SI MONTHLY NEWS May 2007 Editorial - Distant voting
From SI Exco News
Distant Voting
With the ease of communication available now it is possible for organisations such as Servas to get decisions made with responses from all over the world in a relatively short time. No longer do we have to wait for information to make its way round the world by ship and by land. No longer do we have to wait for the shorter post by air. Now we can have instant electronic messaging. It is not necessary to depend on country wide electric grids for the power. We can use solar power, hydro power, wind power or even crank the machine ourselves to generate the electricity.
Servas has decided to make use of this ease of communication. Instead of waiting to make decisions at the General Assembly we are moving into Distant Voting. This will not need to use the postal system but will use the internet. For those for whom the internet remains expensive the system is being made quick and easy to use. Some details are given in this issue of Servas Monthly News on this page, along with pages 2, 9 and 10. Each country will chose an authorised person to vote for the country. There will be a trial vote to check the system out. And then there will be a series of items to vote on. This should make the next General Assembly a bit less rushed as some of the work will have been covered.
The system has had a lot of work put into it. It is now up to us to make it work well and effectively.
The following e-mail has been sent to all National Secretaries.
The "Servas Regulations for Distant Voting" passed by eGA 2006 held at Latina, Italy require that:
“The General Assembly shall be responsible for appointing an independent person to be responsible for the organization of the Distant Voting process. This position shall be called the Distant Vote Administrator. The Distant Vote Administrator shall be appointed from suitably qualified candidates recommended by the Executive Committee and shall not hold any other position in Servas International”.
eGA 2006 also authorised the Executive Committee to appoint a Distant Vote Administrator to be responsible for organizing the Distant Voting process during the transition period until the next General Assembly.
SI EXCO has appointed Burcu Duzguner of Servas Turkey as the Distant Vote Administrator till the next General Assembly. Her e-mail address is: burcu.duzgune[at]gmail.com.
I am working closely with Burcu in preparation for the First Distant Vote. As you know, I am working on developing and setting up an Internet based distant voting system. Once, the system has been set up, I will hand it over to Burcu for conducting the Distant Votes.
Pramod Kumar, General Secretary, Servas International
See page 2 ( News) for detail on the schedule and pages 9 and 10 for a Quick Reference Guide..
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