Re: Draft proposal for resolution process changes
Karsten Merker <merker@debian.org> writes:
> On the other hand I see two issues in the current provision as a matter
> of principle:
> a) The constitution explicitly allows changing a vote during the
> voting period, so there is the possibility of convincing
> another member to change their already cast vote before the
> voting period ends. From a formal point of view this means
> that there is no way to determine "if the outcome is no longer
> in doubt" before the regular voting period has ended, unless
> each member has declared that they will not change their vote
> anymore (which is equivalent to the process in my phrasing
> proposal above).
I agree this is true, and a vote could end prematurely in that sense with
this constitutional provision, when someone might still change their mind.
The main reason why this doesn't bother me in the context of the TC is
that because the TC is small and has a lighter-weight process, so it's
easy for them to correct this outcome by simply running another vote. If
the vote ends and reaches a close conclusion and then someone changes
their mind, they can just re-propose the same question and hold another
vote and get a different outcome.
This doesn't work as well for developer GRs which require a ton more
effort on everyone's part and therefore are rare and involve a lot of
machinery. In that case, we clearly need a fixed voting period to avoid
this sort of ambiguity. But taking votes in the TC is routine business
and should happen all the time, so there should be a low bar to just
starting a new one (and that's also why they benefit from being able to
end votes quickly).
> b) The second concern that I have with the "majority party" (for lack of
> a better term) being able to shorten the voting period without
> consent from the other members is that it under certain circumstances
> allows removing the ability of other members to cast a dissenting
> vote with the argument "it wouldn't make a difference anyway".
> This could happen if a "dissenter" can cast their vote within the
> regular one-week period but not directly at the beginning and the
> voting period gets declared closed after a day or two because
> "further votes wouldn't make a difference".
>
> Having the non-winning votes represented in the result is a basic
> element of democracy and is important for assessing the result. For
> example if somebody is pondering over starting a GR after a TC
> decision it can make quite a bit of a difference whether the decision
> has been taken unanimously or whether it has been nearly a 50:50
> decision.
I largely agree with this but don't think this provision harms this
process in the specific context of the TC.
TC votes aren't taken with software that stops people from voting.
Instead, each member mails their signed ballot to the public mailing list.
That means that people can keep sending votes to the mailing list even
after the constitution says the vote is over, and those votes can be
counted by anyone who is tracking the exact vote outcome (for transparency
or any other reason).
I think this is a good argument for the TC to include any late-arriving
votes up to one week in any official results they post, but the
constitution doesn't prevent that, and since there isn't an official place
to publish such things, I'm not sure there's a need for the constitution
to require it.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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