2020 Annual General Meeting - REPORT ON ELECTIONS

[Lyle Craver]

REPORT ON ELECTION RESULTS

Note to members: Please note that except as noted on the Chess Foundation Trustees, all positions serve till the close of the 2021 Annual Meeting

1. Election of CFC Voting Members for non-affiliated provinces:

CFC Voting Members (Quebec)

Richard Bérubé, Éric Guipi Bopala, Vadim Tsypin

CFC Voting Members (Yukon) - vacant

2. 2020-2021 CFC BOARD OF DIRECTORS (aka 'The National Executive')

President - Vlad Drkulec

Vice-President - Egidijus Zeromskis

Secretary – Lyle Craver

Treasurer – Fred McKim

Youth Coordinator – Christina Tao

FIDE Representative – Hal Bond

Director at Large - Mark DuttON

3. CFC OFFICERS

Rating Auditor – Paul Leblanc

Women's Chess Coordinator - Pierre Dénommée

Chess Foundation of Canada Trustees (term of office noted in bracket)
2016-2020 Paul Leblanc
2017-2021 Hans Jung
2018-2022 Hugh Brodie
2019-2023 Lloyd Lombard
2019-2020 Ian Findlay

Kalev Pugi Fund Trustees
- Felix Dumont
- Michael Lo
- Christina Tao

National Appeals Committee

- Ilia Bluvshtein
- Pierre Dénommée
- Mark Dutton
- Aris Marghetis
- Stephen Wright

Respectfully submitted,

Lyle Craver
Secretary, The Chess Federation of Canada

[Nikolay Noritsyn]

Is it possible to see how the vote was divided (like here http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/showthread.php?4076-10C-quot-The-Voting-Booth-quot-RESULTS-OF-VOTING )..or maybe I missed the moment when the vote became secret?

Thank you,
Nikolay

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Is it possible to see how the vote was divided (like here http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/showthread.php?4076-10C-quot-The-Voting-Booth-quot-RESULTS-OF-VOTING )..or maybe I missed the moment when the vote became secret?

Thank you,
Nikolay

It is a secret ballot so that is not possible and I don't believe we have ever revealed the result of votes even back when votes were in person. Pieces of paper were passed around for the votes and the papers folded and placed in a container and then counted by Lyle in the one or two in-person AGM meetings that I recall.

[Nikolay Noritsyn]

Upon further investigation - it seems, results on motions on quarterly meetings have always been public, while voting on AGM was not. Not sure why that is, but it seems to be the case.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Is it possible to see how the vote was divided (like here http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/showthread.php?4076-10C-quot-The-Voting-Booth-quot-RESULTS-OF-VOTING )..or maybe I missed the moment when the vote became secret?

Thank you,
Nikolay

In an election voting, votes were always (that's probably 10 years and a little bit) secret ones.

Though, a sign-in shall be public or at least visible to VM to my understanding. It is not a membership list, but WHO is attending the meeting indeed.

[Nikolay Noritsyn]

In an election voting, votes were always (that's probably 10 years and a little bit) secret ones.

Though, a sign-in shall be public or at least visible to VM to my understanding. It is not a membership list, but WHO is attending the meeting indeed.

One more question/concern - does anyone see the results of the voting with all the names of the people that voted? If a vote is secret, there must be some neutral (not the current executive) party observing the integrity of the voting results.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

One more question/concern - does anyone see the results of the voting with all the names of the people that voted? If a vote is secret, there must be some neutral (not the current executive) party observing the integrity of the voting results.

In principle, the forum database should keep who voted how. The Administrator (Chris Mallon - ?) would have access to them.

As I read the NFA the ballot (a secret vote) shall be requested.

165 (1) Subject to section 171 and the by-laws, voting at a meeting of members shall be by show of hands, except if a ballot is demanded by a member entitled to vote at the meeting.

Ballot

(2) A member may demand a ballot either before or after any vote by show of hands.

[Victor Plotkin]

Usually I did not care much about personal voting, but in 2016, when CFC voted for changes in Olympic rules, I could see the name of VMs who voted for my proposal or against it.

[Fred McKim]

Traditionally, any election for Executive, Officer, Committee Member or Voting Member of unaffiliated province is by secret ballot.

[Nikolay Noritsyn]

In principle, the forum database should keep who voted how. The Administrator (Chris Mallon - ?) would have access to them.

As I read the NFA the ballot (a secret vote) shall be requested.

165 (1) Subject to section 171 and the by-laws, voting at a meeting of members shall be by show of hands, except if a ballot is demanded by a member entitled to vote at the meeting.

Ballot

(2) A member may demand a ballot either before or after any vote by show of hands.

If this is indeed the case, I find it acceptable (administrator Chris Mallon acting as a neutral party). Maybe the executive can confirm that Chris is indeed the only administrator on the forum that has access to the voting results.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

If this is indeed the case, I find it acceptable (administrator Chris Mallon acting as a neutral party). Maybe the executive can confirm that Chris is indeed the only administrator on the forum that has access to the voting results.

