[Elections] Re: Who votes? how does voting work?

[Cees De Groot]

On 12/31/05, Peter Crowther <Peter at ozzard.org> wrote:
> <shrug>.  And?  A system is a system is a system.
>
> I've CC'ed Cees into this.  Cees, what's SqP written in and how easy is
> it (in your experience) to change?
>
In, err, <cough>, C. The data is in XML, and I have Squeak code to
read it so anything that would just use the data for checking
'standing' in SqP could be done in 100% Squeak (I also have
"Terminus", a web service, XML/RPC IIRC, that lets you query SqP).

However, now that we're talking about using SqP for elections stuff,
my two cents:

KISS.

Claimer: I have lots of experience with organizing and running
elections. From real-world municipal elections, to Fidonet factions,
Usenet stuff, to open source community stuff. As I said in private
mail to you guys, I don't want to meddle around too much with how the
Election team operates because formally it should be distinct from the
Board and chances are high that i'll find myself being a candidate on
a coming election. Having said that...

There are, IMNSHO, two ways to make elections fair: make them
extremely transparent, or use technology. It seems that the elections
team is mostly discussing the second thing (tell it if I'm wrong, I
skimmed the archives but can have gotten a wrong impression from
there). What about the first? (and "both", I think, is not a valid
answer - election technology often makes everything more complex and
therefore almost by definition less transparent).

For example, if an election must be held, setup a website. People see
a form, where they can a) fill in their email address, and b) fill in
their vote (one or more candidates). And maybe one of these funny
images to check they're human :-). In response, the website generates
a confirmation mail, with a security hash and the vote. User clicks,
vote is registered. At the end of the election, the website
automagically stops accepting new votes but displays a list of all
email addresses used to vote on the election page instead (and maybe
pings squeak-dev to tell everyone the list is up). We have a pretty
good grasp of the set of email addresses that form the community. If
we suddenly see a whole lot of "strange" mail addresses popping up,
something's fishy. If, say, 10% of the voters say the thing is fishy,
the election is made invalid. If they don't, the website displays the
election results a week later (and probably sends the results to
squeak-dev). With the web tools available one could whip up such a
system in less than a day.

If every election we hold is canceled because of abuse, that is maybe
a time to start thinking about requiring people to register on SqP, or
whatever. But until that time, I'd say - keep it as simple as open as
possible. Let the community be defined by those who think they're part
of the community instead of some artificial social system. I've heard
lots of discussions and fears especially during Jini community
meetings about the open system, but every vote held since then was ok.
No large companies rigging the election by telling all their employees
to vote, or something :)

Just my opinion - due to my position I'm not going to defend it or
something (at best clarify if I was unclear somewhere - just ask). If
SqP will be used, fine. I'm available to help on the work that would
be necessary in either case.


Hth,

Cees