Iīd said:
About the hypothetical polling with verifiable results: For one voter to deceive another voter about things like who will have a majority or who will outpoll whom, it would be necessary to for him to know something that the other voter doesnīt know. I canīt deceive you about something that you know about. And if I myself donīt know about it, then thereīs no way for me to know that Iīm deceiving you about it. And it seems a necessary assumption that all voters have access to the same predictive information.
Paul replied:
What do you mean by "verifiable results" ?
I reply:
Result: That which occurs as a consequence of something else. Outcome. Commonly used on EM and elsewhere to refer to the outcome of an election.
Verifiable: Which can be verified. Which can be shown to be correct.
So, if a poll has verifiable results, that means that the correctness of its purported outcome can be shown to be correct--based on the definitions above.
A problem with our voting in the U.S. has been that its outcomes have not been verifiable. Not only is it possible for an election to have a verifiable outcome, but itīs also possible for a pre-election poll to have a verifiable outcome, though, in actual practice, poll results arenīt verifiable.Verifiability would, by definition, get rid of the problem of lying by those who count &/ or report the poll results.
Paul continued:
None of the rest of the paragraph seems to have anything to do with the words preceeding the colon.
I reply:
Not a thing--except that the rest of the paragraph refers to polls with verifiable results. Where do I say that? Before the colon.
Paul continued:
By "verifiable results" do you mean that the election confirms the poll data?
I reply:
Well, if Iīd meant that, then wouldnīt I have said "polls whose data are confirmed by the election"?
No. When we speak of verifiable results, we mean results that can be shown to be correct. In the case of a poll, that means that the polling results can be shown to be correct. Not by a different balloting later, such as an election. But, rather, by physical evidence of how people voted in the poll. A "paper trail".
Paul continued;
Most of us non-specialists think that verification of results means that the poll was counted correctly
I reply:
Exactly. Thatīs how the term is used, and thatīwhat I meant by it.
Paul continued;
, but I suspect that you meant something else by "verification", since the rest of this was about voters talking to each other, not about how polls were conducted.
I reply:
The words "About polling with verifiable results" doesnīt mean that what follows will be about how polls are conducted, or how their results are made verifiable. It merely means that what follows is about polls whose results are verifiable. In the case in question, itīs about the considerations relating to lying other than by those who count and report the polls, the assumption having been stated that the results are verifiable. The assumption--stated before the colon--that the results are verifiable means that lying by poll-answerers is assumed to be the only kind of lying.
Mike Ossipoff
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