On 9/21/08, Michael Allan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > To compete effectively, however, it must meet two requirements: 1) > sufficient voter turnout in the medium; and 2) faithful carriage of > votes from the medium to the principal polls. First of all, its voter > turnout must be high enough to indicate solid electoral support for > the leading candidates. It need not equal the levels of principal > turnout, nor perhaps even primary turnout, but it ought to be high > enough that the candidates could extrapolate the results, and > accurately gauge their support among the wider electorate.
It might also be worth discussing possible renormalisation of votes here to cancel out participation bias. Also, it might be worth adding in actual participation bias in the final election. This would mean that if a segment of the population tends to vote, then this could be reflected in one of the results. > The second requirement is that the voters must faithfully carry their > votes over to the principal polls on election day (step 2). They > would have to translate assent from a communicative medium to a mass > medium. Figure 7 shows what is involved in the translation. From the > perspective of the voter, she recalls the name of the candidate who > currently holds her vote in the cascade (a name she knows well enough, > or her delegate reminds her) and then she casts a vote for that same > candidate at the principal polling station. Also, this protects against corruption of the system. If voters vote due to intimidation or vote buying, then they can still vote the other direction in the final election. OTOH, there is risk of people defecting. One of the first things that the person elected in such a way might do is change the basic election system so that people are more likely to vote in the same direction as the original communication system. A good system for the final vote might be plurality, but requiring that the winner have 50% or more. If the plurality winner doesn't get 50%+, then a new election must be held. This encourages pre-election pacts. Have you considered the possibility of using encryption to allow anonymous participation. The Chaum digital cash scheme could be used. Each voter could register for 1 digital 'coin'. This coin then allows them to register a user ID. (In practice, Chaum's system may not be required as there would be no offline trading of the coins and also coins would only be handled once, i.e. you withdraw the coin using your public name and then deposit it against your anonymous ID). The coin might give some basic info about the person - age/gender/location. This would allow renormalisation of the polls which keeping identities secret. The advantage is thet some people might not want to admit their political views publically. They would then vote differently in the secret ballot than in the public communication system, which weakens the system. A potential problem would be that it allows direct vote selling as votes would be completely transferrable, you could just send your 'coin' to another person. A protection against this would be to reissue the coins every so often (say every 3 months). A sold coin would only last that long. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
