side anyway (too complex to do it in-world in such short notice, although definitely possible). So, no harm is done to replace the "in-world" validation by an email. The end result is about the same: the citizen will get an email with a "token" and validated their "right to vote".

I see just a slight problem in this model, since it relies upon the trust that FR will give the right people the correct token, and that he (FR) won't be telling others what the token is But I guess the same argument also applies to the voting booth... so, in my mind, it's the same thing.

The other issue is giving your token to someone else, and allowing that person to vote under your name, if you're not able to get a computer/mobile phone with web access.

That's NOT allowed, and should not be — although, of course, the RA might pass legislation to allow it, under a different SC

My point was:
[quote:21ypatyc]While I can agree that sometimes a week is not enough, I would see as the only possibility retrieving the "voting token" earlier, and do the web-based voting at a later time (ie. during the "voting week").

What we can effectively do is allowing further technologies that allow the voting process. Beyond having access to a web server, an alternative could be, for instance, email voting. In some cases, mobile phone operators allow a SMS-to-email feature that would allow people to vote without even requiring web access. The idea being that while most people won't be able to get SL access (ie. a fast enough computer and broadband), it's likely they'll be able to access a computer with web access for just 5 minutes.[/quote:21ypatyc]

So since that's what people wish (at least, Patroklus asked for that on an email to some of us), there is no problem with sending "voting tokens" beforehand.

I think that what misled me was the employment of the words "absentee voting", and the notion that by going to the voting booth on the Marktplatz, you're effectively "voting". Actually, this is not the case; the votes are "counted" only when you go to the web site (which can happen even on a different day!), so the web site defines voting, not the in-world voting bootth. So, getting the token in advance, is, strictly speaking, not "absentee voting" at all. I've checked with FR, who confirmed that the web server won't be available outside the week's voting period. The act of "voting" is entering the web page, placing your token inside, and punching some checkboxes or radio buttons. Since this is going to be done just during the voting week, it's fine.

Actually, the token could be given [i:21ypatyc]months[/i:21ypatyc] in advance

"Absentee voting", however, is much more, and a rather delicate subject. It means that the person will [i:21ypatyc]not[/i:21ypatyc] punch the web-side voting page at all. Instead, the citizen will entrust the token to "someone else" (or "something else", since it could be a software application), and that "someone else" would vote on their behalf, according to specifically written instructions. Now, right now, this mechanism hasn't been codified at all in N'stadt Law, and requires legislation to prevent violation of a fundamental right (ie. either establishing clear procedures on how the vote is transferred to someone else, like having both sign a notarised document on the intention to vote, which could be validated afterwards, or do pre-voting in a secure manner that keeps the vote on the server, but encrypted and unreadable until the elections are over).

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I think that what you all meant was "remote voting" (ie. non-presential voting) and not really "absentee voting". When one has a system in place that [i:21ypatyc]only[/i:21ypatyc] works through the Internet, both terms can be easily confused

And I still mantain that the RA should address absentee voting as well on a forthcoming RA meeting; it could even be extended to other voting situations (like the 7-day vote by the RA, for instance, which [i:21ypatyc]is[/i:21ypatyc] codified in law, and perfectly legitimate).