User:ElectionTest

This page is part of a test in which BallotBin, a free election and survey site, is being used to run a Citizendium ballot.


 * The election would be run by an Election Committee of at least two people, plus there would be an audit by the Council.


 * The initial part of the election would involve nominations and referenda proposals exactly as before, appearing on /Nominations and /Referenda subpages.


 * The Election Committee would have access to a BallotBin account which would be used to set up the candidate lists and questions, and then send voting links to anyone who had properly registered.

July 2015 test election
Click HERE to register to vote in this test election: you do not need to write anything in the subject or body. The email goes to a dedicated email account accessed by John Stephenson. Your email address will be kept private. You can register to vote before or during the test election.

The election opens at 00:00:01 UTC on July 2nd and runs for one week. Your registered address will receive a BallotBin link. The voting page will contain a list of test referenda and candidates. (These would normally be duplicated on the wiki election page, with links to statements and opportunities for discussion; for this test, they appear only on BallotBin.)


 * For comments about this process, please use the elections and referenda forum page.

Registering to vote
Once the nature of the ballot is confirmed, participants would be asked to register to vote via the main wiki by sending a blank email to this account using the 'Email this user' feature. This ensures that only registered members of Citizendium can vote. The mail would go to an e-mail account shared by the Election Committee, so all requests to vote would be recorded. The user's registered Citizendium email address is revealed in the private email, so can be copied and pasted to Ballotbin's list in order to issue a voting link, once the Committee have confirmed eligibility. It is possible to register both before and during the election.

Voting
The voter would receive an email containing a link and various instructions. The link takes them to BallotBin, where they can indicate their preferences or abstain. The user does not create a Ballot Bin account; everything is done on one page. BallotBin opens and closes the election automatically.

Audit
At the end of the voting period, BallotBin automatically closes the election and makes the results available via the original voting links. The Election Committee cannot see the votes as they come in; the system maintains anonymity for each voter. The Election Committee can see via the site which email addresses have been recorded and how many have so far been used (i.e. turnout).

The provisional results would be audited by a Council representative. This would involve giving the auditor access to the election e-mail and BallotBin accounts. In particular, the number of requests to vote would be compared with the number of voting links issued, as well as other settings. Afterwards, the official results would be published on the main wiki.