Re: Results for Voting secrecy
Felix Lechner <felix.lechner@lease-up.com> writes:
> Given the stated intent of Option 3 that "early 2022 is not the time for
> rushed changes like this", the Secretary should not have admitted that
> option to the ballot. It inadvertently weakened the constitutional
> protection against changes to the constitution.
The Project Secretary does not have discretion over which options are
admitted to the ballot.
> The vote was procedurally defective.
I don't see any basis in the constitution for this assertion, nor have you
cited any.
> Folks opposing "secret votes" should never have placed Option 2 ahead of
> NOTA, and would not have done so if Option 3 had been absent.
I do not believe you have enough information to make this assertion with
complete confidence. For example, a vote of option 3 ahead of option 2
and option 2 ahead of NOTA is the correct and proper way of recording the
opinion that they would prefer not to have secret votes but don't believe
that secret votes should be blocked solely due to a supermajority
requirement if they are otherwise the preference of the project's
majority.
I have no idea how many people hold that position. I doubt it's all of
the people voting that order, but it's not an irrational position to hold.
Regardless, it doesn't matter procedurally. The remedy that you're asking
for doesn't exist in the constitution. The remedy available to you if you
believe the outcome of this vote doesn't align with the true voter
preferences is to propose a GR to reverse it or to make changes to the
constitution allowing its reversal via other means.
I agree with you that the interaction between options requiring a
supermajority and options not requiring a supermajority is unintuitive.
We've had multiple discussions about that over the years, including
various hypothetical examples where the results could violate various
desireable voting properties, particularly independence of irrelevant
alternatives (which I think is what you're raising here). So far, the
project has chosen not to make any changes on this basis, mostly because I
don't think anyone has been able to come up with a fix that still
preserves the property of resolving a GR with a single vote.
For what it's worth, issues like this are why I dislike the common Debian
practice of putting options on the ballot that have the procedural effect
of NOTA plus an additional statement and generally vote them below NOTA
(as I did here). However, I have been unable to convince people to stop
doing this in the past and have therefore stopped trying. (And I suppose
I should note that if people followed my advice, there would be no way of
voting the position that they prefer not to have secret votes but don't
think it should be blocked by supermajority requirements, so I guess
that's an argument for such ballot options.)
> Please reconsider. Otherwise the project's sole alternative may be to
> replace the Project Secretary.
This is an absurd escalation when you have no procedural basis for what
you're demanding, and it's quite concerning coming from someone who is
currently standing for DPL. It's also pointless; anyone else who replaces
the Project Secretary will have to do the same thing. The discretion
you're asking for simply does not exist in the constitution.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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