On Aug 16, 2008, at 5:24 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote:
On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 07:27:10 -0700 Jonathan Lundell wrote:
On Aug 16, 2008, at 12:54 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
I am for a record on disk of each ballot, but done in a maner
to not destroy secrecy.
You have to be very careful when doing so, because there are many
channels to secure. A vote-buyer might tell you to vote exactly
at noon so that the disk record timestamp identifies you, or he
might, in the case of Approval and ranked ballots, tell you to
vote for not just his preferred candidate, but both the low-
support communist and the low-support right extremist as well, so
that he can tell which ballot was yours and that you voted
correctly.
In the US, at least, voting by mail has become so prevalent that I
wonder whether it's worthwhile making voting machinery absolutely
impregnable to vote-buying. All else being equal, sure, why not,
but if we trade off other desirable properties to preserve
secrecy, and leave the vote-by-mail door unlocked....
There are two topics here:
I LIKE the secret ballot, have had it most of my life, and know
many others have similar desires for good reason. That thought
inspired my words at the top.
Vote buying needs discouraging, but I concede perfection is less
essential here.
Voting by mail requires humans obeying rules. I believe the rules
in NY still require placing the ballots in an anonymous stack
without humans reading their content while having the voter's
identity associated.
California, too, or a method to that effect. It's vote-buying (or
coercion) that vote-by-mail enables.
The Civitas system has something to say about that, but it requires
quite a few other conditions to make it work.
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
