Election Data

I addressed this point in the paragraph that preceded the one you quoted here.* Maybe not convincingly, but it was addressed.

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 17:18, Stephen John Smoogen <smooge@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 10:29 AM, CLAY S <clay@brokenladder.com> wrote:


> Let me first thank you all for your input on this.

>



> Some people have countered that in public governmental elections, data is

> not might public. *This is incorrect. *Many cities publish anonymous ballot

> results online. *Here in my home of San Francisco, for instance. (And of

> course, just because the government does something in their election

> process, that doesn't mean it's right - just look at the terrible plurality

> voting system that almost all municipalities use.)

>



The data is only made anonymous for elections after it has been

advertised via legislation that it will be made so. I would prefer

that if research is going to be done on voting.. that it is announced

before the election and what kinds of research and how the data would

be anonymized is listed and approved before it is done so. This way

people are aware of the data being used for research AND that the

method for anonymizing has been publically looked at to make sure it

really anonymizes the data versus rot12's the ip addresses and account

names .







--

Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed

in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"



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On Wed, 2008-07-23 at 08:47 -0400, Jon Stanley wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 8:42 AM, Paul W. Frields <stickster@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > controversial since no governance was involved. You might even be able
> > to make the case that the release name election is more contentious. ;-)
>
> And hopefully has better turnout. Not to hijack a thread, but there
> *has* to be something that we can do to get better than 8% voter
> turnout - not sure what that something is, but it's gotta be out there
> somewhere

Do we need a Monster Raving Loony candidate?

Er, wait, wasn't that me?

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On Wed, 2008-07-23 at 10:53 -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> Paul W. Frields (stickster@gmail.com) said:
> > > Debian also makes their election data public, though they use a worse
> > > and much more complex Condorcet method, called "Shulze".
> > > http://www.debian.org/vote/2003/leader2003_tally.txt
> >
> > I don't see a huge problem with this as long as the ballots are
> > anonymized. Vote data is often analyzed for trends and other purposes,
> > and with Fedora being an open, transparent project overall, I think this
> > request doesn't go counter to our goals. But I think the Board should
> > probably make this decision.
>
> Considering that we didn't actually state before the election that
> we would collect, anonymize, and mine the data, I don't think it's
> a good idea to do that now.

I'm not sure we stated beforehand that we'd publish the totals as we do
at https://admin.fedoraproject.org/voting/results/fescof10 either --
does that make it bad?

I think we, as a society, spend far too much time pandering to the
tinfoil hat brigade who like to whine about their 'privacy' without
actually being able to present any realistic situation in which the
release of certain data actually causes them even a _theoretical_
problem.

I'd be very disappointed if we refused to release _anonymised_ vote data
purely on the basis that we think there might be some nutter out there
who wouldn't come out from under his table for a few days if we did so.

I'd prefer to make a concrete proposal about _how_ the data are
anonymised and precisely what would be released, and then see if anyone
can actually come up with a _real_ reason not to do that.

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LOL.

Incidentally, this makes me curious to talk to a few of the candidates and see how well they feel the voting method worked.* Does the winner think it was a success?* Does the lowest-rated candidate think he would have done better with a different voting method?* Are there any feelings of bitterness?* This is all quite fascinating to me, because as much as we've studied and simulated score voting, it has been so rarely used for contentious elections that we really stand to learn a great deal by hearing from the candidates as well as the voters.


So...candidates?* Any thoughts?

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 13:51, David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org> wrote:

On Wed, 2008-07-23 at 08:47 -0400, Jon Stanley wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 8:42 AM, Paul W. Frields <stickster@gmail.com> wrote:

>

> > controversial since no governance was involved. You might even be able

> > to make the case that the release name election is more contentious. ;-)

>

> And hopefully has better turnout. Not to hijack a thread, but there

> *has* to be something that we can do to get better than 8% voter

> turnout - not sure what that something is, but it's gotta be out there

> somewhere



Do we need a Monster Raving Loony candidate?



Er, wait, wasn't that me?



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On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:05:56 -0400
David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org> wrote:

> I'd be very disappointed if we refused to release _anonymised_ vote data
> purely on the basis that we think there might be some nutter out there
> who wouldn't come out from under his table for a few days if we did so.
>
> I'd prefer to make a concrete proposal about _how_ the data are
> anonymised and precisely what would be released, and then see if anyone
> can actually come up with a _real_ reason not to do that.

I agree here. I see absolutely no difference in publishing anonymized
votes and publishing other data we've recently taken measures to be
able to anonymize and release.

josh

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On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 17:05 -0400, David Woodhouse wrote:

> I think we, as a society, spend far too much time pandering to the
> tinfoil hat brigade who like to whine about their 'privacy' without
> actually being able to present any realistic situation in which the
> release of certain data actually causes them even a _theoretical_
> problem.

I'm among the tinfoil hat brigade when it comes to disclosing
information we didn't warn people about beforehand.


> I'd be very disappointed if we refused to release _anonymised_ vote data
> purely on the basis that we think there might be some nutter out there
> who wouldn't come out from under his table for a few days if we did so.

I'd be disappointed if we were yet another data point of groups who do
not handle their users information w/care.

It's such a cliche.

