At 03:57 PM 11/16/2005, Paul Kislanko wrote: >It may be we're making this too complicated, but as a somewhat educated >layman with respect to EMs and a very interested voter, I notice these >important points. > >1) MY vote as an individual voter MUST be by secret ballot. >I have very recent experience with just the knowledge of which primary I >voted in being used to strike me from the voting rolls for the general >election. There's "coercion" and many more forms of dis-enfranchisement. If >I were to vote for a proxy, I'd want which proxy I voted for kept secret.
I think that in any delegable proxy election in government, that option should exist. I'm not working personally on governmental methods, because, in spite of their importance, I consider them secondary. However, it would be quite simple to have a base layer proxy assignment which is secret ballot. Citizens then can choose to vote secretly or openly. If enough desire it, then *all* would vote secretly; this means that any proxy would have also voted, so the proxy would only exercise votes received in the election, not the proxy's own vote (though the proxy could have voted for himself or herself, and thus *would* be voting for himself or herself). >2) But the votes BY the proxy MUST be be "public" - at least to the ones who >delegated their vote to them. Yes. And because the identity of the latter is secret, as Paul would have it, it must simply be public. While there might be a way to encrypt voting data, I think that the secrecy is far too hazardous. It's really the same issue as with present representatives: should votes in the legislature be secret? I don't think any of us would think so.... >The reason? If I delegate X as a proxy, it is because I voted for "X's >proposed ballot configuration". Well, I'd suggest you should vote for X if you trust X, and, I'd suggest, under delegable proxy, it would be quite practical for you to restrict your voting to people whom you personally know and with whom you can reliably communicate.... > If X's actual ballot is not available for my >review, then if my alternative loses the election I have no way of knowing >if it was because a majority didn't like it, or my proxy was lying when she >said she would vote my preference. There are lots of reasons why proxy actions should be public.... The real power of proxy democracy will be in deliberation; a proxy is an attorney-in-fact, and the actions of an attorney-in-fact might possibly be secret from anyone but the client, but if the client is secret even to the attorney-in-fact, the only way for the client to know how the attorney is functioning is for that functioning to be public. ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
