Procedure for the 2002 NetBSD Board Elections

The Administrator establishes the List of Active Members, using the criteria of the NetBSD bylaws to determine who has the right to vote.

The List of Active Members is appropriately published to the Members of the NetBSD Foundation. Changes to the List of Active Members may be made during a 30 day objection period, as detailed in the bylaws. Each change shall be published not later than the next business day, following the day an objection was received. Objections and petitions shall be sent to the Acting Secretary of the NetBSD Foundation, Christos Zoulas <christos@NetBSD.org> with CC: to the Administrator, Lex Wennmacher <wennmach@NetBSD.org>.

At the end of the 30 day objection period, the List of Voters is established as a frozen-in version of the List of Active Members.

A Validator is selected, from a pool of volunteers, by using a publically verifiable random selection process.

Details of the selection process will be announced on the ...@NetBSD.org mailing list.

The Validator generates a voting PGP key pair and publishes the public key to the List of Voters.

The Administrator generates "voting keys", one unique key assigned to each voter. The voting keys serve as authenticating token for participation in the voting.

The "voting keys" are random strings, 32 characters long, typically generated by running /usr/bin/md5 on /dev/random.

The mapping of voters to the voting keys are kept in the Master List, accessible only to the Administrator.

The Administrator sends the lexigraphically sorted voting keys (to remove the mapping of voter to the voting keys) to the Validator.

The Validator checks that there are as many unique voting keys as there are voters and confirms this to the Members of the NetBSD Foundation.

All communications between the Administrator and the Validator shall be done over a secure channel, e. g. using PGP encrypted e-mails.

The Administrator sends to each voter his assigned voting key.

NetBSD Board Elections.

The voters cast their votes by sending their voting key, a confirmation code, and their vote (using a template) to the Validator.

Voters may make use of anonymous remailers to remove their identity from their votes.

The voting e-mail may optionally be encrypted using the Validator's public voting PGP key.

For every vote received, the Validator checks that the voting key in the vote is in his list of voting keys, and places the voting key in the list of already voted keys. The Validator keeps a record of all received votes.

Voters may cast their votes by sending identical copies multiple times. If multiple votes from one voter are received, it will be checked if the are identical. If they are, they will be accepted, and are counted as one vote. If they are found to differ, the votes will be discarded.

The Validator sends the lexigraphically sorted list of already voted keys to the Administrator.

He then separates the voting keys from the confirmation codes/ votes, for each received vote, and sends the confirmation codes and associated votes in randomized order and separate from the list of already voted keys to the Administrator.

The Administrator tallies the votes and publishes them accompanied with the confirmation codes. He also publishes the names of the voters from which votes were received. This is the "preliminary ballot".

In a two-business day appeal period the voters have a chance to object to how their vote was tallied.

Appeals must be send to the Validator with CC: to the Acting Secretary of the Foundation, Christos Zoulas <christos@NetBSD.org>.

Appeals must not be encrypted.

An appeal may be sent using an anonymous remailer but must include the voting key. The Validator shall confirm to the Acting Secretary of the Foundation if the voting key of the appeal is valid.

Any requested changes to the preliminary ballot made in an appeal, authenticated by a valid voting key, will be applied to the ballot.

The Administrator declares the result of the election as the final ballot.

The Administrator deletes the Master List.