Re: GNOME Foundation Annual Elections - proposal

[Mike Newman <mike greatnorthern demon co uk>]

On Fri, 2003-09-12 at 17:26, Aleksey Sanin wrote:

> "Open" voting is really open. You have to think about your decisions
> and take responsibility for what you are doing.  Anonymous voting
> makes the voter less responsible than s/he would be in case of "open"
> voting. In the ideal world, every voter makes an informative and
> responsible decision based on best of her/his knowledge. However, in
> real life people are lazy. If nobody see the results then voter would
> spend less time thinking about her/his decisions thus adding 
> "randomness" to voting results.

I don't agree with this at all. Just like in the real world, the lazy
people just don't vote. The turnout in the last couple of Foundation
Elections has been desperately bad. In a small community of interest
like the GNOME Foundation people are more likely to make considered
decisions based on information. Anonymous voting gives them freedom to
vote entirely based on this information, and not on other peoples
perceptions of their vote.

>  The best example of this is the issue raised by Glynn's message: 
> the "open" voting makes people think about how  their votes would
> affect their relationship with colleges, etc. In anonymous voting one
> would not think about this and probably about other consequences of
> her/his voting.

Surely that's a good thing? You are voting for the person you think best
able to undertake the responsibilities of Board membership. As Glynn
pointed out, unglamourous, often administrative, sometimes unpopular
tasks. There is a real danger with the current system that it becomes a
hacker popularity contest! 

There is a more serious issue here too - GNOME is blessed with excellent
support from various corporations. Despite the built-in protection which
prevents a single entity from dominating the board, there is still the
danger that an employee of Company A feels pressured to vote for a
candidate working for Company A as the vote is open. This may result in
skewed results based on duty rather than informed opinion. Worse, it
removes and important element of freedom from a project purporting to
value freedom.

> Anonymous voting creates secrets and puts some people in the position
> where they have more power to play dirty games. And this *creates the
> reason* to play dirty games. Thus one day one bad guy would do it.
> Personally I feel more comfortable to stay with current "open" voting.

No system of election is perfect but we have two advantages - people
smart enough to build good checks and balances into the system, and an
electorate with the broadly common goal of making GNOME successful.

At the very worst under anonymous voting, people would just go ahead and
vote exactly how they would have done anyway. At best, we all get to
vote how we really think.

I acknowledge your caveats, but I think its worth the (relatively minor)
risks.

Mike