Frequently questions are posed about the way the polling station of the BE.* -hierarchy works and the rules which are followed.
In order to answer most questions, Tom De Voeght, at present official votetaker of the BE.*-hierarchy, provides following manual.

1

The votetaker is responsable for verification and posting of the CFV-material.
He receives the CFV-text from the promotor of the group, on the day the RFD is finished.
After verification he's responsable for posting the CFV in be.announce and other groups on demand of the promotor,with Followup-To header set to be.misc.
Only the votetaker has the right to change and post the CFV, this to avoid violations of the procedures. (no other means of publicity are allowed by the rules of the be.* hierarchy, other than this one posting of the CFV)

2

The votetaker runs an automatic program which will count and rank incoming votes. This program runs minimum once in 24 hours and sents a receipt of receival to all voters.
The votetaker then checks the votes manually.
The automatic confirmation is only a confirmation and doesn't confirm the validness of the vote.
If the vote is found to be invalid,the votetaker will make one attempt to contact the voter, requesting the voter to vote again.

3

At least once during a running CFV the votetaker will post a list in be.announce and eventually in other groups, containing the names and e-mail addresses of the voters.(spam-protected by removing the "@" in the address)
This list will inform if the vote was valid or not, but the votes themselves won't be mentioned.
The voter who voted 'invalid' can vote again until the end of the period.
If the period of voting is still running for at least 7 days,the votetaker will repeat the CFV with the posting of the list,using CFV-2 or CFV-3.

4

In orde to be valid, the vote has to be received from a valid existing e-mail address and it must contain a name. Every natural person may vote once.
If in doubt the polling station has the right to erase votes that are suspected to come from the same person. This decision has to be made by the votetaker and the administrator together.

5

When the voting is finished the votetaker will post the final result. The list of voters will be posted, but now the personal vote will be made public. This result will be posted 1 or 2 days after the voting stopped, in order to give votetaker and the administrator time to check the voting manually in search of mistakes.
After this final result is posted, a period of 5 days will begin during which objections can be posted against the final result.
In case no objections are received, the votetaker will provide all information to the administrator, who will then decide whether the new group will be created.

REMARK

Those are the common rules. The votetaker and the administrator may decide to grant exceptions to these rules. The final decision of the administrator of the BE.*-hierarchy is always conclusive.