Lyle Craver as the secretary responsible for administering the election and creating the voting booth would also have access as would anyone with an admin account. Lyle would legitimately have the right to check and make sure that the votes reported matched the votes cast. I suspect but don't know that administrative access and actions are logged so if someone accessed the vote the others with admin access would know. This was a useful feature when hackers broke in and tried to wreak havoc.

[Nikolay Noritsyn]

Lyle Craver as the secretary responsible for administering the election and creating the voting booth would also have access as would anyone with an admin account. Lyle would legitimately have the right to check and make sure that the votes reported matched the votes cast. I suspect but don't know that administrative access and actions are logged so if someone accessed the vote the others with admin access would know. This was a useful feature when hackers broke in and tried to wreak havoc.

But Lyle Craver is part of the current executive. He did not have to campaign this year, since as often happens there was no challenger - however he can not be described as a neutral party. So who are the other administrators? Also members of the executive? I don't know what the voting booth looks like from an admin account, but surely you see the problem with members of the current executive seeing it and others not.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

The reason those people are admins is because they volunteer to do things like sign up new members and reset passwords if there are problems. They also react when hackers break in. There were many new voting members and a few old voting members who forgot their log-in details. The automatic password recovery process may be broken. If you can figure out a way to run such a website without volunteers we are all ears. It is necessary to be able to audit the election procedure. If seventy people had voted, we would have to audit the election.

Lyle did not look at the voting during the election. He is extremely busy during a voting members meeting including working full time at his business while dealing with all meeting procedures and glitches. He has made a repeated point over the years and this year to say he does not look at the results of voting until it is over. I doubt Chris did.

There are some problems with the voting booth procedure. This is not really one of them.

[Fred McKim]

There are some problems with the voting booth procedure. This is not really one of them.

Reading between the lines, I think Nikolay is asking whether more than one person reviewed the voting. When we held in-person meetings there would always be two people counting the votes.

[Nikolay Noritsyn]

Reading between the lines, I think Nikolay is asking whether more than one person reviewed the voting. When we held in-person meetings there would always be two people counting the votes.

Nothing in between the lines, but that's also a good point - probably there should be more then one person reviewing the voting. When you held in-person meetings, would the two people counting votes be neutral governors, or members of the current executive? The latter seems kind of undemocratic, no?

Vlad did not answer who the other administrators are, I assume he is one of them. A solution could be found, like temporarily giving up administrator status while the AGM is ongoing - but the attitude seems to be "There are some problems with the voting booth procedure. This is not really one of them." So.. I will allow future campaigners worry about Lukashenko (executive) having potential access to the otherwise secret vote. I've said my bit.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I am an administrator. I did help several people sign in because they forgot their passwords on the first day or two of the meeting. I don't believe that the change password feature is working properly. Most of these were long-time voting members or people returning after an absence.

[Christopher Mallon]

IIRC in the distant past, election results were presented merely as numbers. Which you can certainly see just by looking at the poll results, although my personal preference would be to include them in the official report too.

I'm not sure Vlad has sufficient admin access to view actual votes on a poll. I know he "moderates" all of the subforums, and he can approve new members and adjust their access level, and view the moderator/admin logs. That should be it.

Lyle has more access, which he needs in order to create/run the meetings, so he can edit/move/create forums and a few other things.

Nikolay, what exactly do you mean by "review the votes" ? Are you concerned that someone voted who was ineligible? Actually I could see that as a potential concern. With everything going on in the forums during an AGM, two sets of VMs, etc. either human error or a tech issue could potentially allow it. However, one easily possible solution might be that I could produce a list of everyone who voted in an election, without showing what their vote actually was? And if any turn out to have voted who shouldn't have, their vote can be deleted.

It reminds me of a situation from a long time ago when proxies had to be sent through the CFC office before the AGM, and so a President became aware that he was down a ton of votes on proxies and spent the night recruiting people to vote for his (eventually successful) re-election. Back then our big complaint was actually knowing whether or not proxies were actually voting as per instructions as there was no way to tell when names were just scribbled on pieces of paper.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

IIRC in the distant past, election results were presented merely as numbers. Which you can certainly see just by looking at the poll results, although my personal preference would be to include them in the official report too.

I'm not sure Vlad has sufficient admin access to view actual votes on a poll. I know he "moderates" all of the subforums, and he can approve new members and adjust their access level, and view the moderator/admin logs. That should be it.

Lyle has more access, which he needs in order to create/run the meetings, so he can edit/move/create forums and a few other things.




I wasn't sure if I had the ability to check the voting as checking whether I had that ability would entail actually peeking under the hood which would seem to be wrong. There seem to be occasional glitches in my admin account one of which occurred on the second or third day of the meeting where I could not get into the member accounts area in response to a voting member trying to access the meeting. When you checked for a problem you said that my access should work and I rebooted the computer and logged into the website again and it worked fine again.