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Voting

This is a posting of all of the e-mail still in my possession at the time that I put this together (2/11/00)
Jeff



Hi Voting Group,

In this e-mail there is some pretty important news - and also a summary of some possibilities for Voting.

My name is Nick Moraitis - this is only my second message to the Voting Group and i apologise for that. I am the Co-Coordinator of Nation1 currently, along with Maitreyi and Terah (who is currently having computer problems).

Anyway, I've noticed this group is doing really well. I'm currently subscribed, but may have to leave to focus on my own group (Fundraising) very soon depending on the mail.

Anyway, what is the role of this Voting Group? Basically we have to come up with a system of voting in Nation1 that is flexible enough to handle votes for a number of different purposes, for instance:

1. To democratically elect Coordinators and other positions as outlined in the Constitution that will come into effect when Nation1 launches our community website. The constitution (which I know has been floated around this group already by Maitreyi) is designed to set some rules to ensure that everyone can participate fully in the online community we are developing and that the site remains 'of the users'.

2. To poll all citizens to see what youth opinions are. I'm in the USA right now (although I usually live in Melbourne Australia) and in all the newspapers here there is information on he Presidential primaries. Imagine if young people all voted on who they thought would be a good candidate via Nation1 - perhaps we could get hundreds of thousands (or at least thousands) of young people voting onlihne. If we published those results the adults might take notice! Another example: You might have heard of the Colombian Children's Movement for Peace. Many of the Nation1 initial taskforce members met up with some of the leaders of this movement at a conference in the Netherlands early last year. Anyway, these children got young people voting on what were the most important Human Rights. They got more than 2,000,000 children voting (and they didn't even have use of the Internet!). The adults took notice, and copied the children... Even the President of Colombia takes personal note of!
what these children say now. So you can grasp the possibilities...

3. Nation1 will include what we have called Groups of Interest, Groups of Region and Groups of Action (the first two are being created by the Network Taskgroup and the Action one is being made by the Action Taskgroup). In these groups people will discuss issues and try and do something about them. But they'll need to make decisions now and again about what the best thign to do is. So here, VOTING is really important as a decision making tool.

Those are the three main areas I think our voting system will be used in for now. So just think about how Voting systems work.

Now, I've got some interesting and important news to share with you which has just happened over the last two days. Nicholas Negroponte, who is the Director of the Media Lab at MIT and a very good friend of, and advisor to Nation1 e-mailed me yesterday and said he had been approached by a man called Dick Morris about his website called "Vote.com". Dick is a bit of a controversial figure - he used to be the chief advisor to President Clinton, and he is running campaigns for other politicians in Latin America. But right now, he is also running a website called Vote.com, where people in the US can vote on issues that are important to them and then these are forwarded to important people who can use the results in the their decision making. Sound familiar?

Anyway, check out Vote.com

While I am in New York this week, Dick (who is actually in Japan unfortunately) has asked me to meet the Vice President of Vote.com to discuss whether we can link up Nation1 to the site in someway. They really want to get kids involved in the site and are very enthusiastic about helping Nation1.

Of course, we have to consider this carefully and find out exactly whether Vote.com are the kind of people/site that we want to be involved with. I'm going to meet Joe (the vice president) on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the possibilities and find out more about them. Then I'll give a full report back. If there is anyone in this taskforce from New York City, then of course you're welcome to come as well. Then we can think about making decisions.

I know this taskgroup has really just started but we have to move really fast. Nation1 needs to launch in the middle of the year and we're got a long way to go before then. It's going to be great though.

Dick's message is below.

Cheers,

Nick

Forwarded Message Follows:

Dear Nick, I very much would like to meet with you while you are in New York but I am in Japan all this week. Could you possibly call Joel Morton from our company, Vote.com. (details below). I hope you can see him while you are in New York. Since Monday is a holiday, perhaps you could call him on his cell. I am very enthusiastic about this project and I hope you can work with us.
Dick Morris



Why does the voting only have to be to influence leaders? The maximum age to participate in N1 is 25. 18 is legal voting age in many countries. If we vote as a large group, we can gain many concessions by leveraging our power. However, we need to be able to vote as a solid block. Forwarding information to people might open their eyes, but nothing says that they will listen, unless the votes push.
Vote.Com might be a great idea, however it does link us to a certain party, coloring people's opinions of N1, and they would then have influence over us, blackmailing us with infrastructure. Then we might have to vote as they say. Its just one of the problems that I perceive. I'm really sorry if this seems overly black, but these are the realities as I see them.
Jeff



It just came to mind that the first thing we should be doing is figuring out what to do first. A few suggestions on places for us to begin:

1. Outline the design of the voting website.
2. Setup a prototype voting website and then vote on what to do next.
3. Start working with the technology group to find out what information they will eventually need to design our website.
4. Bicker endlessly about the political implications of our envisioned
voting system.
5. Setup a barebones voting system that is open to the public and
functional.