-sv




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On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 21:08 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 17:05 -0400, David Woodhouse wrote:
> > I'd be very disappointed if we refused to release _anonymised_ vote data
> > purely on the basis that we think there might be some nutter out there
> > who wouldn't come out from under his table for a few days if we did so.
>
> I'd be disappointed if we were yet another data point of groups who do
> not handle their users information w/care.
>
> It's such a cliche.

Can you explain how it wouldn't be handled with care if it was
anonymized?

josh

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On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 11:55 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 21:08 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
>> On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 17:05 -0400, David Woodhouse wrote:
>> > I'd be very disappointed if we refused to release _anonymised_ vote data
>> > purely on the basis that we think there might be some nutter out there
>> > who wouldn't come out from under his table for a few days if we did so.
>>
>> I'd be disappointed if we were yet another data point of groups who do
>> not handle their users information w/care.
>>
>> It's such a cliche.
>
> Can you explain how it wouldn't be handled with care if it was
> anonymized?
>

The issue is that the board is the steward of the data. How long does
the data get kept (what is Fedora's data retention policy?) and who is
allowed access to it is something the board should consider. Not just
for useful research, but fishing expeditions by some British Ministry
to see if David Woodhouse was voting or going to the Dr on such a date
and can be held for an additional 40 days because he forgot to mention
that when questioned. [Now David may think thats an ok situation, but
I would lose some sleep over it.. and I am just being selfish here.]

People may also have some 'legal' expectation of privacy unless told
otherwise by banners and signed agreements (updated CLA's). This would
also affect whether the board could give the data out (or have to do
some such thing that any member who comes from Netherlands can't have
their data aggregated with sets given out unless they were told it was
going to be done).

I have no problem with future election data being given away via some
approved anonymous data set, but I think that currently going ones and
past ones are closed



--
Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"

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I could certainly live with that.* The Fedora community obviously will be around for many years to come, and will hold a lot of elections.* So that's a treasure trove of data for election geeks and activists to study.


Also, for any of you who participated in the elections, I would love to hear your thoughts about the process of score voting at our discussion group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RangeVoting


Did it seem easy to choose a score compared to plain ol' "pick one" plurality voting, or ranked methods?* Was there any conflict about choosing to be expressive vs. strategic?* Any frustration at all?* We'd love to hear.


Thanks everyone for being so open-minded and discussing this issue.

Best,
Clay

On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 11:11, Stephen John Smoogen <smooge@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 11:55 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@gmail.com> wrote:


> On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 21:08 -0400, seth vidal wrote:

>> On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 17:05 -0400, David Woodhouse wrote:

>> > I'd be very disappointed if we refused to release _anonymised_ vote data

>> > purely on the basis that we think there might be some nutter out there

>> > who wouldn't come out from under his table for a few days if we did so.

>>

>> I'd be disappointed if we were yet another data point of groups who do

>> not handle their users information w/care.

>>

>> It's such a cliche.

>

> Can you explain how it wouldn't be handled with care if it was

> anonymized?

>



The issue is that the board is the steward of the data. How long does

the data get kept (what is Fedora's data retention policy?) and who is

allowed access to it is something the board should consider. Not just

for useful research, but fishing expeditions by some British Ministry

to see if David Woodhouse was voting or going to the Dr on such a date

and can be held for an additional 40 days because he forgot to mention

that when questioned. *[Now David may think thats an ok situation, but

I would lose some sleep over it.. and I am just being selfish here.]



People may also have some 'legal' expectation of privacy unless told

otherwise by banners and signed agreements (updated CLA's). This would

also affect whether the board could give the data out (or have to do

some such thing that any member who comes from Netherlands can't have

their data aggregated with sets given out unless they were told it was

going to be done).



I have no problem with future election data being given away via some

approved anonymous data set, but I think that currently going ones and

past ones are closed







--

Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed

in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"



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phone: 206.801.0484

"Iraq? No, YOU rock!"

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On Sat, 2008-07-26 at 12:11 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 11:55 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 21:08 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
> >> On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 17:05 -0400, David Woodhouse wrote:
> >> > I'd be very disappointed if we refused to release _anonymised_ vote data
> >> > purely on the basis that we think there might be some nutter out there
> >> > who wouldn't come out from under his table for a few days if we did so.
> >>
> >> I'd be disappointed if we were yet another data point of groups who do
> >> not handle their users information w/care.
> >>
> >> It's such a cliche.
> >
> > Can you explain how it wouldn't be handled with care if it was
> > anonymized?
> >
>
> The issue is that the board is the steward of the data. How long does
> the data get kept (what is Fedora's data retention policy?) and who is
> allowed access to it is something the board should consider. Not just
> for useful research, but fishing expeditions by some British Ministry
> to see if David Woodhouse was voting or going to the Dr on such a date
> and can be held for an additional 40 days because he forgot to mention
> that when questioned. [Now David may think thats an ok situation, but
> I would lose some sleep over it.. and I am just being selfish here.]

Explain to me releasing ANONYMOUS voting data would implicate anyone.

> People may also have some 'legal' expectation of privacy unless told
> otherwise by banners and signed agreements (updated CLA's). This would
> also affect whether the board could give the data out (or have to do
> some such thing that any member who comes from Netherlands can't have
> their data aggregated with sets given out unless they were told it was
> going to be done).

Again, how is privacy lost if the data is anonymous.

josh

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