Governance-framework Alignment
Status
The project contains docs/reference/Harmonised Electoral Framework Draft.docx as a governance reference. It is not application code and is not rendered in the Help Centre. Because the reference is a draft, CivitasVote must not be presented as proof that every constitutional or legal requirement has been adopted.
Current software alignment
| Governance topic | Current CivitasVote implementation |
|---|---|
| Separate platform and election authority | Technical superuser, appointed Platform Administrator, association governance and election-cycle appointments are distinct. |
| Core Electoral Committee | Software readiness requires three distinct people: Commissioner/Chairperson, Secretary and ICT/Data Protection Commissioner. Other roles are optional. |
| Optional independent review | Appeals Panel roles remain available. Commission/Appeals overlap is restricted, and officer complaints may fall back to the appointing authority where no current Appeals reviewer exists. |
| Appointment evidence | Reference, dates, active/revoked state, protected PDF letter, filename, upload time and SHA-256 digest. |
| Officer and voter separation | Appointment does not require voter-directory or register membership; otherwise eligible officers are not automatically excluded. |
| Ordinary election sequence | Welfare, Mutual Fund and Main Executive types participate in harmonised scheduling validation, including calendar interval checks and December Main Executive rule in the current model logic. |
| Voter register | Reusable identity plus election-specific eligibility, controlled sources/import, certification reference/digest, opening freeze and tally verification. |
| Nomination method | Commission Upload, Self, Mixed and No-nomination modes with different source and publication rules. |
| Candidate evidence | Protected self-nomination photograph/evidence, candidate photograph validation and final-list publication checks. |
| Disputes | Public election objections and separate officer complaints with review-authority and recusal controls. |
| One accepted ballot | Eligibility locking, short-lived ticket and atomic participation update prevent routine duplicate voting. |
| Identity/ballot separation | Accepted ballot tables do not contain voter-side foreign keys. |
| Results | Versioned tally snapshots, reasoned recounts, independent approvals, public results, exports and declarations. |
| Audit | Keyed, hash-chained administrative audit events plus register/configuration/tally integrity values. |
| Retention | Organisation retention value and supported retention operations, subject to governance and legal holds. |
Deliberate current divergence
Earlier project documents described a five-member mandatory Commission and a compulsory Appeals structure. The current approved software rule is a minimum of three core Committee members. Deputy, Gender and Inclusion, Appeals, Returning, Registration, Polling, Observer, Auditor and general Committee roles are optional in software. Where a superior instrument requires additional roles, the organisation must appoint them despite the software minimum.
The current nomination implementation does not include an active proposer/seconder endorsement workflow. The inactive templates/nominations/endorsement.html remnant was removed after reference checking. Documentation must not instruct users to obtain in-system endorsements unless the feature is deliberately reintroduced.
The current result workflow publishes after configured independent approvals. Although a provisional_results_enabled field exists, the code does not implement a complete separate provisional-versus-final result lifecycle or petition deadline gate. Governance documents should not claim that the flag alone creates such a process.
Matters remaining outside software
CivitasVote does not decide:
- constitutional authority to conduct the election;
- final offices, qualifications, tenure and term limits;
- campaign finance and conduct;
- public-notice periods and meeting resolutions;
- observer accreditation;
- legal appeal routes;
- procurement and vendor controls;
- data-controller registration or lawful basis;
- physical handover and asset control;
- whether a three-person Committee is sufficient under a superior rule.
Record these in adopted regulations and election minutes.
Harmonised cycle limitation
The system does not create one shared cycle object spanning several election records. Where the same Committee administers multiple ordinary elections, record appointments separately for each election so access remains election-specific.