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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 unde

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 (france uk, usa) and they all seem to do so. Anyone associated with the Debian project have any insight on why voting is not secret and/or any other large os projects doing the same that could chime in?

ckastner 5y ago
The legitimacy was questioned by a single person, so far all replies indicate that said person was simply mistaken on multiple counts, and in the meantime, said person no longer sees a problem. Reasons against secret voting were expressed in ballot option C: https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_001#textc https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_001#textc
clippablematt 5y ago
I was surprised too. You have to have secret votes to stop intimidation, and also collusion. If people can prove they voted a certain way then they can be bribed.
danuker 5y ago
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 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 supervised by third parties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions#Security_and_concealment_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions#Sec... Relevant watching: Tom Scott: Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs One possible solution could be ZCash ( https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/585.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/585.pdf ) but it has had its own problems ( https://www.coindesk.com/zcash-team-reveals-it-fixed-a-catastrophic-coin-counterfeiting-bug https://www.coindesk.com/zcash-team-reveals-it-fixed-a-catas... ).
- charcircuit 5y ago
  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 be counted.
  - qsort 5y ago
    Paper voting ensures privacy and voter verification, something even the best electronic solutions can't properly handle. No thanks, I can actually show up and vote once every few years.
    - touisteur 5y ago
      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 don't care for voting and participating and stop listening? I'm all for accommodation of special cases (people with reduced mobility or unability to be in contact with other people) but we already have the necessary systems in place (mail-in or vote delegation). Literally one of the last places I'd check for change or optimization. It works, leave it alone, I'll happily pay the 3 or 10eur a year.
      - throwaway48375 5y ago
        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 refused to make people leave and told the worker they had to stay open. When I lived in a more rural area of the same county I would just walk in and vote within a couple minutes. I'm sure it isn't broken by design though.
dmurray 5y ago
Most software projects don't have the same threat models as "most free democratic countries". In fact, while we've settled on some level of democracy being a good thing in running our countries, we're very much open to other approaches in software development, often using methods closer to monarchy or centrally planned communism, and not ruling out complete anarchy. With that in mind, it's not clear that just because Debian embraces some of the trappings of democracy, it should also insist on the secrecy of the ballot. Non-secret ballots have their advantages too - even your cited "free democratic countries" use them at the parliamentary level.
zucker42 5y ago
As far as I can tell, Option B won over Option C by 35 votes (there were 142 people who preferred B over C and 107 who preferred C over B).
pydry 5y ago
Which countries hide the votes their representatives make in parliament? What would you think about the ones that did?
- throwmeariver1 5y ago
  Germany does on some votes.
- turminal 5y ago
  A lot of countries do that at least in certain special cases.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  This is sometimes the case here in Germany, and one reason we do it is because our representatives are explicitly, by the basic law bound only to their own conscience. Representatives toeing party lines is seen as an impoverishment to democracy.
  - pydry 5y ago
    Representatives being able to conceal their legislative actions from the constituents that put them there is an impoverishment to democracy.
    - Barrin92 5y ago
      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 will pander only for votes/money/attention, it's for example why every televised American congressional session makes you lose braincells. Because they're only talking to the TV, they're not actually deliberating.
      - 5y ago
hutzlibu 5y ago
"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, vacation, etc. - would secret voting here make sense? I don't think so. When people are not afraid to speak their mind - then a real consensus can be faster found. So I do not really think "secret voting" must be a standard. It depends on the organisation (and the size, people involved, etc).
- dotancohen 5y ago
  > 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?"
  - pferde 5y ago
    Friendship over, immediately. (Group of friends is a completely different situation from what's being discussed here.)
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      That's not so easy when the wives are friends or sisters.
      - usrusr 5y ago
        What would be the point in pretending that there were any democratic principles involved though?
      - pferde 5y ago
        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.
denton-scratch 5y ago
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.
- TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
  Consider that elected representatives' votes are also, as a rule, not secret.
  - randomcarbloke 5y ago
    do we elect Debian developers?
    - gspr 5y ago
      Exactly. I view DDs more as the citizens of a democracy, rather than the elected representatives of the citizens.
      - denton-scratch 5y ago
        That is correct; the DDs are the citizens. The users don't get representatives in Debian. That's why I appreciate transparency.
      - denton-scratch 5y ago
        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.
malthuswaswrong 5y ago
>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.
Andaith 5y ago
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...
- Teever 5y ago
  > 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.
turbinerneiter 5y ago
Secret voting is done in elections, but voting in parliaments is not secret. The politicians in a parliament should vote publicly, so they can be held accountable for their voting behavior. The people want to check if the politicians they elected actually vote for the things they promised in parliament. (In the case of Debian: I have no idea if this situation is more like an election or voting in parliament, and I have no opinion on the topic.)
qiskit 5y ago
> Do not most free democratic countries practice 'secret ballot' voting specifically because not doing so caused all kinds of problems like voter intimidation? Because the voting developers are part of "governance". They are like senators. Nobody allows secret votes in government. When senators vote, their votes are public for many reasons.
lelanthran 5y ago
> What I don't understand is why the project is NOT already secret voting? There was a debian poll that people were afraid to vote in because they expected harassment for their position[1]. That poll raised the question of secret voting. In my mind, the best option for Debian going forward would be to have public voting records, but have each future poll include a single option at the bottom for "Redo this poll as anonymous". If more than (for example) 10% of the votes are for redoing the poll as anonymous, then redo it as anonymous. They way they are doing it now makes it an all or nothing way for every issue that will be voted on in the future. My simplistic proposal above allows polls to be anonymous based on whether a minority feel that they will be harassed by a majority. [1] Whether or not their expectation was realistic or not is irrelevant.

