Re: [Moshe Zadka <m@moshez.org>] Independent Count

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@debian.org>]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2003, Russell Coker wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Mar 2003 17:56, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > Moshe wrote:
> > >>I do not feel I can trust his words about the voting tallies for the
> > >>upcoming elections. I wish that an independent Debian Developer be
> > >>appointed for calculating the tallies himself.
> >
> > Maybe I am dense, but isn't the entire voting published (in hashed format)
> > so that every developer that voted can see for himself if he vote was
> > counted or not?  And, I suppose, raise a major havok if it is wrong?
> >
> > So, it would be just a matter of rerunning the counting script over the
> > data published, and check wether it matches or not.
> >
> > So, in essence, EVERYONE can do such verification, already...
> 
> They would cast a vote on behalf of a non-voting developer.  Obtaining a list 
[...]

Indeed.  This could only be verified if we, as you said, make sure that for
every vote on behalf of developer foo, there is a signed vote email by that
developer's key in the keyring.

> To check the actions of the secretary someone else needs access to the signed 
> vote records to ensure that every registered vote is the result of a signed 
> email.

And to allow that, we need to change voting procedures, to preserve secrecy
of the voting...  the ballots would have to be cyphertext, with a signature
wrapping the cyphertext, or something to that effect.

> I totally trust Manoj on this issue.  I am posting to point out a flaw in your 
So do I. I have no reason to think Manoj would skew the voting.

Thanks for the headsup on the obvious hole in my too-hasty
analysis of the problem :)

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh