Election (Voting) Program
Phase 1:
An opportunity for grade school students to learn the basics about elections, computers, security (two-factor authentication) using a web-based program, email voting, and SMS text message voting.
Each student would create their own elector’s profile entry into the poll list file of all class members. Each student would enter their cell phone number for two-factor SMS message verification, if they have one, or email address if they don’t, for the same reason. Each student’s profile would be assigned an application-specific email address (just for use with this program).
To avoid the potential for hurt feelings resulting from a class election, the first slate of candidates to be voted upon would hypothetically be various cartoon characters as selected/nominated by class members. This would permit exploring various voting strategies without making any class member feel slighted by not being elected for whatever position(s) being considered. Furthermore, the class will be instructed to create five different parties and to be named after the colours: perhaps, turquoise; pink; magenta; grey; & amber; all colours selected to avoid problems related to existing political party’s colors.
Study materials would include various voting strategies; and voting procedures, other than solely ‘first past the post’; etc.
Phase 2:
Small scale, real life voting, including Condo / HOA Association Votes for propositions (ie paint colour choice, etc) or Leadership Selection Votes (ie directors and/or executive directors, etc) .
Scaling up from the initial educational only experience would be the next phase covering actual online voting for association members approving propositions. Another similar application would be political parties, groups, or associations voting for party leader selection (ie primary) and/or board members/directors.
The poll list comprises all qualifying party members as the group of selectors/voters. In real life, the secretary of the association would typically be responsible for creating the poll list of eligible owners/members. Similarly, the secretary of the election committee would likely be responsible for generating the polling list. Likewise for HOA associations, where each unit owner(s), has a single vote. This entails each poll list member having one vote, unless multiple units are owned by the same member, when one vote per unit would also apply.
Further complicated by one or more family members of a family membership sharing a single vote where succeeding votes override previous votes with email and/or text messages confirming votes and/or subsequent votes in the event of multiple votes from the same family. Likewise for shared ownership of Condominium/HOA units being limited to a single vote for each unit with subsequent votes overriding previous votes for any unit.
Phase 3:
Municipal Elections. Scaling up again with security paramount. Combining online voting with ‘in person’ votes at returning offices. Matching the poll list file provided by the municipality to the personal profile created online by voters. Triplicated systems to ensure security and reliable results.