US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

I was curious about correlations between candidate results in the recent USHPA election. So I sent a reasonably nice email message requesting the information from the Elections Chairman Mark Forbes (with a copy to USHPA President Rich Hass and a few others). Here's my message:

Bob Kuczewski wrote:Hello Mark Forbes (cc/bcc others),

I'd like a record of the actual votes (without voter's names of course) from the most recent Region 3 Election. They could be on a vote per vote basis like this:

    Ballot 1: Caffrey Sporrer
    Ballot 2: Crouse Caffrey
    Ballot 3: Kuczewski Crouse
        :

or they could be aggregated by counts per combination:

    48 votes marked "Caffrey Crouse"
    31 votes marked "Crouse Caffrey"
    27 votes marked "Kuczewski Crouse"
    29 votes marked "Crouse Kuczewski"
        :

Please write back to let me know what formats are available.

Thanks,
Bob Kuczewski
January 3rd, 2014

I also included my phone number (in case they wanted to call me directly).

Here's what I got back from Mark Forbes:

Mark Forbes wrote:We do not have that information. What we have are ballot totals, and that is what has been reported. The detail of which voter voted for whom is not reported by the ballot service. We get a summary report of the results, and that's what I used to produce the final election report.

You're welcome to go and play with Balloteer on your own, and set up your own mock election to experiment on. They offer a free trial of limited size, which is what I used originally to check it out.

MGF

That was followed up by a message from Rich Hass:

Rich Hass wrote:Mark's suggestion that he try it out for himself should put this to rest. But then...

Mark and Beth, you did a great job of running the election. It's nice having the online voting, higher participation, no drama with the vote counting and immediate results. I couldn't ask for more from the system. Good job!

Rich

Mark's message didn't put anything to rest. It just proved that USHPA's policy about helping people understand Regional Director elections is entirely consistent with their policy about helping people understand how the USHPA Board is voting - they're both as transparent as mud.

For completeness (since I doubt they'll respond), here's my own response:

Bob Kuczewski wrote:Rich and Mark (cc/bcc to others),

I'm not asking for a "mock election". I am asking for a simple tally of how many voters marked their ballots for each of the handful of possible combinations of Directors in Region 3. It's not an unreasonable request to help understand the results.

If USHPA can't or won't provide it, then I suppose that's your answer. Just don't say that I didn't try to ask ... nicely.

Bob Kuczewski

It's somewhat coincidental that we're currently working on our own voting system here at US Hawks. We're working to come up with a system that shows voters exactly what's going on rather than keeping them in the dark. The difference between USHPA and the US Hawks couldn't be any clearer than our approaches to voting and openness.

Rich Hass wrote: Mark's suggestion that he try it out for himself should put this to rest. But then...

Yep, this says everything in a nut shell. They still need to promote/use secrecy.

Like Bill C. pointed out so obviously, Forbes will spend more time/words to create a smoke screen, rather than submit voter results that should be public info, to one of the candidates of that election

Here's this morning's response from Mark Forbes:

Mark Forbes wrote:What part of "We do not have that information" is unclear to you?

I suggested that you go and set up your own mock election so you could see what reports
are provided by the ballot service. Go forth and do your own research; the information you
seek is not available from the reports we get.

mark@mgforbes.com

Mark Forbes is the Election Committee Chairman which means he's ultimately responsible for our voting system. So if it's true that Balloteer can't provide a list of ballots, then who's shoulders does that fall on? Here/s my response:

Bob Kuczewski wrote:Mark,

I've seen enough of your USHPA presentations to know that you're a master at slicing and dicing information on everything from insurance to membership. I KNOW that if you wanted to make this kind of information open to the pilots then you'd have either figured out how to do it or chosen a voting company that provided it. You didn't.

Alan,

You ran as the "no surprises" candidate. Well USHPA has paid our membership money to an outside firm for our voting services - electronic voting services. Isn't it a bit of a surprise that they somehow can't provide an electronic list of the ballots that were cast? If you haven't gotten your "USHPA New Director Brainwashing" yet, I hope you're still able to see right through Mark's lame excuses.

