115 lines
5.3 KiB
Text
115 lines
5.3 KiB
Text
# Why This Fork of GNOME Foundation's Voting System?
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When I was setting up Conservancy's ability to run elections for its member
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projects, I surveyed various different systems. There are precious few Free
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Software voting systems. [Selectricity](http://selectricity.org/) is a good
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option, but upon discussions with the primary author, Benjamin "Mako" Hill,
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he confirmed that it does not currently implement any of the algorithms
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designed for multiple winner elections. So, if you want a preferential
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voting system with just one winner, Selectricity is probably the best choice.
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Meanwhile, [openstv](http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/openstv) is a
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command-line based system that implements all sorts of voting algorithms, but
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it has no vote-collection system. (It's also worth noting that openstv has
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since been taken proprietary, but older versions that were released as Free
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Software are still available.)
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GNOME Foundation, noticing this, implemented their own little hacked-together
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system to collect votes for their annual Directorship elections, and they
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have the code available in their
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[GNOME Foundation website repository](https://git.gnome.org/browse/foundation-web/).
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This project is a fork of that repository, with *just* the voting stuff
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included. Most of the GNOME-isms have been removed, although a few remain.
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I've also offered patches back to the GNOME Foundation repository by
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cherry-picking changes that are of use to both projects.
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Having spent 10-20 hours poking around this PHP code, I must frankly say that
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this isn't a well-designed system, and I don't really recommend it. However,
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if you need to run a few elections, using this system, by following the
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instructions below, might be your quickest way to get an election up and
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running. (Note: the instructions herein are loosely based on
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[instructions available on the GNOME Foundation's wiki](https://wiki.gnome.org/MembershipCommittee/ElectionsHowTo),
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although those instructions are somewhat GNOME specific. I believe these
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instructions below are fully self-contained now, such that you don't have to
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read the GNOME Foundation's instructions as secondary information).
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# Setting up an election
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0. vote/include/election-sql.php expects a secret config file that exists
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only on the server and is included as PHP code. It's hard coded currently
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to: /home/admin/secret/anonvoting currently.
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The file should look something like this:
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<?php
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$mysql_host = "localhost";
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$mysql_user = "someuser";
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$mysql_password = "somepassword";
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$mysql_db = "somedb";
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$committee_name = "The Vote Masters";
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$committee_email = "elections@example.org";
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?>
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1. When I deploy, I create an account for the election, as the mysql root user:
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mysql -u root -p
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Password: <MYSQLROOTPW>
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Then Run these commands at the mysql> prompt:
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CREATE USER 'someusername' identified by 'somepassword';
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CREATE DATABASE somedbname;
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Then, exit, and at the main command line run:
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msyql -u root -p -D somedbname < ..../vote/include/schema.sql
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Then run this again:
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mysql -u root -p
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Password: <MYSQLROOTPW>
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and at the mysql command line, run these grant commands:
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GRANT SELECT on somedb.elections TO someuser@localhost;
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GRANT SELECT on somedb.election_choices TO someuser@localhost;
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GRANT SELECT,DELETE on somedb.election_tmp_tokens TO someuser@localhost;
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GRANT SELECT on somedb.election_voters TO someuser@localhost;
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GRANT SELECT,INSERT on somedb.election_anon_tokens TO someuser@localhost;
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GRANT SELECT,INSERT on somedb.election_votes TO someuser@localhost;
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2. Create an election, with something like this:
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mysql -u root -D somedb -p
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SET NAMES 'utf8';
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INSERT t INTO elections (type, name, voting_start, voting_end, choices_nb, question) VALUES ("elections", "2011 Spring Election", "2011-05-29 00:00:00", "2011-06-12 23:59:59", "7", "Which candidates would you like to see Elected?");
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set @el_id = @@IDENTITY;
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INSERT INTO election_choices (election_id, choice) VALUES
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(@el_id, 'Candidate 1'),
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(@el_id, 'Candidate 2'),
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(@el_id, 'Candidate 3'),
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(@el_id, 'Candidate 4');
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INSERT INTO election_voters (election_id, email_address) VALUES
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(@el_id, 'voter1@example.org'),
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(@el_id, 'voter2@example.org'),
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(@el_id, 'voter3@example.com'),
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(@el_id, 'voter4@example.net');
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INSERT INTO election_tmp_tokens (election_id, election_voter_id, tmp_token)
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SELECT @el_id, id, SUBSTRING(MD5(RAND()) FROM 1 FOR 24) AS tmp_token
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FROM election_voters where election_id = @el_id;
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select @el_id;
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That number you see at the end is this election's id. The URL you'll
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give out is thus something like:
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http://example.org/vote.php?election_id=THAT_NUMBER
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Dealing With Problems
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=====================
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## Missing Ballots
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Voters might complain that they haven't received their token. Likely, it
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either went missing or the email address was wrongly noted in the
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database. In any case, you need to find the ID of the voter With the ID do
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something like:
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SELECT * FROM election_tmp_tokens WHERE election_id = 17 AND election_voter_id = $ID;
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