Issues with the voting process?

[Alex]

Methinks the entire process – starting from electing the Nomination Committee through to voting – at the AGM and for the Board – needs critical and independent review. I have heard stories – from the inside, from a whistleblower – that makes my hair stand up on end.

I have heard serious issues with sign in. That should not be acceptable for an IT shop such as CIRA.

I personally had problems at the AGM. It was only as it was ending that I was allowed in!

Board candidates and members who elect them, should ask

• why it takes CIRA 5 days to determine who won the election (polls close oct 4th and the results known by Oct 9th.
• why any complaints about the election process go through management first – not the Board
• why CIRA doesn’t post the coordinates of the Returning Officer – the independent one – for members to voice their concerns directly (Not have their mail opened first!)
• why the CEO can weigh in as to who sits on the Nomination Committee, who then in turn select candidates for members to vote on

Much room for improvement

[Spencer]

First, I’d like everyone to know that CIRA takes the Board election very seriously. We have been looking into these reports and I can share an update on our findings.

It appears as though the Cloudflare error that a handful of members have been seeing is tied to the way our election system validates membership. To ensure the integrity of the voting system, which only allows active members access the ballot, we validate each membership by checking the domains associated with that membership when a user logs into the voting system. For those few members who have a lot of domains (hundreds or even thousands) this validation process is taking longer than expected resulting in the Cloudflare time-out.

The Returning Officer is aware of the situation, and we will continue to monitor and explore a solution before the close of vote tomorrow.

We can confirm that this error has only impacted a very small number of members who have a large number of domains associated with their membership. That said, this should not happen, and we are working on a fix but the issue is not widespread. It is our intention to ensure that all members have access to the vote.

If any member has not received their email that includes their voting credentials, I encourage them to contact us immediately at 1 (877) 860-1411.

If you wish to learn more about our election process, please visit: https://www.cira.ca/en/board-and-governance/board-election/

If you wish to contact the Returning Officer, their contact information is here: https://www.cira.ca/en/board-and-governance/board-election/returning-officer/

Thanks,

Spencer

Director, Brand & Communications, CIRA

cira.ca

Election : 2023 Board Election – CIRA

Election : 2023 Board Election – CIRA

[Alex]

Spencer, thanks for confirming that CIRA takes voting seriously.

Given your commitment to accountability and transparency can you tell us

1. How many people registered at outset to vote? This is a very important number.
2. How many people – assuming only people can vote, not corporations –
3. have been affected?
4. How will they know that they can vote but they don’t have credentials?
5. How many times I requested to speak at the AGM and how many times I was not recognized by the Chair and allowed to?

I am also curious as to why “a very small number of members who have a large number of domains” causes a hic cup? What could be at play?

[Alex]

Spencer,

you reference the email address – [email protected] – should any member want to contact the independent returning officer.

You forgot to tell that the email – used year in year out –

1. is checked (only for administrative purposes) by CIRA management
2. is of course 100% confidential

[David]

Frank,

I don’t have any special insight to the larger picture, but I can say that I did not receive an email to vote Wednesday afternoon. After reporting the problem and working with staff on Thursday, eventually a new email was sent to me on Friday morning. I voted with no issues using the second email. As always, staff were very professional and very helpful resolving the problem quickly. I can’t say enough about the great support that they’ve given me recently and in the past.

Spencer,

Thanks for the information. I certainly appreciate the need to manage customer expectations when communicating about service outages. However, in this situation, it would be helpful to us for you to be precise when reporting on the number of voting anomalies. Reporting a specific number is better than using fuzzy phrases like “handful of members” and “impacted a very small number of members”. Thank you!

[Frank]

@Spencer-CIRA Thank you for your response and for having the team look at it. The explanation regarding the Cloudflare to server timeouts makes technical sense. It’s unfortunate that it was still an existing issue today though.

[Spencer]

I can report that a fix has been implemented that should resolve this issue. We apologize for the inconvenience.

However, in this situation, it would be helpful to us for you to be precise when reporting on the number of voting anomalies. Reporting a specific number is better than using fuzzy phrases like “handful of members” and “impacted a very small number of members”. Thank you!

According to our logs, only 2 people received the Cloudflare error, one has since voted and the other has been contacted by staff with an update on the fix we implemented and instructions on how to vote. An additional group of people, maybe 10-15 or so, would have seen a slow loading time upon login but were not prevented from voting.

As always, CIRA staff are available to assist with any issues. Please contact [email protected] or reach out to me personally if you have trouble voting: spencer(dot)callaghan(at)cira.ca.

[David]

Thank you Spencer. That helps give context.

Do you track how many total emails were sent, How many email addresses were invalid, and how many members like me reported problems receiving the final vote email? That’s also useful context.

Thanks,

David

[Alex]

@spencer,

Can I and we expect answers to my question posed this evening?