Remote voting for assemblies. A better way is possible!

Fortunately, we are living in the year 2020 and mobile communications and internet technology is widely available to most of society.

In the last decade, tools for real-time conversations on the Internet became popular. Already at the end of the 20th century the IRC chat service appeared in universities, later Skype became popular among home Internet users and then expanded to businesses. Whatsapp, and Lync, and Messenger, and Webex, and Zoom, and Teams, and Viver, and Telegram, and...

The list is endless. And all of these applications began offering messaging to evolve into offering audio calls, video calls, group calls.

Remote group communication was a reality in the early 2020s. However, the real reality is that, despite having the possibility of seeing each other by telematic means, we preferred to meet and see each other in person.

Until COVID19 arrived and we had to stay home. Borders closed. Aircrafts grounded. Suddenly, those tools that we only used when we had no other choice came to the front line. They became an essential part of our way of working and socializing. Moreover, the problem is that the tools are very much oriented to the socialization of small groups, either for work or for leisure, but they are far from covering the needs of the assemblies.

The assemblies, whether they are Parliaments or other Chambers of Representation, Shareholders' Meetings, Members' Assemblies, etc., are governed by rules, generally written, of etiquette, order of speech, agenda, amendments, turns of reply, etc. In the non-remote world, most meetings are equipped with microphones and a presiding table that controls the session and ensures that all members of the meeting follow the rules. Because if the rules are not followed it is not possible to have an orderly and productive discussion.

Nevertheless, the assemblies have suddenly found themselves in the unexpected situation of having to conduct themselves with the members dispersed in their homes, and without tools or precedents of how to continue their activity. The option of gathering in one room, verifying the quorum and following the rules of the assembly is not present anymore. And the choice that many made has been to adopt some of the video call tools already mentioned to continue their activity.

The result is by no means satisfactory. Suddenly, a House of Representatives of several hundred members finds itself in a situation where anyone can activate their microphone and interrupt at any time (on purpose or by mistake). Or with a situation where each computer must receive several hundred video channels (one for each member connected), which if the computer being used is not very powerful, and the connection is very high speed, makes the experience of use dire, and the sound quality poor and interrupted. A very bad choice indeed.

In addition, these tools do not have systems for keeping track of the session's agenda or for taking votes. Basic processes of any assembly. The alternatives used are so inefficient and unsafe that they should not be utilized in such an environment.

Fortunately, at Minsait, we have detected this need, and for several months now we have put our Parliamentary and Internet Voting solutions team to work together to offer to assemblies a solution to all these problems:

• Video call and chat for hundreds of people, but moderated, with request to speak and speaking time.
• Monitoring of the day's agenda.
• Real-time, show of hands or secret telematic voting with homomorphic elliptic curve cryptography.
• Blockchain audit of all voting events, quorum and agenda.
• Session recording.

Certainly, the remote assemblies can be celebrated with guarantees and following the rules just as they are followed in the physical assembly, using the appropriate tools.

It is perfectly understandable that with the alarm and urgency created by the global pandemic of COVID19, the use of the available tools at the time was chosen, but remote assistance has arrived to probably persist in time and that means that the tools to be used in the medium and long term must be reviewed. Tools must be in place to provide a satisfactory experience and ensure adequate debate for all parties so that Assemblies and Chambers can continue to operate efficiently.