ckastner 5y ago

The legitimacy was questioned by a single person, so far all replies indicate that said person was simply mistaken on multiple counts, and in the meantime, said person no longer sees a problem. Reasons against secret voting were expressed in ballot option C: https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_001#textc https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_001#textc

clippablematt 5y ago

I was surprised too. You have to have secret votes to stop intimidation, and also collusion. If people can prove they voted a certain way then they can be bribed.

danuker 5y ago

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 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 supervised by third parties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions#Security_and_concealment_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions#Sec... Relevant watching: Tom Scott: Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs One possible solution could be ZCash ( https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/585.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/585.pdf ) but it has had its own problems ( https://www.coindesk.com/zcash-team-reveals-it-fixed-a-catastrophic-coin-counterfeiting-bug https://www.coindesk.com/zcash-team-reveals-it-fixed-a-catas... ).

charcircuit 5y ago
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 be counted.
- qsort 5y ago
  Paper voting ensures privacy and voter verification, something even the best electronic solutions can't properly handle. No thanks, I can actually show up and vote once every few years.
  - touisteur 5y ago
    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 don't care for voting and participating and stop listening? I'm all for accommodation of special cases (people with reduced mobility or unability to be in contact with other people) but we already have the necessary systems in place (mail-in or vote delegation). Literally one of the last places I'd check for change or optimization. It works, leave it alone, I'll happily pay the 3 or 10eur a year.
    - throwaway48375 5y ago
      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 refused to make people leave and told the worker they had to stay open. When I lived in a more rural area of the same county I would just walk in and vote within a couple minutes. I'm sure it isn't broken by design though.

dmurray 5y ago

Most software projects don't have the same threat models as "most free democratic countries". In fact, while we've settled on some level of democracy being a good thing in running our countries, we're very much open to other approaches in software development, often using methods closer to monarchy or centrally planned communism, and not ruling out complete anarchy. With that in mind, it's not clear that just because Debian embraces some of the trappings of democracy, it should also insist on the secrecy of the ballot. Non-secret ballots have their advantages too - even your cited "free democratic countries" use them at the parliamentary level.

zucker42 5y ago

As far as I can tell, Option B won over Option C by 35 votes (there were 142 people who preferred B over C and 107 who preferred C over B).

pydry 5y ago

Which countries hide the votes their representatives make in parliament? What would you think about the ones that did?

throwmeariver1 5y ago
Germany does on some votes.
turminal 5y ago
A lot of countries do that at least in certain special cases.
Barrin92 5y ago
This is sometimes the case here in Germany, and one reason we do it is because our representatives are explicitly, by the basic law bound only to their own conscience. Representatives toeing party lines is seen as an impoverishment to democracy.
- pydry 5y ago
  Representatives being able to conceal their legislative actions from the constituents that put them there is an impoverishment to democracy.
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    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 will pander only for votes/money/attention, it's for example why every televised American congressional session makes you lose braincells. Because they're only talking to the TV, they're not actually deliberating.
    - 5y ago

hutzlibu 5y ago

"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, vacation, etc. - would secret voting here make sense? I don't think so. When people are not afraid to speak their mind - then a real consensus can be faster found. So I do not really think "secret voting" must be a standard. It depends on the organisation (and the size, people involved, etc).

dotancohen 5y ago
> 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?"
- pferde 5y ago
  Friendship over, immediately. (Group of friends is a completely different situation from what's being discussed here.)
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    That's not so easy when the wives are friends or sisters.
    - usrusr 5y ago
      What would be the point in pretending that there were any democratic principles involved though?
    - pferde 5y ago
      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.

denton-scratch 5y ago

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.

TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
Consider that elected representatives' votes are also, as a rule, not secret.
- randomcarbloke 5y ago
  do we elect Debian developers?
  - gspr 5y ago
    Exactly. I view DDs more as the citizens of a democracy, rather than the elected representatives of the citizens.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      That is correct; the DDs are the citizens. The users don't get representatives in Debian. That's why I appreciate transparency.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      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.

malthuswaswrong 5y ago

>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.

Andaith 5y ago

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...

Teever 5y ago
> 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.

turbinerneiter 5y ago

Secret voting is done in elections, but voting in parliaments is not secret. The politicians in a parliament should vote publicly, so they can be held accountable for their voting behavior. The people want to check if the politicians they elected actually vote for the things they promised in parliament. (In the case of Debian: I have no idea if this situation is more like an election or voting in parliament, and I have no opinion on the topic.)

qiskit 5y ago

> Do not most free democratic countries practice 'secret ballot' voting specifically because not doing so caused all kinds of problems like voter intimidation? Because the voting developers are part of "governance". They are like senators. Nobody allows secret votes in government. When senators vote, their votes are public for many reasons.

lelanthran 5y ago

> What I don't understand is why the project is NOT already secret voting? There was a debian poll that people were afraid to vote in because they expected harassment for their position[1]. That poll raised the question of secret voting. In my mind, the best option for Debian going forward would be to have public voting records, but have each future poll include a single option at the bottom for "Redo this poll as anonymous". If more than (for example) 10% of the votes are for redoing the poll as anonymous, then redo it as anonymous. They way they are doing it now makes it an all or nothing way for every issue that will be voted on in the future. My simplistic proposal above allows polls to be anonymous based on whether a minority feel that they will be harassed by a majority. [1] Whether or not their expectation was realistic or not is irrelevant.