To All,

The US Hawks is still tiny in comparison to USHPA. But one of our first orders of business has been to come up with a transparent voting system so our members will know how decisions are made in our organization. It's been an uphill struggle to grow our small organization, but I want to thank USHPA for not missing any opportunity to make us look good!!

Happy 2014!!

Bob Kuczewski

I followed up with this to Mark, Rich, and a few others:

Mark / Rich,

Mark Forbes wrote:

      "Go forth and do your own research"

OK, what is the URL and the appropriate account information for me to find out what "Balloteer" can and can't provide to USHPA in this particular case? Also, how much have we paid Balloteer for this election?

Thanks,
Bob Kuczewski

Stay tuned ...

SamKellner wrote:Like Bill C. pointed out so obviously, Forbes will spend more time/words to create a smoke screen, rather than submit voter results that should be public info, to one of the candidates of that election

You nailed that one Sam!!

That's why we're trying to make the US Hawks a better organization. In fact, I'm looking into how hard (or expensive) it would be to get the results that I've requested if we were to use that same company. I'm still leaning toward open voting on our forum, but if we have a need for members to vote secretly, then that might be an option. I'll post to the forum as soon as I find out what they can provide.

But the bottom line is simple. If an election company cannot (or will not) provide the ballots that were cast ... then find another company!!

Bob,

Remember when ushPa came up with the ushpa e-learning forum soon after the insurance scare? An account was created on that forum for all the safety officers and RD. However, only ~2% ever logged onto the forum.

Turned out that Rich Hass owned the visigy network. Is ushPa still paying Hass for that?

Now I'm wondering if the Balloteer is something of their own creation

SamKellner wrote:Remember when ushPa came up with the ushpa e-learning forum soon after the insurance scare? An account was created on that forum for all the safety officers and RD. However, only ~2% ever logged onto the forum.

Another USHPA fiasco.     

SamKellner wrote:Turned out that Rich Hass owned the visigy network. Is ushPa still paying Hass for that?

I don't know, but I am deeply concerned about voting at USHPA. The problem with any secret ballot system is that you really really really have to trust the people counting the ballots. I personally find it hard to trust USHPA at this point, and so it's hard to trust anything that they are pushing.

That's one of the reasons why I am an advocate of open voting. If everyone votes openly, then we all know how everyone voted. We can all verify the results independently. We don't have to trust anyone but our own eyeballs. That's the kind of system that gives me confidence. Sure, we give up privacy, but I think getting the right outcome (without any back room shenanigans) is more important than whose feelings get hurt because their buddy didn't vote for them. We are hang glider pilots. None of us should be so cowardly that we can't stand up and speak our minds.

SamKellner wrote:Now I'm wondering if the Balloteer is something of their own creation

That's a legitimate concern, and I don't know the answer yet. I do know that I called their number and I spoke to a real person (who didn't sound like Rich Hass). I sent a reasonable follow-up request for information, and I'll see what I get back.

Despite my advocacy of open voting, I recognize that this may be a case where we end up with a compromise. Private voting is near and dear to people's hearts, and we may have to support it in some cases. But regardless of that, I think we all agree that when elected officials vote, they are voting for the members who elected them ... and those members deserve to know how their elected officials are casting their votes! That's where we have our most serious split with USHPA's current practices. Fortunately, the HPAC (HP Assoc of Canada) shows us how it should be done. They publish the results of Director's votes at every meeting.

By the way, I just discovered another thing that the HPAC is doing right ... they have a national forum!!!

Here's their main web site: http://www.hpac.ca
Here's their forum: http://www.hpac.ca/forum/
Here's the minutes of their meetings with actual voting records of their Directors: http://www.hpac.ca/pub/?pid=202

USHPA could learn a few lessons from their neighbor to the north (and from the US Hawks!!! ).