2012 conventions 2012 election 2013 session 2013 special election arts arts and culture author ballot measures basketball bomb books boy scouts budget bullying business charlie hales children clackamas climate change coal college courts crime culture culture club democrats drugs economy education environment family film fluoride food gay rights guns handguns health health care health insurance high school history housing immigration international internet kitzhaber law legislature lgbt literary arts living marijuana marriage media medicine mental health military minor parties mohamed mohamud movies music native americans news newspaper obama olympics oregon our town parenting pers photography police politcs politics port portland portland business journal president prevention public safety religion republicans rnc romney rural salem sam adams sandy hook schools science shooting sports suicide supreme court taxes technology television terrorism theater third parties transportation union university of oregon washington wildfire women

Yes, this is simple to do with e-voting. The Independent Party did not have enough candidates in any race to make this a useful option, but IRV or other kinds of preference voting are easily managed by e-vote. We did include the Nevada style "None of the Above" choice as an experiment to see how voters liked it.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
view in context

Every Independent Party member was issued a unique 8 character passcode created by algorithm issued by the elections vendor.   The Party mailed the unique codes to each member. Once a passcode is used to complete a ballot that ballot is encrypted, a receipt code created,  and the passcode is locked out from reentering the system.

To use a passcode, the voter must also enter date of birth, and that information is sufficient to display the particular races in districts for which that voter may vote.

Anyone using the passcode and personal information of another to cast an electronic vote would be committing a class C felony under Oregon law. ORS 165.135.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
view in context

1. Individual party members (including me) can express opinions about potential nominees.  An independent is free from outside control or domination, but not forbidden to speak her own mind. Other Independents are free to ignore me!

2. No one "changed" any rules--at all times the party has kept control of passcodes and planned additional passcode reminders--I have already borne the costs of the first mailing--and since I am not a millionaire--I was happy to let the candidates take over the tasks of voter outreach and information with safeguards such as providng passcodes to the printer ourselves (not thru any candidate) and requiring the printer to sign a confidentiality agreement with the party.

3. No.

4. The Independent Party has not endorsed any candidate. I have no idea the total number of candidates for whom some Independent Party member has voiced support.

 5. See (1) and (4).

6. To my knowledge, incumbent representative Andy Olson had 80% on the Independent Party Legislative scorecard.

7. The total costs of the election and the loans from party members will be obvious and C&E reports. I personally loaned the party $6500.   I personally believe we considered many aspects of this election process--we sought bids, negotiated contracts, researched online voting and other platforms. There was no "pay to play" scheme--we tried to raise money to conduct an election to chose the nominees.  We wanted to have as full participation by members as possible.  Both Republicans and Democrats complained about our efforts to fundraise, but dozens of the same people seem perfectly content to compete in an historic election so long as I pay for it! 

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
view in context