[Foundation-l] Raw data of 2009 Board election ballots

[Tim Starling]

Let me say for the record that I'm not at all happy with this data
being released, since it allows vote-buying. Even if the numbers given
by voters are reduced to the smallest values which still give the same
rankings, with 18 candidates there are 18 factorial possible
orderings. That number is sufficiently higher than the number of
voters that a party wishing to buy votes can specify a voter-specific
ticket with some random rankings, and be reasonably assured that if
that ticket appears in the final unencrypted dump, then the contract
was fulfilled and money can be transferred to the voter.

In 2008 the unencrypted votes were rapidly released, but I was not
involved in that decision.

This year, I don't think I have been asked directly to provide this
data, but it seems that the Board and election committee is in favour
of it being released, and nobody else has offerred to produce the
data. So I just wrote the relevant script, and am now testing it, so
the results will be available to the committee and the Board shortly.

-- Tim Starling