OASIS Election and Voter Services Technical Committee Teleconference Meeting Minutes

Teleconference Attendees Oliver Bell, Microsoft, John Boras, UK e-Envoy, Anwar Choudhury, UK e-Envoy, Gregg McGilvray, election.com, Chairman, TJ Rainsford, IFES, John Ross, UK e-Envoy, Dan Ryan, Accenture, Jo-Ann Zakielarz, Unisys, Karl Best, OASIS (observer)

Resignation of Technical Committee Chairperson

Gregg McGilvray announced that he is stepping down as committee chair. He emphasized that he is very excited about the direction of the committee, but feels that it would be in the best interest of the committee if it were led by a neutral party and not by a vendor. He said that he has received feedback that more people would join the committee if a vendor does not lead it, and that the eventual deliverables of the committee will also have more credibility. Gregg has said that his resignation will be effective as soon as a new chair is elected.

Election of Technical Committee Chairperson

Gregg nominated Anwar Choudhury from the UK e-Envoy office for Technical Committee Chair. Gregg touted Anwar's expertise technical expertise and his objectivity as a neutral party. Dan seconded the motion.

There are currently 20 voting members on the committee. A vote was then held, and each voting member voted for Anwar. Unfortunately, there were only six voting members present, and OASIS rules dictate that a quorum of voting members is required.

The election of the next technical committee member will then be held be email through the mailing list. The vote will be open until August 31st.

Project Overview

John Boras went over the project plan that he proposes the committee follow. John went over the seven strands of activity that Anwar, TJ, Gregg and himself worked out earlier:

E-Democracy Policy Requirements

XML Schema Generation

Cross Cutting Strands

Applications

Stakeholder Engagement

Liaison with other committees

Promotion

Dan voiced some concerns about whether XML schema generation had been de-emphasized. John reassured him that it hadn't, that it was still the primary activity for the committee, but that the other strands were necessary to ensure that the schemas were comprehensive and that they receive widespread acceptance.

John and the others had also proposed that the following mission statement:

"Implementation of technology to facilitate and deepen democracy".

Dan was concern that the mission statement didn't emphasize data interchange, and agreed to suggest another alternative.

Schema Development

Gregg said that he and Krishna Sankar would work in the next few weeks to develop XML schemas in time for the next meeting. John offered to provide resources to the effort, and suggested that all those involved get together for a period of three to four days and work on generating the schemas.

Next Meeting