[NCUC-DISCUSS] [Important] NCUC Bylaws Final Version

[Ayden Férdeline]

Thank you for raising this, Nadira. I agree this is a topic which we need to give serious deliberation to once this election cycle has ended.

In many countries, the promotion of a candidate or party (or attacking a candidate or party) on election day is a criminal offence. Of course, the stakes are slightly lower in this election, because we are not selecting our rulers, but instead the decision-makers who will be tasked with keeping the gears of the NCUC turning. And, we have a voting window, rather than a single day where everyone casts their ballot. Nonetheless I have seen behaviour on this list which, in my view, could be seen to influence how some cast their votes. I’m not making a judgement call here as to whether this is positive or negative; though I think that is a debate we need to have once this election is over.

An election is a game, and winning in any game hinges to a large extent on the rules of that game and how those rules are interpreted. We cannot make sense of this election without considering who has (and who does not have) the right to vote, who has (and who does not have) the right to be on our electoral register, the weighing of each vote cast by a person or entity, and how people express their preferences among the candidates. Our election should not be symbolic. There should not be a predetermined outcome. And there should not be any uncontested seats with but one candidate (I am very pleased that there is a plurality of candidates for many of the seats).

TLDR: +1 to Nadira.

Best wishes,



Ayden Férdeline
[linkedin.com/in/ferdeline](http://www.linkedin.com/in/ferdeline)



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] [Important] NCUC Bylaws Final Version
Local Time: 21 November 2016 5:41 PM
UTC Time: 21 November 2016 17:41
From: seun.ojedeji at gmail.com
To: Matthew Shears <mshears at cdt.org>
NCUC-discuss <ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>


I also think it's good to have such clear guidelines but to the extent that it doesn't in any way serve as a way of penalising any of the candidates or voters.



Cheers!
Sent from my LG G4
Kindly excuse brevity and typos





On 21 Nov 2016 6:31 p.m., "matthew shears" <mshears at cdt.org> wrote:

I agree with the suggestion by Nadira - and should as Tapani says be given serious consideration by the new EC.


On 21/11/2016 15:59, Tapani Tarvainen wrote:


On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 03:43:43PM +0200, Nadira Alaraj (nadira.araj at gmail.com) wrote:



Usually and in any voting process, the support or self promotion of
candidates stops before the distribution of the ballots.
That is not by any means universal. In particular when voting is
conducted by mail or otherwise takes a long time, notably also during
postal or other advance voting in most elections I know of,
campaigning keeps going on all the way until voting stops.

Whether or not that is a good thing is another question, and we might
well decide that campaigning should stop after voting starts in NCUC
elections. But so far we haven't had such a rule and it is obviously
too late to make one for this election.

But good that you brought it up, the new EC would be well advised
to consider it and make the rules clear before next election.



--
------------
Matthew Shears
Global Internet Policy and Human Rights
Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT)
[+ 44 771 2472987](tel:%2B%2044%20771%202472987)


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