Umfragen/Wahlen bei OSI group communication
Markus Kuhn
lebhafte Diskussion in Gang gekommen, wie man den am besten ueber
ein Netz eine Wahl oder eine Meinungsumfrage organisiert.
Computernetze koennten eigentlich ein fantastisches Demokratiewerkzeug
sein, also hat man sich fuer das OSI Newssystem vorgenommen, gleich
in Service und Protokoll einen Abstimmechanismus zu integrieren.
Bis das ganze fertig ist wird sicher noch einige Zeit vergehen,
aber wer einmal einen Vorgeschmack bekommen moechte, was ein
Newsnetz in 5-10 Jahren alles bieten koennte, moege sich einmal
die folgenden von ISO festgestellten 'user requirements' fuer dieses
feature zu gemuete fuehren.
Markus
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From: JPA...@skhb.dafa.se (Jacob Palme SKHB)
Date: 30 Oct 91 15:08:55 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400
Subject: Haag notes on voting and polling
PROPOSAL FOR A NEW WORK ITEM
Title
Computer-supported voting and polling as a group communication
task
Scope
Asynchronous group communication. Voting and polling is used for
eliciting opinions and preferences related to group tasks. Our
initial scope will not include the use of such systems for
formal elections.
See also enclosed draft user requirements in annex A
Purpose and justification
A common task within asynchronous group communication is the use
of voting and polling as an aid in gathering opinions and making
decisions. ISO itself may also in the future benefit from
implementations of such a standard. See further annex A.
[...]
Annex A:
Draft user requirements for computer-supported voting and polling
as a group communication task
Version: 2
~Date: October 1991
This paper is a draft of user requirements on standards for
computer-supported voting and polling. Computer-supported voting
and polling is a special application within the field of group
communication.
1 Table of contents
2 Terminology
3 Introduction
4 The voting/polling process (VP)
4.1 Initiation of a voting/polling process
4.2 Definition of a voting group (VG)
4.3 Vote issue and agenda
4.4 Vote form
4.5 Opening of the vote
4.6 Continuous voting
4.7 Distributing the vote form
4.8 Casting the vote
4.9 Reminders
4.10 Aggregation and analysis
4.11 Closing of the vote
4.12 Security
5 Voting profile
2 Terminology
Synchronous: Cooperation which takes place in real time, i.e.
the users cooperating are at one and the same time exchanging
information
Asynchronous: Cooperation which does not take place in real
time, information sent between participants is stored, so that
one user can receive input from the other users and produce
output to them at independent times. This does not preclude
several active participants at the same time, but information
between them might not be transmitted in real time.
The present work on standardization of Group Communication
within ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 18/WG 4 is only on asynchronous group
communication, not on synchronous group communication.
AGC, Asynchronous Group Communication: Tools to enable several
people to cooperate, collaborate and communicate to perform
joint tasks via open networks
ACC, Asynchronous Computer Conferencing: An application within
group communication, which allows a group of users to discuss
issues through stored, structured and interchanged contri-
butions.
CSVP, Computer Supported Voting and Polling: An application area
which may occur as a subtask within other group communication
tasks. It may include the definition of an agenda of issues, the
selection of a voting/polling profile, the collection of
preferences and the aggregation, analysis and presentation of a
group result. Voting and polling can be informative ("straw
votes") or decisive.
VP, voting process, Voting/polling Process: The process of
handling a particular vote from initiation to result
Voter: A user (person, organization or organizational unit) who
is authorized to participate in a voting process
Delegation, Voting rights delegation: When a voter delegates the
right to vote on an issue or a set of issues to another group
communication user
Vote: The response on an issue given by a voter
VG, Vote group: The group of voters who are authorized to
participate in a voting process
Inititiator, Vote Initiator: The role of a group communication
user who initiates a voting process
Profile, Vote Profile: A profile, which specifies a particular
way to handle a certain voting process
Issue: Vote Issue: The issue to be addressed by a particular
voting process
VOD, Vote Opening Date: The date/time when voters can begin
inputting their votes
VCD, Vote Closing Date: A date/time after which voters are not
allowed to input their votes
Vote period: The time period between the VOD and the VCD
Continuous vote: A vote whose vote period overlaps with the
discussion
Agenda, Vote Agenda: A list of subissues to be answered in
sequence for a particular issue
Form, Vote Form: The form of the agenda presented to the voters
Observer, Vote observer: A group communication user who is
allowed to view the voting process but not allowed to put in
votes
Viewing threshold: A condition on vote levels that must be
reached before the result can be viewed.
