[Linux-aus] Country-wide communication

[Bret Busby <bret@busby.net>]

Apart from my previous reference to holding international converstaions 
using email, I have also been involved in voting in international polls 
and elections, using the Internet.

If these can be done via the Internet, internationally, they should be 
able to be done within and across Australia.

It could be a good way of getting people all over the country involved 
in elections and determining policies and direction of the organisation, 
and, could takes such things as the annual elections, away from the 
conferences.

It also means that general meetings, including AGM's, can be done 
online, without the need for physical presence at AGM's etc.

It was via the use of "forums", set up as mailing lists, with agendas, 
and fixed time periods for discussion and voting, and login-based 
website polls, with each voter having a unique username/password 
combination (username may have been email address).

It was a means of having discussions and making decisions within a set 
timeframe, and it appears to have been an effective way of doing it.

The polls were constructed to show who had voted, but not how any 
particular person had voted, only the results of each poll, to preserve 
the privacy of each vote. The polls were also constructed, so that any 
voter could only vote once, unless a defect was found with the poll, in 
which case a voter (or all voters) would be advised, the poll corrected, 
and previous votes annulled to enable renewed votes.

The same technique could be used for both committee discussions and 
voting, and for general membership discussions and voting.

And, it could overcome problems of distance and timezones. It did, 
internationally, involving people from each continent, and from various 
countries within each continent.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of 
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams, 
  published by Pan Books, 1992 
....................................................