In 2005, when the Dutch law allowed electronic voting officially, AMS-IX was quick to adopt an e-voting process. Any useful Internet based application, of course, is encouraged by AMS-IX. We checked with our lawyers at the time, who confirmed we could e-vote since we allowed any other means of voting, as it was now officially allowed and as Dutch law is quite pragmatic. Together with a company called Netvote, who at that time were the only ones with a ready notary approved electronic voting platform, we set up an AMS-IX dedicated environment. We used it satisfactory until end of last year.
Upon checking our general voting procedures back in April/May 2010, partly due to member questions, we found out from our new notary that legislation had changed, that due to court ruling, electronic voting now officially has to be in your articles or bylaws to be practiced. So e-voting had to be put on pause, that is, until it was included in the articles.
Luckily, we had a General Meeting in between the regular May and November meeting this year, where we had the opportunity to vote on adding e-voting to the articles. So we did and now e-voting is back!
We continue to use the originally developed Internet Live voting with its easy to use interface, in conjunction with webcasting the meeting, which of course is a prerequisite: You have to be able to see and hear what happens at the meeting to be able to vote.
Next to re-instating e-voting, we will *dramatically* improve the overall remote participation of our General Meeting. By outsourcing the webcasting, in contrast to the modest solution of doing it ourselves, we hope to increase: attendance, interacting on the live chat and the overall experience and involvement of AMS-IX association members.
All in all, we hope that our members who can’t be there in person, massively watch the webcast and use e-voting at the next GM this 24th of November, and so that our efforts and new budget in this area can be justified by increased participation and your stronger overall voice.!
Cara Mascini