Re: Electronic Voting

[Robert Pries <robertpries@embarqmail.com>]

Lynn and others; Ever since I came on the board I have agonized over the snail pace of change within the Iris Society. For that matter almost all the plant societies have not been keeping pace with the society at large. Even though we have made some progress it has not out-paced change and therefore even as we move ahead we are still getting farther behind. It is no surprise that we are attracting fewer younger members and that most plant societies are in decline.

Electronic voting should not wait until the last elctronically challenged member dies. We need to always have the back-up of paper voting. But it is prudent to begin to create our systems now. If while under development the first several years you have a glitch you have the old redundancy to fall back on. Four years ago the convention survey showed that more than 60% had access to a computor. I would suspect that more like 80% of our judges now could vote this way if not more. When I worked for large pharmaceutical company I often resented the change and being tied to electronic devices. But generations younger than I no longer resent this, but expect it, and as we have seen by our failure to attract them, probably demand it.

I have tried many times to express to the board the urgency that is required in our changing. John's proposal seems to be a good one and even if we act upon it we are still talking about a year before it would be tested by actual use. Frankly it could ultimately save us money, but we need to make the investment now, while we are still large enough to afford the initial cost. It will not stem our decline, but certainly would put us in a better position for facing the future even if we become a smaller organization. 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lynn" <irislynn@willitsonline.com>
To: aisdiscuss@aisboard.org
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 1:22:21 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: RE: [AISdiscuss] Electronic Voting

Hi John and All,

I agree that we should do our own Eballot - very cost effective and more to
our use.  Thanks you John for your thorough followup and finding a more
suited program for us to eventually use.

Jill, I don't feel that we can make voting electronically manditory at this
time, because not every judge has a computer.

Lynn Williams

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-aisdiscuss@aisboard.org [mailto:owner-aisdiscuss@aisboard.org]
On Behalf Of Jill Bonino
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 10:02 PM
To: aisdiscuss@aisboard.org
Subject: Re: [AISdiscuss] Electronic Voting


Hi John and All,

I agree with others so far that we continue further discussion/research of
the costs and implementation of our own Eballot system.

A $5,500 total cost for a system the AIS owns is far better than shelling
out $3500 or more per year ad infinitum for the system you and Ruth
described at the Spring meeting.  Do you have any idea at this point how
much the annual maintenance of the program would be once it is up and
running?  Could it be created and beta tested in time to use it for the 2010
ballot season?  Would the $5,500 approximate cost include all "bug" fixing
that could come up after implementation?  Would the Electronic Services
Committee be in charge of setting the written specifications for the system?

I think we would also need to have a manual backup system for those judges
and members who will not be able to vote electronically,... OR do we want to
make voting manditory electronically once we have a system in place?

Overall, I think an electronic system for voting is the way to go.  The
future is here and it is the computer.  It is becoming more of a necessity
every year to have one to conduct our personal and business business.

Jill

-----Original Message-----
>From: John I Jones <JIJONES@usjoneses.com>
>Sent: Jun 11, 2009 9:46 PM
>To: aisdiscuss@aisboard.org
>Subject: [AISdiscuss] Electronic Voting
>
>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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