response 25 of 54:

Dec 18 01:46 UTC 1994

What's the point, Bill? Why have two statuses and switch back and forth?
I don't get it. It doesn't prove anything. It's functionally the same as
what I'm proposing, only more complicated.

response 27 of 54:

Dec 18 07:12 UTC 1994

   I completely agree with Dan.  Let's not make things complicated.

   Unforunately, I think we need to hold two elections:

   - one for changing the bylways to a simple majority, or something
     else if people insist (I hear a 50% quroum).

   - the election that we just held, over again.

response 29 of 54:

Dec 18 08:37 UTC 1994

The reason I mention the non-voting status is that serveral members have 
express their desire to not vote.  The guy from Arbornet resigned, and we'll
probably never see his regular $60.  Tsty doesn't like anyone to see her
voting choices, even the "master of the root."
I don't see the above as necessary if we just change the officer election
quorum to 1/2.  Grex has never ever failed to get quorum in the past.  Why
do away with them completely.  2/3 strikes me as a high quorum for an 
officer election, but 1/2 seems easily obtainable.

response 31 of 54:

Dec 18 14:32 UTC 1994

Hm.  Judging from the turnouts for elections for the People's Food Coop
or for the US government, I'd say that even 1/2 is likely to one day be
very hard to attain, as Grex's membership grows.

response 33 of 54:

Dec 18 19:23 UTC 1994

Thank you jep.

Rane: hear hear! We have to follow our bylaws until they are amended.

I agree with Dan - I don't like non-voting memberships.  However,
I can't say I honestly expect members to vote. It would depend on their
level of involvement. I don't vote in a number of organizations I support.
I don't feel that I'm betraying them, rather I would be betraying them if
I voted, because I'd probably have to use a dartboard.

I don't want peripheral members of Grex to vote with a dartboard either.
My first choice would be that they get involved and vote, naturally.
My second choice would be that they not vote.
My last choice would be for them to make an uninformed vote.

Since it is unreasonable to ask people to give up the time and effort
to become involved with every organization they support, our quorums
force some people from my second choice to my third. Hence I'm against them.:wq

response 35 of 54:

Dec 19 08:48 UTC 1994

My current opinions:

1. Members are not "required" to vote, and they should not be in the future.

2. Quorums are counter-productive and should be abolished

3. Two types of membership (voting and non-voting) are a BAAAAD idea.

4.  Reducing quorums to 1/2 will not work.  In the internet policy vote,
we were close enough to quorum that had those opposed to the policy chosen
to exercise a boycott strategy instead of voting no, then the policy could
not have passed.  Quorums =give= too much power to minorities, not protect 
us from them.  

5. We =should= send mail to every voter announcing the election.  This is kind
of a way to combine my notification quorum idea with the nuke the quorums plan.

response 37 of 54:

Dec 20 05:12 UTC 1994

This is an interesting problem, TS. I thought about this problem a bit
after reading an earlier post of yours. My first thought was that it would
be difficult, but I quickly realized that it is conceptually very simple
to make it possible for no one to determine how anyone had voted.
It would take a modification or possibly a rewrite of the voting software,
but let's skip over that for now. There would have to be two limitations:
(1) It would still be possible for a root to tell WHO had voted, but not
    HOW they voted.
(2) It would be impossible for anyone to change their vote.

The solution is to keep track of WHO voted HOW they voted in separate
repositories, with at least one being randomly reordered after each vote.
Thus the associations would be lost and no vote change would be possible,
because it would be impossible for the program to tell how anyone had
voted. This is more analogous to the way traditional voting is done.

response 39 of 54:

Dec 20 09:14 UTC 1994

Why?  If we let TaSTY abstain, then he will still get counted towards quorum.

response 41 of 54:

Dec 20 15:53 UTC 1994

It could be done.  But if the person forgets their keyword...  And
keywords (especially easy to remember ones) are crackable. i.e. it
wouldn't be foolproof.

And of course you'd have to trust that the author and/or installer of
the vote program didn't put in any little "extras" that they didn't
tell anybody about and that enable voters' votes to be identified.

So at some point, trust is necessary no matter how you set things up.
So why not trust that the people with access to the ballots have the
integrity not to look at them?  If root or voteadm don't have that
kind of integrity, they shouldn't be root or voteadm in the first
place.

response 43 of 54:

Dec 20 16:44 UTC 1994

I have no reservations about anyone knowing THAT I voted - hell, I
wear "I VOTED" stickers, and work at the polls, and was promoted
to chairman for this most recent national election (perceptions
really changed .... PHEW!)
  
Anyway, just as there are "practice ballots" for voting in
a non-grexian atmosphere, I would suggest that the current
voting program be KEPT for practice - Also, that would ENCOURAGE
(in its own little way) the intervention/interaction between
staff and voters (a GoodThing <tm>).
  
It also might encourage ..... a quorum ..... of real participants!
  
When it cam time for the "counted ballot" to be cast - single shot,
privacy guaranteed - and I'll gladly be part of the quorum, believe it.

response 45 of 54:

Dec 20 17:52 UTC 1994

   The idea of two voting programs makes even less sense to me.  We'd
be constantly telling which voting program is used when.  Thats a turn
off right there.  Rob's idea of a per-voter key is interesting, but the
number of people who already lose passwords is interesting.  Thats a
problem of a different sort.

   So, I have an idea!  Why not allow the voteadm person to send a
US Mail ballot to anyone who wants one?  Since the voting period is
two weeks (and maybe we should lengthen that a little) we should have
the ability to send a paper ballot to anyone who really wants one.
Given that TS is the only person who has publically stated their
dislike for the current system, there probably are a few others who
wern't vocal but felt the same way.  Allowing those few people the
possibility of paper voting should get around the problem.  Probably
this should be done as the voting period is lengthened, and possibly
it needs to be said that paper ballots must be requested in the first
week only, such that it can be sent and received back here in the time
alloted.

response 47 of 54:

Dec 21 05:32 UTC 1994

Except that if only one person gets a paper ballot, it will be a lot less
secret than the vote program is.

response 49 of 54:

Dec 21 15:47 UTC 1994

Before getting all frantic about possible vote fraud and all that,
consider how the rest of the world of small organizations get along. Most
have elections by mail. A person or committee is entrusted to send ballots
to all eligible members; the members return them to some other member's
home address, where they languish in a box or bag until the deadline; the
ballots are opened and counted, either at home by the person entrusted to
do so, or at an "annual meeting", where maybe several persons are
entrusted to count and compare. The ballots may or may not be put into a
separate blank envelope inside the mailing envelope, so the scent on the
ballot cannot be correlated with the return address - anyway, various
simple precautions for privacy are taken. You will notice, however, that
most steps had the word *trust* in them. At the very best, all you can
accomplish is joining reasonable precautions with trust in those
exercising the procedure. I think these are the same bases for balloting
in this medium.