Electronic Voting

[John I Jones <JIJONES@usjoneses.com>]

All,

At the Spring Board Meeting Ruth Barker and I were asked to provide a
more definitive estimate of what it would cost to employ the eBallot
system. In reviewing our conversations with the eBallot
representative, we have come up with this estimate.

Annual license fee ( 4000 users)             $3500.00
Set up the Annual Ballot (on our behalf)            $695.00
Upload user list  (900 names)            $250.00
Provide random user names and passwords            $350.00
Total (first year)            $4795.00
Subsequent years            $3500.00

We would not contract for setting up the annual ballot but might use
some of the other options. The minimum cost for two years would
certainly be $7000.

I have been investigating an alternative, specifically, having a
electronic voting application programmed specifically for us.

In the spirit of full disclosure the contractor I would recommend to
do this is the husband of my niece  Charles (Chip) Miller. Chip is a
graduate of the University of Virginia Comm School (the equivalent of
business schools at other universities) and is very talented. He has
set up his own company doing backend database processing for  web
interfaces.

The application as I have defined it would provide the functionality
that we would need, with fewer bells and whistles (things that we
dont need) than the eBallot system but would provide essentially the
same functionality plus a more convenient interface for doing some of
the major functions. Specifically:

7      Load and manage multiple user constituencies (manually for
single entries and from predefined lists e.g., Excel files, for groups).
7      Automatically generate and email passwords to users.
7      Load, edit, and manage multiple ballots with different deadlines.
7      Assign individual users privileges to vote different
(multiple) ballots
7      Provide an attractive easy to use interface for administrative
and voting functions,
7      Provide tabulation of votes in downloadable format(s)
7      Be implemented using languages and systems that are state-of-
the-art and supportable for the lifetime of the application (minimum
of 10 years). That probably means application languages like Ruby in
a Ruby on Rails framework and a MySQL database

Obviously there are a lot more details that go hand in hand with the
above features, but it is not necessary to list all of them. If there
are specific questions, I will be glad to provide more detail.

The application would be designed to support the annual AIS Official
Ballot, the annual Symposium, and any Board measures we would want to
vote on. Additionally, it could be used simultaneously by Sections
and Cooperating Societies if they wanted to.

We could own the application and could, if we wished, have multiple
installations of the application and sell licenses to use it to other
organizations. (Please note that I only said could)

The cost of developing and installing this application would be in
the range of $5000-$5500 probably less. I would propose that half the
cost come from the General Fund and half from the Restricted
Electronic Services Fund.

I will leave a little time for discussion and pending those comments
make a motion to move forward on this. (There will of course be the
standard amount of time allowed for the discussion of a properly
entered and seconded motion as per our standard procedures)

John

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