During an election current example, the sidebar reads (in part):
The vote tallies are private until the election is complete.
After 8 days, the final voting results will be freely downloadable from this page forever, and we will calculate the winners using OpenSTV with the Meek STV method.
The first line means that even though you can see your votes throughout the election (and even change them) other people can't. The second line means that when the election is completed, the ballot file that feeds into OpenSTV will be made available for as long as the site exists. Putting those two together makes it seem like your votes will be revealed for the world to see once the winners are announced. That's an unsettling prospect.
Of course, that's a mistaken impression. Your vote is aggregated with everyone else's and published only to allow the election to be audited. My suggested copy change is:
Your votes are always private; only the aggregated tally will be made public.
When the election is complete, the ballot file will be freely downloadable from this page for the life of the site. We calculate the winners using OpenSTV with the Meek STV method.
