Re: [ALSC-Forum] Draft report - statistics and "fraud"

[Mike Roberts]

At 23:19 -0700 8/28/01, Karl Auerbach wrote:
>On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Adam PEAKE wrote:
>
>>  As your draft explains, "9,721 pin letters were returned (as of August
>>  19, 2001), 92.2% of which had been sent to countries in the Asia region
>>  ... raises questions about the efficacy of postal mail" These 9,721 are
>>  included in the 33,043 registrations you suggest may be fraudulent.
>>  Since when was "return to sender" and indication of fraud?
>
>One of the very sad things about the last election was that these kinds of
>irregularities were never brought to the attention of the candidates or
>electors in a timely manner.
>
>Instead they were handled in the ICANN way - in secret and using ad hoc
>criteria - and there was no public notice that such irregularities had
>even occurred until several months later.
>
>In any reasonable election situation, such irregularities would have been
>raised in a timely manner - not six months after the fact - so that the
>candidates and electors could send observers to ascertain that reasonable
>criteria had been created and applied fairly.
>
>	--karl--

Karl - there is plenty of room for criticism of the 2000 At Large 
election cycle, but it should not be directed at Jody Baram, the 
project director, who worked incredibly long hours to assist 
thousands of people with registration and activation.  Rather it 
should be directed to the Board members, including myself, who made 
the assumption in Cairo that a well sorted out plan for an indirect 
election could be junked and an entirely new direct election plan 
adopted and implemented and executed prior to the annual meeting in 
November 2000, all without any increase in the exceedingly modest 
budget of $200,000 provided by the Markle grant.  In retrospect, it 
is surprising that a reputable third party observer, Chuck Costello 
of the Carter Center, was able to state afterwards that he thought 
the election had been conducted fairly.

I'm sure that my successor, Stuart Lynn, and the rest of the Board 
will use the evidence from last year's election, including the many 
unanswered questions about how to detect fraud in a worldwide  online 
election, in reviewing any plans for the future of At Large.

- Mike



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