Quorum, Vote Quorum: The number of voters required to answer
before voting on an issue can be closed
Majority: The percentage of the non-abstaining voters who must
agree for a decision to be reached
Consensus: 100 % majority, i.e. all non-abstaining voters must
agree on the decision
3 Introduction
This work item is to produce a part of forthcoming group
communication standards to cover the use of voting and polling
as a tool for gathering opinion in group communication
applications. Voting and polling may be used as an aid for
making decisions. The standard is not intended to support formal
elections, i.e. voting to choose people for roles.
There exist many different rules and procedures (voting
profiles) for handling voting and polling. It is not the
intention of the standard to prescribe which of these profiles
to use, but rather to allow the system to provide a basic
structure which can support many different voting profiles. An
informative annex may however give some advice taken from social
choice theory on pros and cons of various profiles.
The word "may", when employed in these user requirements,
indicates different alternatives for handling voting. There is
then a user requirement that the forthcoming standard should be
capable of handling suc alternatives.
4 The voting/polling process (VP)
Below are described steps which may be involved in a VP. The
steps need not necessarily be taken in the order given here.
4.1 Initiation of a voting/polling process
A voting or polling process (VP) starts when a decision has been
taken to start it by a group communication user or group which
has privileges to start a particular kind of voting or polling
process. The decision to start a VP may in itself be done using
a separate voting process. A voting or polling process is often
preceded by a discussion on the issues to be voted on. However,
when continuous voting is applied, the discussion and the voting
may start at the same time. A group, company or organization may
regulate who is allowed to initiate votes and which voting
profiles are allowed for various kinds of voting processes
within certain groups.
On a complex issue, with many alternatives, voting may be split
up into a series of subvoting processes to follow each other.
For example, one voting profile may be used in the first voting
process to generate and/or select the most reasonable
alternatives out of a large number of possible alternatives, and
another profile may then be used to select the final choice
among the alternatives chosen in the first voting process.
4.2 Definition of a voting group (VG)
The voting group is the group of voters who are allowed to
participate in a particular VP. An existing group, used for
other purposes (such as Asynchronous Computer Conferencing, ACC)
may be used, or a special group may be selected for this voting
process, for example a defined subset of a larger group. Members
of the voting group (voters) can be persons, organizations or
organizational units. Voters may be allowed to delegate the
voting right to others. A voter should be designated with an
unambiguous name.
Voting observers (VO) who are allowed to view, but not
participate, in the voting process may also be designated.
4.3 Vote issue and agenda
Before a VP can start, the voting issue, voting agenda, vote
form and voting profile must be defined. (Some voting processes
may allow this to be changed during the ongoing voting period.)
This can be defined by the vote initiator, or through discussion
within the VG. The choice can also be made through discussion in
the VG or some other group. Voting may itself be used in the
process of defining the issue, voting agenda, vote form and
voting profile.
Members of the voting group may be allowed to propose
alternative resolutions of the issue, and the voting profile may
specify how to handle the case where many alternative proposals
have been made.
Access controls may regulate which voting profiles are allowed
for particular kinds of votes within particular groups.
4.4 Vote form
The vote form specifies one question or a series of questions.
The order of the subquestions may be defined or may be chosen
randomly to avoid bias. Various vote profiles may specify which
answers are allowed to vote questions. Examples of possible
kinds of answers are:
> Yes (= acceptable), No (= not acceptable), maybe (acceptable
but not good), abstain (not counted, but part of the
quorum).
> Select one: The most preferred option or answer from a list
of alternatives.
> An expression of degree of agreement with a statement (e.g.
a likert type scale from "strongly agree" to "strongly
disagree").
> A weighting value on a scale such as from 0 to 10 or from
"very bad" to "very good". (This is commonly called
"semantic differential".)
> A rank-ordering of the alternatives.
> A score, such that each voter is allowed to put a certain
maximum total of scores on all alternatives.
A common process of producing a vote agenda is to split up a
complex question into a number of binary choices. Whether this
is allowed or not should be specified in the vote profile.
The vote form may allow voters to give motives for their votes
in a textual appendix to the vote they have cast.
In a polling process, the responses to a number of related items
may be combined to form a "scale".
4.5 Opening of the vote
The opening of a vote is the date/time when voters are allowed
to input votes.
