Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Debian decides to allow secret votes

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 280 posts

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#91

Post by serenitylater »

codedokode wrote: post #87
charcircuit wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronic voting systems using zero knowledge proofs are superior to paper votes because it's possible to check for yourself that your vote was actually counted and not ignored. Paper voting is extremely expensive to scale compared to a website that lets you vote. Everyone could get a notification on their phone when they are asked to vote on something as opposed to having to fill out paper and send it somewhere to…

Electronic voting is very difficult to monitor and verify independently, especially when voter lists are not publicly available. It is difficult to verify whether turnout number is correct, and on the countrary it is easy to add millions of fictious voters and vote for them. > it's possible to check for yourself that your vote was actually counted and not ignored. Let's say you voted for candidate A and didn't find y…

No post body was provided.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#92

Post by toast0 »

spondyl wrote: post #9

A brief summary because I had to re-read this a few times to figure out what was going on. Debian had a vote with 4 options: Option 1 "Hide identities of Developers casting a particular vote" Option 2 "Hide identities of Developers casting a particular vote and allow verification" Option 3 "Reaffirm public voting" Option 4 "None of the above" (NOTA) The objection raised here is that Option 3 and Option 4 can be consi…

> If those two were represented as a single "NOTA" option, that option would have won the ballot in terms of votes.

If the ballot were different, the results would be too. You can't take the results of one ballot and mush them around to support a hypothetical result; see also counting of the 'popular vote' for US president, a ballot which has never been tried, and whose results are unknowable.

A vote for 4 says (to me, not a qualified voter) I don't like the current voting, and hiding identities is also undesirable; if this choice is selected, the status quo must be continued until a new alternative is voted upon, but there's clearly desire to do so. If option 3 were selected, the status quo had clearly won, and the issue should be considered settled for whatever timeframe Debian considers appropriate.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#93

Post by malthuswaswrong »

spondyl wrote: post #11
kaba0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t read the article, but isn’t debian’s voting orders the options? In which case 3 > 4 vs 4 > 3 wouldn’t really change the outcome.

Well, the claim here is that Option 3 and Option 4 are the same in essence so if they had been reflected on the ballot as a single option, then that option would have won out over Option 2, changing the outcome. Assuming I understand this anyway. The way the votes are reflected is confusing to me

But it's deceptive and political to complain 3 and 4 are too similar but then not also state that 1 and 2 were too similar. 2 also lost votes to 1 being similar.

Also 3 and 4 were not similar. 3 would have changed the constitution to require public voting, 4 would simply do nothing and leave the issue an unanswered question.

This wasn't the general public. This was a few hundred people who carefully follow and care about the Debian project. I'm highly skeptical anyone who voted was "confused".

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#94

Post by denton-scratch »

gspr wrote: post #67
randomcarbloke wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do we elect Debian developers?

Exactly. I view DDs more as the citizens of a democracy, rather than the elected representatives of the citizens.

FWIW, I'd like some kind of representation for Debian users.

Many DDs (most?) also work on other Linuxen, and are not particularly committed to "The Debian Way". My guess is that most Debian users use mainly Debian.

If users had had some representation in the systemd decision, I think it would have gone the other way. Package developers naturally don't want to have to target two init systems; I suspect a plurality of users are server admins, who would have been likely to vote down systemd.

It's hard to see how user representation could be made to work though; I don't want users to be able to tell DDs how to work. I just wish users had a bit more than zero voice.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#95

Post by tormock »

denton-scratch wrote: post #34
the_lonely_road wrote: post #4

Apparently by a single vote and the legitimacy of the vote is in question due to some technicality I didn't care to reread until I understood. What I don't understand is why the project is NOT already secret voting? Do not most free democratic countries practice 'secret ballot' voting specifically because not doing so caused all kinds of problems like voter intimidation? I googled the first three that came to mind (f…

Maybe because only Debian Developers can vote; the rest of us have no vote, so effectively the DDs are a sort of "college of electors", and it seems reasonable to me that users should at least have visibility into how the electors are voting. I mean, I think it's OK that only DDs get to vote; but the Debian Project is supposed to be transparent, so I'd like to be able to find out how people voted.

Maybe if the votes were anonymous, bribes would disappear because the people giving the money would have no way of knowing how you voted?

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#96

Post by malthuswaswrong »

dtech wrote: post #53
zozbot234 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 > 2 > 4 is very clear in that it means "I would most prefer to reaffirm public voting, but I do support secret voting so long as verification is allowed. I oppose secret voting without verification.". It's a meaningful vote. Why are people disagreeing about this?

Because public voting is the status quo, so 3 & 4 are identical in what they would (not) change in the procedures. 3 is just an additional statement of support. If you support public voting (3) you also support 4 over 1/2.

Public voting is not status quo outside of Debian. In the real world the only places that have public voting are places that are controlled by dictators.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#97

Post by malthuswaswrong »

the_lonely_road wrote: post #4

Apparently by a single vote and the legitimacy of the vote is in question due to some technicality I didn't care to reread until I understood. What I don't understand is why the project is NOT already secret voting? Do not most free democratic countries practice 'secret ballot' voting specifically because not doing so caused all kinds of problems like voter intimidation? I googled the first three that came to mind (f…

>Do not most free democratic countries practice 'secret ballot' voting specifically because not doing so caused all kinds of problems like voter intimidation?

Seems like you answered your own question right there. A faction inside the project want to intimidate and punish people who don't conform to group think and a larger faction wants to squash that possibility.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#98

Post by M2Ys4U »

teagoat wrote: post #84
M2Ys4U wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which is why I also dislike postal voting and want to minimise its use.

What does postal voting have to do with that? they could also force you to film yourself at a polling station...

Well at least where I live (the UK), it's illegal to film in a polling station and the staff in the polling stations should be looking out for that and reporting it.

More importantly (with both postal voting and in-person voting) it's impossible to perform these attacks after the fact, but if you have a receipt of your vote it can be done at any time after you vote.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#99

Post by notreallyserio »

Barrin92 wrote: post #62
pydry wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Representatives being able to conceal their legislative actions from the constituents that put them there is an impoverishment to democracy.

Not really unless you think of democracy only as a glorified strawpoll. Inherent in the free mandate that representatives here have is the idea that they can and should exercise their own judgement independently. Sometimes this may even be against their constituents (or anyone else) so a degree of secrecy is important. In legislative in general to make independent decisions. Excess transparency means representatives…

> Sometimes this may even be against their constituents (or anyone else) so a degree of secrecy is important.

Important to whom, other than themselves in the next election?

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#100

Post by hutzlibu »

dotancohen wrote: post #32
hutzlibu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do not most free democratic countries practice 'secret ballot' voting specifically because not doing so caused all kinds of problems like voter intimidation?" I would argue a software project and a nation state is not the same kind of organisation. I am not involved in debian, so I would not judge what is the best system for them, but for example a group of friends making a decision on where to party, make sports, v…

> but for example a group of friends making a decision on where to party, make > sports, vacation, etc. - would secret voting here make sense? "Hey Bob, if you vote for having the party at Dave's house, I'll not suggest to Mary that the cigarettes were anything but tobacco, whaddayasay?"

So you do have secret votes, when making group decisions with family and friends?

Sounds impractical.

Post reply on HN