Wayne Peppard and I recently co-authored a paper titled “Local Union Elections – Increasing Member Participation – Electronic Voting (e-voting), Hybrids and other Options” . We produced this paper as a copy-write free draft to fill what we see as a gap in the information available to unions with respect to e-voting, and increasing membership participation in elections and/or other important union votes. We were also motivated by the fact that has been an increasing number of request from local union officers, and members for information about e-voting, and other options for increasing membership participation in local union elections.
Although there is considerable information about e-voting and electoral reform available on the web, including white papers from Elections Canada and Elections BC, our research found much of it is dated, not that relevant to unions, and is quite frankly not that helpful when considering the Pros and Cons of the e-voting systems that are currently available and are in use by some unions.
While Wayne and I tend to favor the use of e-voting as one of the ways to enfranchise more local union members and increase participation in local union elections, we recognize that some locals may feel the cons outweigh the pros. For that reason, and because we believe that reversing the trend of declining participation is of critical importance to the movement, we have included a section dealing with other ways participation may be increased.
Copies of this paper are available for free download at www.mdumler.ca.e-voting paper_ Sept 24_2012
Hi Mike,
Interesting piece.
However, with my negative hat on, I didn’t notice any particular software or service recommendations or examples, and wondered about that.
Personal pet peeve: “pin” means Personal Identity Number. Therefore “pin number” means Personal Identity Number Number. Awkward
That said, I was glad to see a piece embracing use of current technologies. Thanks for that.
CW
Hey CW good to hear from you. We chose to focus on best practices rather than to provide recommendations on particular Software or service providers because of the significant variances in the electoral requirements, and technological sophistication of local unions. Not only that, but the number of different providers, the services they offer and the technology available seems to be expanding almost daily. As an example, one of the service providers I have been in contact with for a local union has just advised me that they just recently installed servers in Canada. This is obviously an important issue for this and other locals who are considering e-voting. Another service provider has informed me they are in the process of upgrading their technology so they can offer segmented voting and other services. This will be important for multi-unit locals who elect part of their executive at large and part from within units. There is also some open source e-voting software available on the web. So far I haven’t found a union local that has used the open source software, and I know some Unions discourage and may even refuse to approve its use by their locals. I also believe that for the first time a local undertakes to conduct elections, it is best to use a reputable service provider with Union election experience to ensure membership confidence in the outcome, and build comfort for future use of e-voting technology. As for “PIN” numbers, I note some providers refer to PVIN numbers (Personal Voter ID Numbers), but this doesn’t really address your pet peeve. While it is awkward to some, it is obviously lazily acceptable to others. Thanks for your comments – Mike
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