Lars Noodén via Dng wrote:
> sudoedit is running as root there, but it is not itself an editor.
>
> You can verify for yourself that the editor runs under the unprivileged
> account.  Here is an example of using sudoedit to fire up Geany:
>
> $ EDITOR=geany sudoedit /etc/group &
>
> $ ps -p $(pgrep -d , 'sudoedit|geany') -o user,pid,ppid,args
> USER         PID    PPID COMMAND
> root      221381  221316 sudoedit /etc/group
> lars      221382  221381 geany /var/tmp/group.XXm6gNkW
>
> As you see, sudoedit is a wrapper which supervises the editor and a
> temporary file.
>
I see.  Was confused not seeing "vi" in process list, only sudoedit. 
Turns out, it was running as /usr/bin/editor (as local user, not root). 
Thanks for your explanation and patience :-)