No. Do you have evidence that anonymity would have mattered?

The vote totals seem in line with historical votes.

It's a politically controversial topic, and preference falsification is a well-documented sociological phenomenon in such circumstances.

If you want to know what people really think without the possibile influence of preference falsification, it needs to be an anonymous poll.

Sure, but do you have evidence it would have moved the needle in the vote. There are many, many well documented phenomena that influence every vote. While they may influence a small number of voters, I've yet to see any evidence that these results are not the genuinely held belief of most folks.

No, I don't have specific evidence, and I won't have it until we see an anonymous poll.

I do believe I have a very plausible hypothesis, though, and I find it sufficiently plausible that I'm going to reserve judgement on the true beliefs of people until we see that anonymous poll.

it is conceivable that voters who are pro-rms voted 'no statement' or 'further discussion' instead

How is it political? What politics are even involved? This very much is a personal issue with Stallman. His objectionable behavior isn’t tied to political beliefs, it’s tied to an individual’s moral and social failings.

Fine, it's just a plain-old controversial topic, then. The same sociological pressures that can lead to preference falsification are in play as with any contentious issue.

> If you want to know what people really think without the possibile influence of preference falsification, it needs to be an anonymous poll.

Which is exactly why we not only allow, but actually enforce it in elections. If your vote could have a strong impact on e.g. your future employment, you wouldn't be free to vote for what you think is best, you'd be compelled to vote for what you think is perceived best.

Except that's not Debian's agreed-to voting process.

I'd also point out that secret ballot is not universal in the US. Certainly the votes of elected officials are not secret. But neither are open votes at, say, a town hall meeting.

> Except that's not Debian's agreed-to voting process.

I'm not suggesting they'd have to do that, I'm saying that there's a very good reason why we usually do that. As organizations become more and more political, I expect that to hit harder and for more of them to adopt secret voting.

> Certainly the votes of elected officials are not secret.

And I find that reasonable. You want to know whether the person you voted for actually does what they said. In Germany, parliament votes are public, but important votes are secret.

For the less important votes, they'll just ask for raised hands and note who won, but not who voted in what way (we now have TV channels film the votes and then use interns to determine who voted what).

For important votes, they're done secretly: you can tell who voted, but not what they voted for. There's no way to hold them accountable, the system is working as intended.

Are you asking for evidence that secret ballots prevent voter intimidation? Or evidence that people are harassed online for their stance on this specific issue?

>our comparison of survey results with official election truth indicates that the use of a so-called secret ballot yields more accurate, valid self-reports of voting on socially sensitive ballot issues, such as supporting taxes for elderly services.

https://academic.oup.com/poq/article-abstract/59/4/568/19401...

>regression analysis shows that social forces appear to have a greater effect on vote choices among people who doubt the formal secrecy of the ballot.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23526132

Neither. I'm asking for evidence that this phenomena would have materially moved the result. I'm willing to believe that 5% of people cast a vote here contrary to their opinions (though that feels high). Even so, the results likely don't shift materially.