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Debian decides to allow secret votes

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Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#101

Post by ilammy »

rosndo wrote: post #46
ilammy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> zero knowledge proofs are [...] possible to check for yourself Only if you're an expert cryptographer, else you're deferring to the authority. > Paper voting is extremely expensive to scale That's a feature.

> Only if you're an expert cryptographer, else you're deferring to the authority. At least it’s still provable, a plenty of people can afford to hire their own cryptographers to do verification. Foreign observers can also do the same.

> a plenty of people can afford to hire their own cryptographers to do verification

That's still deferring to the authority. The cryptographer I paid to says it’s all verified, these 1,000,000 people believe them, so naturally I must believe too because why would they lie – is that how it goes? Why not then just drop this whole voting thing, managing keys, checking proofs – why waste time on all this, just let cryptographers announce the results? You trust them, right? They're smart, they'll probably make good decisions.

Paper ballots which can be counted by hand reasonably efficiently enforce a low-tech process that is understood by literally everyone, is resistant to fraud at scale, and leaves massive amount of literal paper trail for audit with no extra provisions. If a citizen wants to be an observer – they just go and see ballots counted. If ZKP were used then what, why only qualified cryptographers are allowed to be qualified observers? Is this really a necessary requirement for a voting process?

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#102

Post by dotancohen »

hutzlibu wrote: post #100
dotancohen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't. But I am addressing the fact that there exist situations in which it would be beneficial.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#103

Post by hutzlibu »

pja wrote: post #70
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…

Voter intimidation can happen in volunteer communities too.

Oh, for sure. Which is why I said, I would not judge on debian, as I do not know their dynamics etc.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#104

Post by gspr »

denton-scratch wrote: post #94
gspr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

I'm very, very confident that that would be a bad idea. I, for one, would retire as a DD if (non-DD) users were given a vote. Listening to user input can of course be really great, but as soon as I have to follow rules made by outsiders, it starts feeling way too much like work and too little like fun. I maintain mostly very unimportant packages, so what I'd do isn't that big of a deal, but I suspect this attitude would be echoed in many other DDs.

> Many DDs (most?) also work on other Linuxen, and are not particularly committed to "The Debian Way".

Really? I doubt that. Apart from some overlap with Ubuntu (which is a Debian derivative anyway), I would definitely guess that it's not that many. But this is just as anecdotal as your statement, of course. I rarely see people say "in [insert distro], we usually do it like this" or the like on the mailing lists.

> 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.

I refuse to get into a discussion about what "a plurality of users" might think about systemd, but you illustrate my first point really well: once we have to start doing things we ourselves don't want to do, by order of some outsider, it's no longer fun. It's work. I expect to be paid for work. And I expect outsiders to stay out of my fun.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#105

Post by hutzlibu »

dotancohen wrote: post #102
hutzlibu wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't. But I am addressing the fact that there exist situations in which it would be beneficial.

Maybe, but if you have those situations with friends/family, then there is probably something else horrible wrong in the first place. (even though it might be common)

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#106

Post by notriddle »

malthuswaswrong wrote: post #96
dtech wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As well as many, many organizations that aren’t governments.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#107

Post by pydry »

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…

>Excess transparency means representatives will pander only for votes

That's how democracy works. Pandering for votes and then acting on behalf of your voters interests is kind of the point.

Im honestly kind of shocked to be reading this on HN in 2022. This is the kind of thing monarchists said in 1684.

>money

Legislative secrecy is a great way of letting money corrupt democracy since it eliminates the feedback loop between the legislator acting on behalf of monied interests and being democratically punished for it at the next election.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#109

Post by jffry »

danuker wrote: post #18
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…

I am not familiar with Debian's practices, but electronic voting can't work for a nation because: - centralization (there must be a central, corruptible place where the voters are authenticated or the votes are counted) - software is untrustable: https://www.win.tue.nl/%7Eaeb/linux/hh/thompson/trust.html The USA has had a Diebold voting scandal. Other countries are using a paper-based voting process which can be supe…

The US is not homogenous in the technology used to vote - running elections is left to the states, and different states use different polling technologies.

The systems we have for voting in Washington DC seem to be a best-of-both-worlds approach. There are touchscreen kiosks that you use to make your choices, then the kiosk prints out a properly marked paper ballot that it asks you to verify. Then you take your ballot over to the normal scanning machines. You can also request an unmarked ballot and fill it by hand if you prefer.

The kiosks can provide a wide range of assistive tech (larger fonts, instructions in a variety of languages, and headphone jack for audio prompts). They also help ensure you do not miss a question - you must explicitly choose "skip" - and they help ensure you select between 0 and N choices in choose-N questions. Also they print a clearly-marked ballot which helps avoid ambiguities like if somebody partially fills a circle by hand.

And best of all, the end product is still a physical, auditable piece of paper.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#110

Post by monetus »

throwaway48375 wrote: post #57
touisteur wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I don't understand the argument of reducing cost of elections and scaling. The current paper system in place in most works (at least in European countries where I've witnessed the process) and doesn't need to scale more. If actors in a democracy can't afford such a system, and the occasional (once, twice a year) walk to the voting place, 15 minutes wait and fellow-citizen interaction, can't we accept they do…

American here and I have had to wait >2 hours to vote multiple times. In the worst instance someone tried to illegally close the polling place even though people were still lined up outside. This is in clear violation of state law. So long as you are lined up to vote before the polling place closes they have to take your vote. To the sheriff's department credit (they are generally terrible) the deputy who responded r…

live in a metropolis? -also american but in a midsized city and ~15 minutes is more than the average wait.
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