[OpenID] What election?

[Martin Paljak]

On 07.12.2008, at 23:14, Scott Kveton wrote:
>> 2. Is the election open or closed.
>
> I'm not sure what you're referring to here.  Can you elaborate on what
> you mean by 'open' or 'closed'?
"writing a name on a piece of paper and putting it into a hat and then  
counting the names" vs "gathering all the people into one big room and  
raising hands when you agree".

I assume a secret ballot is what the foundation has in mind but I'm  
afraid that the technical implementation is more like a polling box of  
a CMS which makes openid.net the big room and all those openid votes  
hand waiving (at least for the owner of the room).

>> 3. Where are the 'votes' kept, who counts them.
>
> The votes are kept in the election software that was written
> specifically for this purpose.  I'm in the midst of getting public SVN
> access available for folks but we're going to need to sanitize some of
> the configuration options out (like login information to PayPal,
> Blinksale, etc).
Lets focus only on the election part (which should have no ties to  
paypal) - how can I verify that the openid.net box runs and does what  
it advertises? Is the counting phase a SQL COUNT(*)? Any logging?  
Timestamping? Signing? Anything that would be possible to verify by a  
third party?


>> Instead of a private software development effort, why not use Jyte  
>> for the
>> open election process? Here's why:
>>
>> 1. Everybody with an OpenID (which seems to be the form and pre- 
>> requisite
>> for foundation membership anyway) can nominate themselves or  
>> somebody else.
>> (claims such as "http://martin.paljak.pri.ee for OpenID board").  
>> This way
>> anyone could nominate a participant (a feature not available  
>> currently)
>> 2. Everybody with an OpenID could cast a "vote" and share their  
>> comments.
>> 3. On the election day, all casted votes on these claims are  
>> exported,
>> filtered by the (openly available) list of people eligible to vote
>> (foundation members) and counted.
>> 4. Transparency is perfect, everybody could review and verify the  
>> outcome of
>> the election.
>
> There are several reasons for not using Jyte for something like this.
>
> 1. I don't believe Jyte will let us do this kind of voting; its thumbs
> up or down.  I suppose we could make N claims where each claim is a
> nomination for one individual but then what do thumbs down votes
> represent, etc?
claim: http://example.com for openid board!
thumbs up by foundation members: votes
thumbs up by others: sign of support from larger community
thumbs down: a waning sign to the nominee and others as well.
thumbs down from foundation member: trouble!

Finally you count thumbs up of foundation members on all 'nomination  
claims'.

This was just a wild idea to re-use existing stuff instead of rolling  
your own. Similar to using RPX instead of writing own code.
Of course, in real life jyte.com would probably generate a lot of  
lolcatz noize into the process...

> 2. We have already built software that does what we need it to do.
>
> 3. There is research that suggests having real time data on the status
> of an on-going election will actually affect the outcome of the
> election.  I don't know if that's good or bad but its something to
> consider.  I imagine this has something to do with what you refer to
> above around 'open' v. 'closed' elections.
A bit. But I also claim that if you can't guarantee the secrecy of my  
vote (which is a hard problem) and a verifiable voting process (both  
at the same time) it could as well be a *very* open process.

>> I would understand if the foundation process would be more formal,  
>> where all
>> members would need to have been accepted by (board) meetings and a
>> requirement to have a paper trail of those decisions etc. But  
>> currently this
>> seems to be a very OpenID/$25 based process where it could really  
>> remain
>> 'lightweight and web based'.
>
> I think we're accomplishing the above assuming we can get good answers
> to the questions you've posed (which I think we're well on our way to
> doing).

Thanks!

-- 
Martin Paljak
http://martin.paljak.pri.ee
+372.515.6495