Miqrogroove
http://www.geocities.com/downrobot/




I think another important issue is lowering the age of voting ensuring that when youth speak they are heard and acknowledged and that they have the right to vote no matter what there age (staying within reason, not much point in a one year old voting hehe:).

Nusrah



Hi everyone,
I was listening to "Talk of the Nation" yesterday and they were talking about how internet voting will be utilised in an election coming up in Arizona through a company called election.com. So I thought I'd look into it -

Election.com, Inc.
1001 Franklin Avenue
Suite 212
Garden City, New York 11530
Tel: (516) 248-4200
Fax: (516) 248-4770
Toll Free: (877) 868-3638
info@election.com
http://www.election.com
Election.com contracts out work, managing elections including internet
voting mostly for non-profits, labor unions, etc. Since they already make money contracting work out, I'm not sure how willing they would be in advising us or showing us how exactly their system works, but I guess we could give it a shot.

"Obstacles to e-voting" by Jodi Kantor
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,7403,00.html

votehere.net
Main 425.827.5156
Toll-free 888.457.6863
Fax 425.739.6788
Internet http://www.votehere.net
info@votehere.net
Mailing Address
VoteHere.net
3101 Northup Way, Suite 250
Bellevue, WA 98004-1449

http://vote.com - a site run by Dick Morris that mainly does polls, not elections.
We've been in touch with Vote.com and Dick Morris about working together on
Nation1's voting/polling system

That's what I've found so far. hope it helps!

Peace.

~Mary Fister
mfister@gac.edu
mary@nation1.net
Student at SPHS and GAC in Saint Peter, MN, USA
Nation1, the international youth network - www.nation1.net

Free food, but not for you! Fight hunger at www.thehungersite.com



Hi!

Sorry for my disappearance I was first busy with my exams then my house is being painted so I had to shift my computer to the Kitchen:))) which is really a funny place to keep it but that is closest to the telephone connection.

Ok Let me sum up every thing we have discussed till now:

DEMOCRACY IN NATION1

1)--------- Constution:---------------

a) 18 years is the age limit for any legal administration........... BUT we a re forming a childrens nation we have are own laws
b) Citizenship...... again we have are own laws
c) Some other hurdals..

2) -----------What will we vote for?-------------------

a) Issues put forth by other Taskforces.... to come up to some desission,
b) to elect the people in the constution
c) amend the constution
d) Poll opinions.

I can think of these things....... If I have missed out any thing just tell me.

3) ------------Dick Morris---------

Nick can tell us if there were any other latest developments.

4)----- WHAT WE NEED TO DO------
We have to discuss:

a)Who can vote
b) How can one vote
c)How many times
d) Privacy
e)What kind of voting system will we have.......


Thats all I can think of.........

If I have mised any thing you can add it.
So lets start

Maitreyi.



>a)Who can vote
>b) How can one vote
>c)How many times
>d) Privacy
>e)What kind of voting system will we have


Here's how I see it:
A- Anyone who is a citizen of Nation1 (i.e. under 25 years of age)
B- Utilizing IP address records, with a necessity to "log in" to access the site, we can keep double voting down to a minimum. We can also run records through a "cleaner" to remove extra accounts people might have. (Names that are filled with scrap letters, blank or non-existant country names, etc.)
C- One vote per person per issue. Why would you want any more?
D- If people have to log in, through a user name and a password, then privacy will always be maintained (unless they are being forward with their personal information, then it is their problem)
E- Pure democratic vote. Although the minority needs to have their say, and not be overwhelmed by majority opinions. Perhaps when someone goes to vote, there will be an equal number of majority and minority opinions available for view. These opinions might be a few lines, or a whole paper, depending on the issue.

Any ideas?
Jeff





Hey you guys,

How are you doing?

The decisions we make on this list are "up there" on our priority lists. When the technical projects begin (this will happen as soon as our development server arrives in the Media Lab) the voting system will be about the third to be created, since it is a core aspect of Nation1 (this is after the Citizen database: membership system, etc. and some of the crucial networking aspects like discussion groups. So the faster we get our blueprint out, the better!

OK, let's think about this.... a user is already logged on to his or her Nation1 account. So privacy is not an issue now. The user goes to the "voting section" of our website. What does the person see? What can the person do? What are the little tricks going on in the background?

I believe one of the ideas was to have a place which lists all available issue-based surveys and polls. I think this is a good idea. They can be arranged by category, perhaps. Each has an "expiry" date and there is also a link for the results of recent polls. This is simple enough.

Some of the more tricky things: how do we make votes in the first place? The answer seems obvious, that we should let the users fill out a form to request a poll to be created. But should we have any sort of "censorship" on the system? Should there be a group of people to "screen" vote requests? Or not? From one perspective, that would slow things down and be a pain and would allow for the discretion of a group of people to get in the way. From the other side, what if there are users who create phony polls like, "What do you think of elephants eating bananas?" Should we allow those? Here's an alternative: rather than "screening" each vote, perhaps a group of people can remove votes they think are phony. Again, this could be dangerous. What do you think?

I believe that certain types of polls should probably go through a screening by a group of people. For example, if someone wants to set up a random sampling or scientific poll (ie., something to gather the opinion of youth in a certain universe or a cross-section), then perhaps the person can "apply" to do something like this which can be approved by this group of people (the Voting Ministry Council). The reason it may be better to have tighter control is that there are privacy issues, since such polls will require messages (either email or otherwise) to be send to prospective poll-takers. What are thoughts on this point? An alternative: each user has a section in their "citizen" interface which lists polls which have specifically been targeted for them (ie., I live in Madagascar, and there is a poll about lemurs or something). Other ideas?

So, according to the scenario so far, we have a "Poll or Voting" section of our website. There are lists of available public polls listed by category, as well as recent results. Each will have key questions and a name of who created the poll and for what purpose. A user can fill out a form requesting to have a poll added (either public or with a specific target). We have a screening (?) group who looks out for phony, obscene, whatever votes. Then, we have a section of each of our personal user-interfaces which lists polls targeted specifically at a person because they are a part of a certain category (geographically, interest-based, age-based, etc.). Besides these polls, a list of current "votes" or elections can be present.

What are you thinking so far? In terms of the elections part, I believe that this will be another very important part, because leadership is important in action groups, possibly discussion groups, and in Nation1's government. Here's an idea of how to set that up: there is a similar form to apply for an election-type of vote. A person indicates the "target" by entering in people's email addresses (if the user is using it for personal use) or enters the group's mailing list address (like votinggroup@nation1.net) which the computer will automatically understand. Question: should we allow anyone to set up votes? I would think yes, but should we have any check system in place to ensure that some people don't needlessly create phony votes to clog up people's user interfaces? What are your ideas here?

So the person indicates the purpose of the vote, the universe, and also perhaps a what-type section. Examples of sections: voting for leadership candidates, in which case a "smart" form guides them through the process of entering the data for each leader. Another type: voting on a particular issue (not a poll, but an issue pertinent to a specific group. Like Jeff earlier asked if we could put the country debate versus non-profit corporation to vote). Any other necessary categories? What are your thoughts / ideas?

In terms of voting for Nation1's administration leaders (those spelled out in the Constitution), there probably needs to be a special system or section for that which we can design separately. Another idea: should there be a special "votes from Nation1's government" section, where various "ministries" and The Nation1 Cabinet put forth polls to the general public to aid in and/or determine decisions?

Should we copy any elements from Internet voting systems such as election.com or vote.com?

This letter was just summarzing some ideas which I have heard being discussed on the lists. It's meant to just have a bunch of questions, so we can continue brainstorming and get our blueprint done soon.

There was some good discussion earlier this week and before about our Constitution and the whole Nation1: is it a country or NGO debate? I'd just like to say a few words about the Constitution. This group is not going to be amending or changing the document. It has already been ratified as our BETA document and will be in effect at least one year from when Nation1 starts (that is, when all Ministry Councils are formed). The document is far from perfect, but bringing it out for debate again will be like opening a can of worms. If there are any small changes made to it (like changing the name of something or updating powers), it will be done by the Nation1 Jobs mailing lists (jobsgroup@nation1.net) who are in charge of those types of things (ie., Nation1's administration). As for this group, we have the cool task of creating a dynamic and efficient voting system. Let's do it!

Looking forward to talking and hearing more,

Terah





These are all great ideas. What we need is for someone in this group to start maintaining a document describing the voting system so we can properly focus on hammering out details, and so that the tech group will have concrete specifications once they begin implementing it.

Is anyone up for the role of maintaining the document?

ian wojtowicz http://nation1.net




Yes Sure I'll do it.

Maitreyi.




And that was the last Voting Group E-mail.