Eric Weisberg wrote:
> The cost quoted by the American Arbitration Association for mailed ballot
> elections was not very high, especially if the membership is within the range
> most of us project. Diane spoke of an electronic ballot, which obviously
> involves less expense. The administrative effort mentioned by Roberto will be
> the same whether the elections are conducted in-house or through a contractor.
> Third-party administration has the appearance of neutrality and professional
> competence. It reduces mistrust and takes the staff out of the line of fire if
> questions arise.
The figure that the MAC got for online member registration plus one mailed ballot
was $10 per member but I don't believe that included software acquisition. It
didn't include online balloting. Very few membership organizations that we
interviewed cared anything about authentication; but it matters to ICANN whether or
not a person registers more than once, so they will have to review registrations
for multiples and other possible fraud. That's an additional expense.
One estimate we got for the entire end-to-end online including credit card
processing scripts was on the order of $100,000. That's way more than ICANN has to
spend and may be way over average, I don't know yet. It would require a membership
fee, so I've volunteered to keep looking for a less expensive solution. I am
working on the figures now, preparing a spec for an electronic web election as well
as a paper one. If anyone can recommend an outsource with a quick cost estimate
turnaround, please contact me off list.
ICANN staff (McLaughlin) has already contacted some groups that oversee elections
in difficult regions of the world to see if they might volunteer to oversee the
first ICANN election, but he has to attend to the Congressional hearings now, so I
don't know how long follow up will take.
Diane Cabell
http://www.mama-tech.com
Fausett, Gaeta & Lund, LLP
Boston, MA
