Add election voting to ruby.org.au

[quintrino]

Having the option for voting to take place inside ruby.org.au

Ideally it should be rated voting. I found this video very inspiring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf7ws2DF-zk

https://github.com/ryanto/acts_as_votable seems to offer the functionality.

I think ideally the poll page would be public, but actual voting would required sign in.

[Cueball]

Agree with point that ordinal voting shouldn't be considered ideal

Thoughts:

• We can choose the system we use for c'tee elections; no problem there
• As of 2019, General Meetings are "online first" - voting system should also be online
• Executive roles (Prez, VP, Treaz and Sec) are obviously single-winner elections
  • Using a cardinal voting system for those makes lots of sense
• I prefer KHE's explanation (from 8 years ago? wow 🤯):
  • Part 1 - Voting Systems and the Condorcet Paradox | Infinite Series
  • Part 2 - Arrow's Impossibility Theorem | Infinite Series
• Also mention that cardinal voting systems still have flaws - it's just that they have different flaws that are (probably!) less significant than any ordinal system 😁
• Potential issue with Ordinary Committee Members:
  • That's a multiple-winner election (all linked videos only deal with single-winner scenarios)
  • Multiple winners makes result likely more representative of the group preference
  • But comes at cost of significantly higher complexity
  • Cardinal voting systems aren't necessarily guaranteed to produce a more consistent result for multiple winners (vs. ordinal voting)
  • No recommendation here, except checking WP:Comparison of voting rules for multi-winner systems
• For forthcoming 2025 AGM, had anticipated we would use Slack with the Accord bot
  • For Prez and Sec, suggest we use the STAR method
  • Accord bot docs on STAR method
  • Which system to use for OCMs election? Not entirely sure 🤔
  • When political "parties" aren't involved, using "approval" voting may well be close to optimal (despite it seeming paradoxically simple)
  • See Proportional Approval Voting
  • See Phragmen's_voting_rules
• Additional consideration necessary:
  • All voting systems are hard to get right
  • Implementing one internally - while possible - may have unexpected repercussions

[quintrino]

I think while some voting systems have flaws, that's unlikely to have a major effect on our process or produce sub-optimal outcomes for Ruby Australia unless there's a significant change in our voting goes. (greater voting individuals, more competition, etc) so I think exploring the high complexity issues of these is something better suited for a latter interation of the committee.

Voting on the ruby.org.au using rated voting (most likely using acts_as_votable) should be the goal of this ticket.

It doesn't need to be perfect, it needs to be done. 😛

[reentim]

From a development perspective, I'd be happy pick this up and proceed along the lines of one of the rated voting variants with acts_as_votable or similar.

There's a few more details needed for a first pass:

• I assume highest total score wins?
• How many points will candidates be graded on?

Not necessarily needed for a first pass, but probably needed before this is actually used:

• UI considerations:
  • presumably checkbox if using approval voting (candidates graded on approve / disapprove basis)?
    • otherwise, a slider? numeric entry?
  • how are the candidates ordered? alphabetically? shuffled per request? shuffled once per election?
• validating results
  • it looks like acts_as_votable will add votes table, that's good. As a safeguard, I imagine users should, at the very least, be able to see their own (and other memeber's) voting record?

Constitutional considerations (in which I attempt to put my pol. sci. degree to use):

13.2.2 A member is entitled to vote if— [...] the member's membership rights are not suspended for any reason.

I don't see this anywhere in the database schema. How is it currently managed?

I imagine any new system would be bound by:

37 Voting at general meeting

1. On any question arising at a general meeting—

   1. subject to subrule 3, each member who is entitled to vote has one vote; and
   2. members may vote personally or by proxy; and
   3. except in the case of a special resolution, the question must be decided on a majority of votes.

2. If votes are divided equally on a question, the person that has a second or casting vote is the President, or in the President’s absence, the Vice President, or in both their absence, the Chairperson.

3. If the question is whether or not to confirm the minutes of a previous meeting, only members who were present at that meeting may vote.

4. This rule does not apply to a vote at a disciplinary appeal meeting conducted under rule 24.

and

61 Voting

1. On any question arising at a committee meeting, each committee member present at the meeting has one vote.

2. A motion is carried if a majority of committee members present at the meeting vote in favour of the motion.

3. Subrule 2 does not apply to any motion or question which is required by these Rules to be passed by an absolute majority of the Committee.

4. If votes are divided equally on a question, the Chairperson of the meeting has a second or casting vote.

but I don't see a general definition of what a vote is, so I guess, provided any new system conforms to the above, it would be possible to adopt without an alteration of rules by special resolution of a general meeting of the Association?

[quintrino]

I assume highest total score wins?

Correct.

How many points will candidates be graded on?

While it's mechanically the same, I think -5 to +5 is more emotionally appealing than 0 to 10.

Lets try a slider with a numerical display of what it's set to.

shuffled per request seems the most fair.

Be able to see their own vote? Yes, be able to see others votes? No.
Although committee/admin being able to see if individuals have voted at all in a vote would probably be useful.

Committee should also be able to see how many people have voted in a vote.

We have been fortunate that we haven't had to suspend members from Ruby Australia.
I'd just use whether they are deactivated or not. But feel free to create a seperate ticket to support suspension in the website, but it is outside the scope of this ticket.

members may vote personally or by proxy; and

Good point, I hadn't thought about proxies, and as we haven't had anyone use our proxy system I suspect it would be an under utilized feature.
Develop the overall system first, and then flesh out proxies as a final feature.
But I suppose I would picture it working as when someone is assigned as a proxy, when they cast their vote, it also casts the votes of the people who have given them their proxy in the same way.
I think the way it would work is that committee/admin would be able to go in "assign" another member as a proxy.
Members who logged in to vote would see "Your vote has currently been proxied to > name of user" and then a greyed out version of their vote. And they could choose to "revoke" their proxy and issue their own vote.
(again, this feels an important aspect of the code, but important to v2)

except in the case of a special resolution, the question must be decided on a majority of votes.

I think once the election finishes (which can be by deadline or manually by admin) the results become public.
I don't think the actual numbers need to be public, just the order of the results.

It's much harder emotionally to know you got a single vote instead of knowing you got second place.

v1:
In the event of a tie I think you could just show
1st tied Apples
1st tied Oranges
and then have the second vote announced publicly.
v2:
Would require a person being publicly listed on the vote as a "secondary person" and their personal vote only being counted twice.

61 Voting

relates to committee meetings rather than general meetings which we wouldn't use this level of complexity for. It's just for large scale votes involving the overall membership of Ruby Australia.

If you have additional questions based on this, let me know.

[Cueball]

@quintrino please put a hold on this for now (I've DM'd you on Slack too).