Re: [ga] Re: A Question for the Candidates

[Barbara Simons <simons@acm.org>]

Dear Jeff,

I'm going to respond to a couple of key points below.  Then I'm afraid that
I'll have to stop this conversation, because I am overwhelmed with other
work that I must get done this week.

Regards,
Barbara

On 3/10/03 9:10 PM, "Jeff Williams" <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>> As a Board member, I would attempt to be responsive to all stakeholders and
>> users, most certainly including members of the public.  Obviously, a single
>> individual cannot communicate with thousands of stakeholders.
> 
> Why do you believe that a single individual cannot communicate with
> thousands of stakeholders?  I do it almost every day.  This very post
> is going to 10's of thousands of stakeholders for example.

Of course I would do my best to keep people informed of the issues and my
positions, and the Internet is an excellent tool for doing that. I was
thinking more of a two-way dialog.  I could not interact on an individual
basis with large numbers of people.
 
> Well  you could have your own poll at a minimum.  See for instance:
> http://www.vote.com/  Over 51,511,000 Votes Cast!  And that is just
> one example.  I can of course provide many more if called upon to do so.

I don't know if I would have the resources to conduct an Internet vote.  If
there turns out to be a way of doing so that does not cost anything and is
relatively easy to implement, then I might consider holding such a vote if
there are critical issues on which I would want public input.  I can't see
holding routine votes, but if it turns out to be straightforward and if
there is the interest, I might consider it.
 
> THe ACM is a very good organization.  I did notice however that
> the democratic principal of one man one vote doesn't seem to be
> well represented in the ACM via the internet.  Do you now, and
> have you always supported that basic democratic principal?
> I also recall that You came out recently strongly opposed to
> EVOTING.  Are you still opposed?  If so, can you perhaps
> explain why Evoteing (Safely and securely done) is a growing
> and desired extension or use of the internet for stakeholders/users
> and your opposition recently?

I have always supported the principle of one person one vote.  But I have
recently been very involved with fighting against computerized voting
machines that have no backup.  In other words, there is no way to verify
that your vote is recorded as you think it should be.  The outcome of an
election can be influenced by machine malfunction, software bugs, or insider
malfeasance.  This is a very very dangerous situation.  Anyone who cares
about preserving our democracy should check out
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html.

I believe that Internet voting may work for obtaining feedback or even for
elections that are not as critical as national political elections, eg
Boards of Directors of corporations.  But Internet voting can be subverted
more easily even than computerized voting.  So I would argue against
Internet voting for any election that really mattered.  I realize that that
creates problems in terms of establishing any kind of democratically elected
ICANN Board members, and I don't know how to deal with that.

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