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2011 Arbitration Committee Elections

• WP:ACE2011

Status

• Thank you for participating in the 2011 Arbitration Committee Election. The results have been verified and published.
• Please offer your feedback on the Election process.

v t e 2011 Arbitration Committee Elections Voter log Contact the coordinators Discuss the elections Give your feedback Candidates Candidate guide Candidate statements Questions for the candidates Discuss the candidates Voter guides These guides represent only the views of their authors. All guides written responsibly, seriously and in good faith are welcome for inclusion. Elonka Monty845 Master&Expert Heimstern NuclearWarfare Joe Gazz84 Sven Manguard HJ Mitchell Badger Drink Rschen7754 Carcharoth Guerillero Ealdgyth SandyGeorgia RegentsPark Kiefer.Wolfowitz Wizardman William M. Connolley

An archive of older discussions can be found at /Archive 1.

Examine the ACE voter log!

Or, "wabbit season is now open"

In addition to the real time vote log via the securepoll interface, we have a bot populated voter log right here, which has the username of every user who has voted. We need help inspecting the log for any irregularities such as: someone voting on multiple accounts, a banned user voting on any account, victim of an account or browser hijacking registering a vote that the account owner didn't intend. Take a look at 2009's voter log for examples of what we're looking for. Thank you for all the help!

--Tznkai (talk) 21:50, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Voter numbers and election publicity

Is anyone keeping track of whether the number of votes cast at this stage of the elections is more or less than at the same (or similar) stage last year or the year before (those were both SecurePoll elections, I think)? I'm asking because I made a comment here that indirectly asks that question. Also, is there a list of where and when notices have been left about this election? Such a 'publicity list' should be made each time, as trying to reconstruct such a list from digging through page histories is difficult. Carcharoth (talk) 14:13, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

With four days to go in a 14 day voting period, there have been 578 votes cast in this year's election.

With four days remaining in the 10-day voting period of 2010, there were 574 votes cast; final turnout 854.

With four days to go in the 14 day voting period in 2009, there were 770 votes cast; final turnout 994.

Imprecise comparisons, but perhaps useful.

See the coordinators' talkpage for discussions of notices; no publicity list has yet been compiled to my knowledge. Skomorokh 14:23, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the stats. Looking through the contributions of the co-ordinators should enable some list to be made at some point for this year. It was when I considered comparing that to where and when and how often there was publicity in previous years, that I realised this is only possible if a similar list of notices and their details was made in previous years. If the numbers end up being lower this year, that downward trend might be something to raise on the feedback page. What I was wondering is whether the previous elections had any last-minute publicity push to make sure no-one who would have wanted to vote was unaware of the elections, and whether that is happening this year or not? I have a vague memory of "last few days left to vote" notices being left last year, but might be mis-remembering that. Carcharoth (talk) 14:47, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

In 2010, 321 people had voted after 47 hours. I don't know how this compares to his year though. The figure comes from Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2010/Archive 3#Encouraging others to vote. That thread also has complains about lack of publicity. Thryduulf (talk) 17:22, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

In the end raw votes cast were 734 in contrast to 854 in 2010. That's 120 less and amounts to a 14 % decline, the same as between 2009 and 2010. --Tikiwont (talk) 21:26, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, that pretty much rules out the voting period length as a major cause of declining participation. Jclemens (talk) 21:48, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Would there be any privacy or other issues in comparing the voter logs for the past 2 years to make a list of those who voted in 2010 but not this year and determining which of them are still active and asking them for their reasons for not voting this year? Thryduulf (talk) 23:49, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Curiosity caused me to scrape the data from Special:SecurePoll and manually extract the unique voters, with these results:

Johnuniq (talk) 07:44, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Releasing results?

When will the preliminary results be released?

Last year, it seems that 2 of the 3 scrutineers had already certified results by now .... Should we stay up or reward our public with beauty sleep?

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:24, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The tally of the votes will be released once the scrutineers are satisfied everything is above board; that will take up to a week. Judging by previous years, no amount of comments, questions, requests for updates and so forth is likely to have any impact whatsoever on that timeline, so for all (both?) you election junkies out there, ample beauty sleep and/or article writing is encouraged. Skomorokh 00:33, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Skomorokh!

Last year, voting ended on the 5th, which made it easier to post results on the 10th or 11th.

Cheers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:38, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

You're most welcome. If you want to suggest an earlier scheduling (or any other changes for future elections), now is the perfect time to kick off a discussion on the feedback page. Skomorokh 00:46, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the scrutineers know that they can take as long as they judge necessary to ensure the election is honest and proper. This might be a day or it might be five: we just don't tell, and nor should we be able to. Tony (talk) 09:12, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to the candidates

I forgot to vote. So I thought I would try to make up for it by thanking all the candidates. --FormerIP (talk) 00:44, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

ACE2011 denied banner advertising on the basis of a local interpretation of the legitimacy of the RfC?

Risker has raised an interesting point of which I was quite unaware:

"This year's RFC was considered to be so poorly participated in that the people who control the MediaWiki interface felt quite justified in refusing to allow a site banner advising of the election, for example; when those site-wide banners ran to all users, even for a few days, there was considerably more participation."

I believe it's of great concern that a group of people in another place made their own interpretation of the level of participation in the RfC before ACE2011, and dismissed the legitimacy of the RfC. Does this mean that they used their privileged position, exclusive of the community, to make an important decision to the disadvantage of the electoral process? Is the denial of site-wide banner advertising part of the reason the voter numbers are down this year? It seems extraordinary that the community was given one set of RfC closures by trusted admins in a very public place where we could all see the outcomes, yet behind the scenes other people used their power to negatively affect the community's awareness of a critical event for en.WP.

I'd be very pleased to be informed that I'm wrong. Tony (talk) 09:47, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

It's well known that I'm not a fan of our overlords, who are neither all knowing nor particularly benevolent. The problem is that they still are pretty all powerful, and we're pretty stuck with them. Unless everyone decides to leave at the same time and start a new, WMF free fork, we're going to have to live with them. It's not a major problem now, but every time the WMF decides to overrule the community, more and more people lose faith in the WMF. I lost faith in them a long time ago, I wonder how many more stupid mistakes they're going to make before more people become as bitter as I am. Sven Manguard Wha? 10:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

This has absolutely nothing to do with off-wiki machinations or the WMF; it was a decision made in public by local administrators. The relevant discussion is here. Skomorokh 13:35, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Apologies. It would appear that I was pegging this particular violation on the wrong behind the scenes group. (My contempt for the WMF is not diminished though). Sven Manguard Wha? 14:39, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

As Skomorokh said, it was not "behind the scenes", but an open discussion held in public. All the above really seems to demonstrate is that if someone (you) are (self-admittedly) bitter about something, you will jump to the wrong conclusions. Though in mitigation, the wording "the people who control the MediaWiki interface" can be interpreted several ways. You seem to have assumed that refers to the WMF, when that part of the interface is actually something that can be modified by any admin (I think). Though people are rightly wary of making changes to a notice that is displayed to all users. Wheel-warring over that would likely and ironically have led to some sort of arbitration request. It is a rather esoteric location anyway. Look at the page history and try and work out how to make changes there. Compare it to the page history at the watchlist notice. Technical stuff like this tends to, by its nature, discourage random admins from doing stuff like this, similar to how only a few people know how to edit and use spam blacklists and whitelists. Trouble is, that can lead to only a few people actually doing anything in a particular area and effectively becoming both a single point of (potential) failure (similar to when a widely used bot goes down without a replacement) and a fiefdom. Carcharoth (talk) 03:28, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I've started discussions in order to attract more eyes to the Sitenotice issue during the election: here, here, here, and here, but only a few people decided to participate in those discussions. There should've been more people complaining during the election rather than waiting until the election ended. The other problem is that the !voters who has their !votes overturned at MediaWiki_talk:Sitenotice#ACE2011_Edit_Request weren't aware of the discussion. I didn't know about it, and judging from Sven Manguard's apology above, he or she might have not known about that discussion as well. There was a serious lack in communication. A note should've been added to the RfC or its talk page. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:54, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of it, and I'm an election coordinator. Tony (talk) 00:28, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

This issue was raised in several places including on the co-ordinators' page here. And I raised it indirectly here (by the link to my comment at the sitenotice talk page). At least one of the co-ordinators replied to me there, so I assumed all of them knew of this. How could you have not been aware of this? This is definitely one of the things that needs to be codified, though this time a note can perhaps be left at that talk page so that those watching that page can then argue against it if they wish to do so. Carcharoth (talk) 03:10, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Chart on participation in 2010 and 2011

There has been low-intensity edit-warring about a chart, that seemed informative and relevant to this page. (Perhaps I am missing something.)

Will anybody explain the deletions and reinsertions, please?

Thanks!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:59, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow. I would have thought something called "secure poll" would be a bit more secure than that. --FormerIP (talk) 13:09, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

What, exactly, do you think is insecure about it? The names of the users who have voted is, and always has been, public knowledge; that is a vital element of transparency. The way those users voted is, of course, secret, and always will be. Happy‑melon 13:22, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not a normal element of transparency in elections, though, is it? Why do I need to know who voted? --FormerIP (talk) 13:42, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it is unusual to you, but certainly it is public information in just about every democracy *who* voted. What isn't public is *how* they voted. The list of voters for SecurePoll is public information, always has been, and it is perfectly acceptable for it to be used for statistical purposes. I am fairly certain that it has been used for statistical purposes, including comparisons to back when the votes themselves were public, over several elections. I seem to recall a Signpost article on this subject a few years ago. Risker (talk) 13:54, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

No, I think it most democracies it would be illegal to disclose lists of people who voted. You normally vote in a secret ballot. I think its decidedly odd that we break from that normal expectation without telling users up front. --FormerIP (talk) 14:08, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

No it's not illegal. Quite frankly no one discloses who voted because no one really cares, except when you sometimes hear that someone running for office hasn't voted since Jimmy Carter was in the White House or something like that. Hot Stop talk-contribs 14:36, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) In modern democracies the ballot is secret, but the lists of voters (both of individuals who are eligible to vote, and of individuals who actually did vote) is not. The integrity of the voting process breaks down if the public cannot verify that the voter's list hasn't been padded with ineligible (or fictitious, or deceased) voters' names, or if there's no way to detect ballots that have been stuffed under the names of voters who didn't actually vote. Depending on your jurisdiction there may be paperwork to fill out, or you may have to be affiliated with a political party or candidate, or you may just be able to walk in off the street and ask at clerk's desk—but there will be a mechanism for just about anyone to see the voter's list. While many people may be unaware of this aspect of their democracies, it's certainly not an unusual practice. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I still don't think that's correct, Ten. In the US (which isn't in any case "most democracies", there is are lists of voter registrations. In the UK, for example (and I know this for certain fact), you have the right not to have your registration info made available and records of who actually voted are anonymised and then destroyed. --FormerIP (talk) 14:49, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

In the UK, the full electoral register (not the edited version available for commercial sale, which you can opt out of) is a public document that is available for viewing by members of the public. They won't give you a copy except under certain very limited circumstances, but anyone can walk in off the street and have a look. See, for example, Electoral roll#United Kingdom, or here, here, or here. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

TenOfAllTrades is correct. After each election in the UK, the official list of people who actually cast their vote is made available to the political parties (there is a fee to be paid). It's known as the 'marked register'. (The parties may also have their own record because in closely fought elections, they have tellers outside polling stations to take the numbers from people who have voted). Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:43, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

OK Sam, you're right about the existence of the marked register, but it isn't a public document. --FormerIP (talk) 17:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

It is widely available. See page 7 of this PDF from the electoral commission. Thryduulf (talk) 17:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2011/Log – It appears to be a means to prevent voter fraud. Some votes are being struck out (eg. ). Without public scrutiny, unscrupulous users could potentially strike out innocent votes in order to influence the election's outcome without anyone knowing. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:43, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I can certainly confirm that this is the case in Canada, at least. It's one of the favourite sports of journalists when an election has been close in a riding.  :-) — Coren  14:44, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Knowing who voted in a normal election is as simple as sitting outside the polling station watching people come and go; teams of monitors affiliated to political parties do so all the time. Happy‑melon 15:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

But you don't have to give them your name. I'm blown to bits by the fact that everyone is defending this, though. Should users not have a right to cast a vote without being publicly logged and monitored? --FormerIP (talk) 17:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

You don't have to give them your name? Voter fraud? Hot Stop talk-contribs 17:16, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You don't have to give the tellers your name, you do have to give your name and/or show your polling card (which has your name and voter number on it) to the officials manning the polling booth. Those officials mark you off on their register to say that you have cast a ballot. After the election this register ("the marked electoral register") can be examined, currently, by anyone who wants to. Anyway, regardless of what happens in real world elections, the voter log for Misplaced Pages elections is explicitly public, has always been so, and is thus available for anyone to examine. Thryduulf (talk)

(edit conflict)I can not speak for other jurisdictions in the United States, but in the State of New York, the official procedure for voting instructs the election workers to call out the name of each voter when they sign the voter registry, so that any election observers present may record them, compare them against any lists they have, and if they have cause, challenge the eligibility of the voter to vote. In actual practice, most polling stations either don't have observers present, or the observers don't care to have the names announced, but who actually votes is certainly public information if anyone cares to find it out. Monty₈₄₅ 17:42, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

As a side note, still in 2008 the votes themselves were also public, rightly changed. --Tikiwont (talk) 17:27, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Monty, what you're describing in NY doesn't sound to me like publicly available lists, it just sounds like list available for the purposes of administration. But whatever.

What would be wrong with putting a message on the voting page just telling people that there will be a public log of usernames? --FormerIP (talk) 17:58, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Makes sense. Hot Stop talk-contribs 18:07, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I see no reason why that couldn't be included, but I'm honestly surprised you did not expect this list to be a normal part of election transparency. I can think of no way except making it available to make sure that everybody who voted was counted and nobody who didn't was. Otherwise, we end up with scenarios like "734 people voted, here are the counts. Trust us." While I have no hesitation to, in fact, trust the current scrutineers and election officials, being unable to check that information would be very harmful to transparency. — Coren  18:51, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see that it does much for election transparency. If I were to allege the election was rigged, I don't see how being able to point to a list of voters, but not how they voted, would satisfy me.

I don't think most users would be expecting it. Not that we have to model our practices on any particular RL election, I really don't think that it is normal for this type of list to be public. Maybe in some jurisdictions, but not normal and I can't see any good reason for it. It's also not expected because it's an online form, and we normally expect data we provide using online forms to be confidential to the public (at least if the website is reputable).--FormerIP (talk) 19:03, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe that in the United States, records showing who voted are generally public records. I know that in New Jersey, they are public records. The information is not necessarily provided in as convenient a form as the SecurePoll voter list, but it is publicly available. So it seems perfectly "normal" to me. Of course, as others have said, how "regular" elections are conducted is of little relevance here. The SecurePoll voter list for this election has been posted and remains visible. I see no justification for removing the table that was based on that publicly available information. (I am not sure what lessons, if any, can be drawn from the table, other than that participation went down from one year to the next, but that has nothing to do with whether the table should have been removed.) Neutron (talk) 19:10, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

@FormerIP: If the voting log were private and its oversight were conducted by a group of "trusted" scrutineers, then who watches the scrutineers? I believe that the solution to that problem would be to have everyone (ie. the public) become the scrutineers' scrutineers. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 21:09, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, you've forced me into it. How elections are run in the United States is not a good guide to how Misplaced Pages or anything else should run things.

Editors who live in places where elections are run differently will not be expecting their names to be posted on a public list because they voted. This is especially the case since the voting is done my means of an online form, which people normally expect to produce secure data. I've given up caring about whether its a good idea or a bad idea. It just seems like a fairly pointless idea and the notion that it ensures transparency is just cobblers.

But what would be wrong with simply informing editors at the point where they vote? --FormerIP (talk) 21:23, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Didn't Special:SecurePoll/vote/240 contain a link to Special:SecurePoll/list/240? Does anyone have a copy of what Special:SecurePoll/vote/240 used to said? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 21:40, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

All of the above is a mildly interesting distraction to the question asked at the top of this section: why was the inclusion of the table, based on publicly-available data, reverted by Ebe123 and Sven without explanation ? (I don't count an edit summary "Wth?" as particularly enlightening). Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 18:00, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! My goal was only to stop the edit-warring by encouraging a discussion. Nonetheless, I would be interested in explanations. (I admit to some jealousy that another editor had a contribution removed by Sven! I thought we had a special relationship!)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:41, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages Arbitration Committee Elections 2011