Re: [gentoo-project] [pre-GLEP] Secrecy-respecting voting mechanism for Gentoo projects

["Michał Górny" <mgorny@gentoo.org>]

On Sat, 2021-08-28 at 15:01 -0400, Aaron Bauman wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 28, 2021 at 12:30:15PM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Please review the following pre-GLEP.
> > 
> > ---
> > GLEP: 9999
> > Title: Secrecy-respecting voting mechanism for Gentoo projects
> > Author: Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org>
> > Type: Standards Track
> > Status: Draft
> > Version: 1
> > Created: 2021-08-27
> > Last-Modified: 2021-08-27
> > Post-History: 2021-08-27
> > Content-Type: text/x-rst
> > ---
> > 
> > Abstract
> > ========
> > 
> > A new voting system is devised with the aim of providing a single voting
> > system for all Gentoo elections and votes.  Automation is used to
> > eliminate the human bottleneck in processing the elections.  Votes are
> > submitted via random identifers, and the identifiers are sent to voters
> > via encrypted e-mail to protect the vote secrecy.  E-mail is used to
> > enable non-developer voters to participate.
> > 
> > 
> > Motivation
> > ==========
> > 
> > The votify/countify tooling used to run Gentoo elections dates back
> > to 2005.  While it still serves it purpose, it has grown antiquated
> > and is facing a few problems that are discouraging the developers from
> > using it.  These are:
> > 
> > The problems with the current tooling include:
> > 
> > 1. The elections require a lot of manual setup and attention.  This is
> >    causing noticeable delays and can raise doubts about the validity
> >    of elections.  For example, voters can still submit or modify votes
> >    after the deadline until the infra official collects them.
> > 
> 
> Given what we have seen in the security election this year, what
> determines *who* can start an election? Maybe some clarity in GLEP 39?

This is outside the scope of this GLEP.  It's about providing a tool,
not telling how projects select leads.  That's really in scope of GLEP
39 indeed.

> > At this point, votify is  practically used only for the Council
> > and Trustee elections.  The late attempts of using it for the Base
> > System and Security project elections have resulted in a lot of
> > frustration from the developers participating.  The vast majority of
> > project elections are currently run using third-party services or plain
> > mail votes.
> > 
> 
> I am not aware of anyone from the security team having issues with
> this... would you please expound on the issues of use?
> 

The complaints I've seen were primarily because of how long it took for
Elections team to publish results.  I suppose it was in comparison with
Helios where the results are immediately available.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny