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

[Tim Starling]

Stephen Bain wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 3:26 AM, Thomas Dalton<thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm inclined to agree. I just don't see any sufficient benefit to
>> releasing the data to make it worth the risk. Why do people want this
>> information? Is it just because they don't trust the vote count?
> 
> Because they know in their hearts that the Schulze method is stupid,
> and their heads just want to make sure.

Note that it's possible to run a number of different voting methods on
the election just from the pairwise defeats matrix, which was released
from the start. I can release results aggregated in a few other ways,
if that would make people happier, especially if someone is prepared
to write the code.

Also, it's possible to set up a web page which lets you check if a
given encrypted record (receipt) was included in the final count. From
a vote-buying prevention perspective, we can't automatically confirm
to the voter what the contents of that vote was, but we can do some
random spot checks.

The Schulze method is indeed non-ideal for a multi-winner election, I
don't think anyone who understands the cloneproof property disputes
that. Multi-winner elections should use a proportional method such as
STV. Markus Schulze himself has been developing a multi-winner
election method which combines STV with Condorcet winner concepts. But
that's a discussion for the next election, what's done is done.

-- Tim Starling