Re: Proposition for an anonymous voting process

[Gael Chamoulaud <strider gnome org>]

Hi Vincent,

That sounds great for me.
Is it possible to make a point about that on IRC ASAP?

Best regards

Gael

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 09:56:17PM +0200, Vincent Untz wrote:
> Here's a first proposition. I wrote it quickly because I need to go
> after that, but I think it's understandable. Please comment or flame me!
>
> Proposition for an anonymous voting process
> ===========================================
>
> 1. Generate tokens for each member
>    * Use Alan's proposition to generate the tokens
>      http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2003-September/msg00009.html
>    * Save somewhere the association token/member. It is needed because
>      members may lose their token or not receive them. I propose that we
>      have a directory with files named after the token, each file
>      containing the member's informations (name + e-mail address)
>
> 2. Send a ballot to the member with their secret token
>    * The ballot should contain clear instructions on how to use it
>    * The Reply-To header should be correctly set to a special dedicated
>      address (say anonymous gnome org)
>
> 3. The member sends his ballot to anonymous gnome org 
>
> 4. The mail is passed through a script
>    * The script computes if the mail is a vote and if the vote is valid.
>        - If it is not, it sends back a mail to the member explaining him
>          what the problem is and asking him to send a valid vote.
>        - If it is, the script generates a random confirmation token. It
>          sends a mail to the member asking the member to send the
>          confirmation token to confirm the vote. This automatically sent
>          mail should contain what the scripts understand of the vote
>          (e.g. for whom the member voted) so the member can verify that
>          his vote contains what he intended to vote. The random
>          confirmation token is saved in the token/member file
>          corresponding to the member.
>
> 5. Member receives the mail asking the confirmation.
>    * the vote is ok, he simply replies with the confirmation token to
>      validate his vote.
>    * the vote is not ok, he can send a new vote with the same first
>      token. Go to step 4.
>
> 6. The confirmation mail is passed through the same script
>    * the script computes if the mail is a confirmation
>        - If it is and if the confirmation token is valid: remove the
>          token/member association for this member. Go to step 7.
>        - If it is not, then... What ?
>
> 7. We have a confirmed valid vote. There are two possibilities:
>    * We use the script to send a mail to vote gnome org with the token
>      and the vote. We'll then used the script we're already using to
>      count the votes. We need a list of all the valid tokens generated
>      in step 1. Note that all mails in the archives should be valid
>      votes...
>    * For each candidate/answer to the vote/question, we have a
>      subdirectory. The script then simply adds a file (the filename is
>      the token) in all the needed directories.
>      Example given: for the elections, we have a directory for each
>                     candidates. A member, whose token is 002ERT, votes
>                     candidates A, D and F. The script adds files
>                     named 002ERT in subdirectories A, D and F.
>
> Notes:
>    * The script should be able to regenerate new token for members who
>      did not receive their tokens.
>    * It's easier to only accept votes coming from the member's official
>      e-mail address (which is the one in membership_new.txt). This
>      should be clearly explained in the vote instructions.
>    * Once the valid vote is confirmed by the member, we remove the
>      token/member file. So we can't know anymore who sent this vote.
>      This is where we anonymize the votes.
>    * In this process, we trust the admins: the admins can save some
>      information for later to break the anonymizing process (they can
>      save the token/member files, e.g.). But I can't find a way that
>      doesn't need trusting the admins...
>      Note that the admins can't change the votes because people will be
>      able to verify the vote associated to the token they were given.
>
> Vincent
>
> -- 
> Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressÃs.
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