Re: Yes to Publicity! Not to Anonimity! Was: Re: GNOME Foundation Annual Elections - proposal

[Danilo Segan <dsegan gmx net>]

уторак, 16. септембар 2003. 20:38:22 CEST — Aleksey Sanin написа:
> However, non-voted John Smith might open these two pages and look at
> them. But unless he would bother to go and find out what was his  
> voter id, he would never find out that there is a fraud.  Now compare  
> this with the situation today. John Smith who did not vote *might* be   
> curious on how other people have voted. He opens the page and  
> *immidiately* see that someone voted from his name. Not mention  
> John's friend Jack who migh be curios why John have voted for  
> candidate A when John always said he that he does not like candidate  
> A.

I already said that this is not *stable* system for detecting fraud.  
I've even given a counter example with a same *probability* (your  
"might" above):
"John has voted, and his friend Jack has seen that he did. So, Jack  
*might* be interested if anyone John voted for was elected, or if he  
was satisfied with the board depending on his choices." (in any case,  
it's just enough that Jack implicates that John has voted, exactly the  
same thing as in the current system).

Yeah, so if John never voted, he would find out that he was listed as  
if he did, so it's clear that his vote is fraudelent.

It's absolutely the *same* mechanism, at least in the sense of  
unreliability and informality. Just the questions are different, but  
all the conditions are the same:
- John and Jack must be friends (or at least, acquaintances)
- They must feel free to talk about the voting itself

It's not a mechanism for detecting fraud that I would trust, neither in  
the case of public vote as implemented last year, nor in the case of  
anonimous voting which is the point here.

Yet, I believe that this mechanism *is* sufficient for what Gnome  
Foundation is doing.

> Please, remember that we are not talking about perfect system. Any  
> system could be hacked and usually not in a way you might think of.  
> The simple and open system always have benefits between a closed  
> system with secrects and "special" people "in control".

"Freedom" and "openness" should include the freedom to express your  
opinion without that being held against you (in whatever minor way; if  
your friend is a candidate, he surely thinks he's appropriate for the  
job -- if you don't think so, he'll very probably be insulted even  
though he might not show it, and that will effect your further  
relations). You may not accept that this would be the case, but the  
opinions given on this list suggests otherwise. If there's one person  
who feels this way (and, as we've noticed, there are several), we've  
got a *benefit* for the process.

Remeber that you're not suggesting improving the system, but rather,  
you're suggesting keeping the system which has the exact same flaws  
like the new proposed one does, but without any significant benefits.

I'd really like you to try to think of the system that would solve  
problems you mention in the process of anonymous voting, even though  
you don't support the idea itself.


Cheers,
Danilo