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Debian decides to allow secret votes

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Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#131

Post by PoignardAzur »

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…

The American voting system seems broken in many ways that have not much to do using paper.

Elections taking place on tuesdays instead of weekends for some reason, low polling-places-per-voters ratio (though numbers are hard to find), ballots with multiple non-trivial questions, etc.

Before turning to voting machines, there's a lot that could be changed at every level. Moving Election Day to weekends would be a good start.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#133

Post by Spooky23 »

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.

It’s very common for boards and other organizational entities to use public voting. I’d argue that it’s a feature of legislative processes.

I do think ranked choice voting is dumb and adds low value and high complexity. This thread with hundreds of comments affirms that notion.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#134

Post by phkahler »

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…

So IMHO if you wanted to retain transparency and they use ranked voting, I'd go with 4,3,2,1. Someone else might do 3,4,2,1. Either way the result should be counted against secret voting. There seems to be concern that people don't even understand how the voting process works and messed up their ballot. Oddly, this should be verifiable by asking them, since secret voting wasn't in place at the time of this vote.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#137

Post by rosndo »

gjulianm wrote: post #68
rosndo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paper voting is vulnerable to basic sleight of hand, and your ability to effectively monitor the count is somewhat limited. Electronic voting can be much better, but it is of course not a terribly easy problem to solve. For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that paper voting is particularly problematic. But I do think that electronic voting could make voting easier and more accessible.

I don't know how vote counting is done in other places, but I've seen it in my country and it's not vulnerable to basic sleight of hand, at least not for more than one or two votes. Poll workers are all citizens randomly selected, the president of each table takes envelopes from a transparent box, opens them, shows them to the other three or four workers of the table (plus any observers that want to be there) and dec…

> I don't think so. Think of all the people who have difficulty with basic computer/phone tasks, either because of knowledge or accessibility issues. Do you think all the steps to securely cast votes with an electronic system are going to be easier and more accessible for them?

I don’t think an in-person electronic voting system needs to be any more difficult than current paper ballots.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#138

Post by svnpenn »

blueflow wrote: post #130
sjmm1989 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you can't justify your vote, then maybe you shouldn't be voting. Anonymous voting should be enjoyed by the masses, never the ones representing them.

Re: Debian decides to allow secret votes

#140

Post by incomingpain »

svnpenn wrote: post #135
incomingpain wrote: post #132

Quoted post unavailable.

I agree. No healthy group would have even considered this awful idea. Hopefully people many people can "vote" to never use Debian again.

>Hopefully people many people can "vote" to never use Debian again.

From my research the debian developers have been quitting for the Arch/Manjaro ecosystem.

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