Public voting is not status quo outside of Debian. In the real world the only places that have public voting are places that are controlled by dictators.
I do think ranked choice voting is dumb and adds low value and high complexity. This thread with hundreds of comments affirms that notion.
To me, Debian Developer feels more like a position of responsibility and representation than a member of the public. But I'm not one, and I don't know what the expectations are.