4.6 Continuous voting
A particular kind of vote is a continuous vote. By this is meant
that voting is allowed during the whole discussion of an issue,
and that a tabulation of the opinions within the group is
available at any time during the discussion. Continuous votes
are especially useful if consensus (full agreement among all
voters except abstainers) is required. Continuous voting may
imply a need for changes in the vote issue and agenda during the
voting period.
4.7 Distributing the vote form
The vote period usually starts with the distribution of the vote
form. This form may contain a description of the issue and the
agenda, specify the order of the items on the agenda, specify
the allowed answers to each item on the agenda and give other
information about this particular VP. Users should be told if
they may change their votes, if their individual votes will be
readable by other people, what security mechanisms are used to
protect the votes etc. Users may also be told if they must vote
before seeing other votes.
4.8 Casting the vote
Voters are allowed to cast their votes during the voting period.
A voter may, or may not, be allowed to change a vote which has
already been cast by that voter. Other voters and observers may
or may not be allowed to see each other's votes during and after
the voting process.
4.9 Reminders
The voting system may remind voters who have not yet cast their
votes to do so at various times during the voting period.
4.10 Aggregation and analysis
Cast votes can be tabulated, aggregated and analyzed in various
ways (such as sums, percentages, means, standard deviations,
quartiles etc.). The report may be sent out or be made available
to the initiator or to other voters and observers during or
after the voting period.
Voting may be secret (no one is told the individual votes). The
voting profile may also specify that each voter can choose
whether his/her vote is secret or not.
Special security mechanisms may be designed to ensure secret
voting.
4.11 Closing of the vote
The voting profile may specify that the vote is to be closed at
a certain date/time, or when a minimum number of votes have been
cast (quorum) or a combination of these two alternatives.
4.12 Security
Security mechanisms can be used to protect both the individual
votes and the collective outcome, and to prohibit unauthorized
access, including falsified votes. Non-repudiation of individual
votes and the collective outcome may also be ensured.
Time-stamping, encryption, digital signatures etc. could be used
to provide security. The use of such advanced security
mechanisms should however not be mandatory in all voting
profiles.
5 Voting profile
The voting profile describes how a particular VP is to be
handled. The standard should contain a number of basic, pre-
defined voting profiles, but it should be possible to define and
use other profiles than those pre-defined in the standard.
The standard itself should not label various profiles as "good"
or "bad". However, an informative annex to the standard might
summarize some knowledge from social choice theory on pros and
cons of various profiles. One objective of such an annex is to
recommend voting profiles which allow voters to input their
sincere opinion and not to make it worthwhile to vote
tactically. By tactical voting is meant cases where a voter
votes contrary to his opinion on sub-questions because this
might with certain voting profiles increase the probability of
the final outcome desired by this voter. Such an annex can
describe risks of misuse of certain voting profiles and risks of
and ways of avoiding biased voting agendas.
Pre-defined and/or registered profiles should each be given a
unique object identifier.
The voting profile should specify how to handle all cases which
in this user requirement specification are described by words
such as "may". This may include the following points:
> Whether this vote is a straw vote or a decisive vote.
> Various vote forms as described above.
> Setting of viewing thresholds.
> What quorum is required before closing a vote.
> What majority is required for a decision. Examples are 50 %
majority, two-thirds majority or 100 % majority (=
consensus, all must agree or abstain).
> Whether abstentions are allowed.
> How to specify the agenda. This may include a requirement to
vote on various agenda forms.
> That voting is to be done simultaneously using more than one
voting profile on the same issue.
> Weighted voting (e.g. according to number of shares owned in
a limited company).
> Whether anonymity or pseudonymity is allowed during the
voting process.
> The secrecy which may apply to individual votes and to the
voting result.
> Synchronous or asynchronous voting.
> Whether and how delegation of voting rights may be allowed.
> Who may initiate voting.
> How to decide when to open and close voting.
> Whether voting is to be continuous, and if so how the vote
issue and agenda may change during the voting period.
> How to specify the agenda and vote forms.
> Whether observers are allowed.
> Whether random ordering of alternatives is to be used in
cases where agreement cannot be reached on the agenda.
> Whether voters are allowed to change already cast votes.
> Whether and how voters who have not voted are to be
reminded.
> How to aggregate, analyze and present the outcome of the
voting process.
> How to select members of the voting group.
> When a voting period can or should be closed.
> What security mechanisms are to be used.
---
Markus Kuhn, Computer Science student -- University of Erlangen, Germany
X.400: G=Markus;S=Kuhn;OU1=rrze;OU2=cnve;P=uni-erlangen;A=dbp;C=de
I'net: msk...@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de