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Debian decides to allow secret votes

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Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#121

Post by Andaith »

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…

Well, it depends. I was actually thinking most places weren't secret votes because while the vote of the general public is a secret, the vote of members of parliament is NOT a secret.

I wonder what the pros/cons would be for parliamentary votes being SECRET in a democracy...

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#122

Post by pferde »

dotancohen wrote: post #37
pferde wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friendship over, immediately. (Group of friends is a completely different situation from what's being discussed here.)

That's not so easy when the wives are friends or sisters.

Why not? If someone tries to coerce me like that, they're no longer my friend, because I cannot trust them, nor feel comfortable around them anymore.

But they can still be my wife's friend's husband, and that's how I am going to treat them.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#123

Post by sjmm1989 »

contravariant wrote: post #36
zucker42 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debian uses the Schulze method (if things haven't changed recently), so I do not see how that would have an impact on the result.

As far as I can tell the Schulze method does not satisfy the independence of irrelevant alternatives condition, and so adding an extra option can have an effect on the end result. However the upside is that you can actually recalculate what the result would have been if you remove one of the options, since the voting results are summarized as the number of people who prefer A to B, which shouldn't change if you remov…

The problem with this is that it is thinking in absolutes during a situation where people are often very willing to compromise their own beliefs just to be able to provide an answer.

In normal elections we see this with people who don't like any choice, but don't want to spoil their ballot. So they pick their next best favorite.

This means that if A is removed, people might pick B or C instead just because A isn't there.

People are tricky. Hard to pin down what's exactly going to happen every time. There are distinguishable patterns and such; but ultimately you can't rely on them as if they are infallible.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#124

Post by Teever »

Andaith wrote: post #121
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…

Well, it depends. I was actually thinking most places weren't secret votes because while the vote of the general public is a secret, the vote of members of parliament is NOT a secret. I wonder what the pros/cons would be for parliamentary votes being SECRET in a democracy...

> I wonder what the pros/cons would be for parliamentary votes being SECRET in a democracy...

Secret ballots in parliament would help mitigate the effects of bribery because there would be no way to confirm a quid pro quo.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#125

Post by sjmm1989 »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #76
nulbyte wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you remove option A, it would necessarily be a different outcome for someone who would have voted for A over B.

I think what GP meant that if you have two identical option A and B, we could remove A after voting and it would have the same result as not having option in the first place.

I think you got their intent in sharing their belief correct; but their belief is wrong.

If you remove A as a choice, or B, people might go with their next preferred option instead of just not voting at all, etc.

This means you can't know for sure that results would equal the same with or without that option, because you cannot actually assume all actors will vote the same every time. To even begin to think such a thing as true is just asinine when the world proves to us on a daily basis that people are willing to compromise on their beliefs all the time. (No offense.)

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#126

Post by JaimeThompson »

mw888 wrote: post #71
gjulianm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can I trust that my voice was actually heard by the system? Most vote countings are public. I can go to my polling place, cast my vote, check that nobody tampers with the box, watch how they count every vote correctly, ensure that the written tallies are correct, and then verify that the central system tallies match with those I counted.

Great, ZKProofs present the possibility for everyone to do better than that with much less work.

Many in the US think that "they" are lying to us about basic physics so do you think they will accept those proofs?

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#127

Post by throwaway82652 »

sjmm1989 wrote: post #118
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…

Stopped using Debian a long time ago, and this is just making me glad I did exactly that. What kind of hairbrained nimrod came up with that idea!? You can't have mixed voting methods and still call it fair in any respect. Any chance there could be tampering should be considered not just to be happening, but to be assured to happen. "Secret ballots" of any sort when everyone else is not partaking in said "Secret ballo…

>Stopped using Debian a long time ago

>I'll be using a different version of Linux.

I'm not disagreeing with the rest of your reply, but these are nonsensical statements in context. It's presenting an assumption that the governance systems in other versions are better. I've seen a lot of projects with BDFL leaders and no voting whatsoever. Linux itself is famous for permanently keeping a BDFL in charge and not really having voting, so in some sense we might be able to say they all suffer from a lack of voting methods in some areas.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#128

Post by skrtskrt »

gregmac wrote: post #119
toast0 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 m…

> see also counting of the 'popular vote' for US president, a ballot which has never been tried, and whose results are unknowable. I don't follow this point. I'm not an American, but my understanding is counting via simple popular vote vs "electoral college" doesn't change the ballot itself, you still vote for the president directly; it just changes the way the ballots are counted. Are you suggesting either something…

The point about the American election is that if people knew going into the vote that it was a popular vote across the country, voting behavior would change.

Many people don’t vote at all because their preferred president has a 0% chance of winning their state and the vast majority of states are winner-take all with the electoral votes

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#129

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

monetus wrote: post #110
throwaway48375 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What that means is that you don't live in a city in a republican state. For the past couple decades, the GOP has gotten increasingly brazen about reducing the number of polling places for the people they don't want to vote.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#130

Post by blueflow »

sjmm1989 wrote: post #118
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…

Stopped using Debian a long time ago, and this is just making me glad I did exactly that. What kind of hairbrained nimrod came up with that idea!? You can't have mixed voting methods and still call it fair in any respect. Any chance there could be tampering should be considered not just to be happening, but to be assured to happen. "Secret ballots" of any sort when everyone else is not partaking in said "Secret ballo…

I stand behind Debian to do votes in secrecy. During the RMS issue, I've seen many people who did not have their ferocity under control. This went as far as people wanting to have the "others" removed from the Debian project.

People not being able to cast their vote without having to fear repercussions is justification enough for secret votes.

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