At 09:07 PM 5/16/2007, Juho wrote: >On May 16, 2007, at 18:26 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: >Yes, there are ways to *reduce* the possibility of a coercer >>verifying that the victim complied. None are guaranteed to work. > >What would be the most likely scenario where the coerced person could >not avoid being coerced? I'm assuming that a typical coercer would >not be a member in the team that counts the votes and he/she would >not have open access to the ballots.
That's not reliable. > I also assume that vote counters >do not necessarily count all the ballots but maybe just a relatively >small part of them (and if really needed, we could use counters >coming from another voting district), and that they do not have any >special equipment nor much time to study the votes one by one. And I >expect the votes to be packed and sealed after they have been counted. Ballot counting procedures vary. Sometimes a vote counter counts all the ballots, in the presence of observers. Special equipment could include a concealed camera, and with such, not much time is required. The counting process takes time and ballots can be exposed for substantial periods of time. Seals are also possible to break and replace, with determination. None of this is very likely in any given circumstance, but when the government is in the hands of those who would steal elections, it does happen. Coercion is, quite simply, not a common problem here. And coercion remains difficult to enforce without detection. Ballot imaging does, I've acknowledge, make isolated coercion easier, but isolated coercion is not likely to have any significant effect on election results. As to the harm to those coerced, I'd suggest that they are already in harm's way, and with coerced voting, they could, if they think best, simply comply. They could also comply and report it and cooperate with authorities. If they trust the authorities. >>If the voter can handle the ballot at all, then it is possible that >>it could be marked in a way likely to escape notice. Small >>pinpricks have been used, apparently. >> >>Fingerprints can be used! And restricting access to ballots may >>seem to work, but, as I pointed out, who watches the watchers? The >>ballots are in the custody of someone, typically.... the >>government. If you don't trust the government, if the coercion is >>coming from an incumbent, what are you going to do? >> >>You are going to have to rely upon the fact that keeping that >>incumbent in power through coercion depends on the fact that to be >>effective, the coercion would *usually* have to be widespread. And >>people tend to dislike being coerced.... you will be alienating >>increasing numbers of people, and, if the government is at all >>functional, and coercion is illegal, the arrest and prosecution of >>those who attempt to coerce is the best remedy. >> >>Once again, coercion does not seem to be a problem in the U.S. I've >>never heard of it in recent times! But voter fraud is not uncommon >>-- the registration and voting of people not legally qualified, or >>the mysterious voting of people who have died -- and, perhaps even >>more common and more serious, election fraud, where ballots are >>altered, or, more frequently, casting ballots by lawful voters is >>impeded selectively, and properly cast ballots are not counted >>correctly. (Or voting machines mysteriously change votes. >>Selectively. It is bad enough when it happens at all, but when it >>somehow seems to preferentially affect voters of one political >>stripe, we certainly have grounds to suspect criminal activity. >>It's fairly simple: just cause malfunctions to machines in >>precincts loyal to the party whose votes you wish to damage. >>Difficult to prove. >> >>It is this counting fraud that I am seeking to interdict. > >The methods I recommended for coercion prevention would be quite good >for this purpose too. I don't think so. However, a major problem is being overlooked, which is public confidence in elections and election results. That confidence is at a low point recently, due to what really looks like fairly massive manipulation of elections. Some of that is in the counting. >I think most stable democracies do not have any meaningful problems >with fraud in vote counting. This should not be impossible to achieve >if one just wants it. Be my guest. We have a meaningful problem here. And it may well be fraud. >>My suggestion is to allow public scanning or photography of the >>ballots. > >Is this really needed? I don't think you've though it through. This was discussed at length on the Range Voting list.... > What is the main use of those records? Are >voters supposed to be able to recognize their own ballots? No. Of course not. Most voters won't look at them. But any voter can verify some portion of the count, and can look at databases compiled with the counts of others, plus the official count. This is why the ballots need to be serialized, so that anyone can verify any particular ballot count. With large numbers of people, each one counting a few ballots, you will have multiply redundant counting. Discrepancies will be flagged quickly. > This would >be the same as having marked ballots! (Write-ins would be quite >recognizable but in most elections they are maybe not really relevant >and need not be supported. Write-in votes are also revealing in the >sense that the write-in candidates probably get relatively few votes >each.) Write-ins are considered essential to democracy here, bypassing the nomination process. Sometimes write-ins win. in some elections no candidate qualified for the ballot so all there are is write-ins. That was the situation with the office my wife ran for. ("running" consisted of agreeing to accept the office when some neighbors suggested it; one of them was the outgoing officer. We think she received up to four or five votes. Making her the winner, unless someone else's votes were likewise not counted....) Write-ins occasionally win elections. Don't discount them. However, as I've written, if there is a concern that write-ins would be used to identify ballots, which is harmless in itself as far as I'm concerned, then there would be ways to implement a simple method of identifying write-in candidates. It requires registration, up to the last minute, of *all* candidates. It is not exactly write-in, but close enough. A booklet is produced with the names and a code for each name. What the voter does on the ballot is enter or mark the code. The point of ballot imaging is that it becomes possible for the public to count the votes. If the public can count the votes, it can verify the official counts or detect corruption in them. It then becomes far easier to initiate legal action to overturn the official results. The needed images are already in hand, and the court can, where necessary, then compare the images with the actual ballots. But it won't even get to that point, I'd predict. I think that all attempts to alter counts would cease. They would become futile. And they are illegal. Personally, if I'm going to do something illegal, I'd prefer to at least get some profit out of it! I have mentioned schemes that could be used to prevent a coercer from knowing for sure that the victim did not comply. I won't repeat them here. It's possible, if there is real fear of vote coercion where the voter cooperates by making the ballot identifiable, to interrupt that. I just don't think it is necessary, and it is not cost-free. Ballot imaging is cost-free. Further, the official counting should be done with images as well. Thus the actual handling of the ballots would be reduced. It will, of course, be asserted that images can be altered more easily than ballots. That's true. Which is why we would have multiple image sources, including the public and media, and why the ballots themselves remain under tighter security than is possible if they are being hand-counted. And machine counting simply alters the oppportunities. Optical scan ballots essentially are imaged, whether or not the image is saved. It *could* be saved.... by open intention or otherwise. >>There is no serious risk to privacy introduced by public ballot >>imaging. > >The first one in my mind is write-ins where the handwriting is >recognizable. Yes. But you can easily avoid write-ins, or use block letters. One needs to understand *who* needs privacy.... and what options they have. If the ballots are machine printed, the handwriting issue disappears, and that is likewise a low-cost option. >>There is a small increase, perhaps, of risk of occasional -- not >>organized -- vote coercion, due to the increased possibility of >>validation by the coercer through subtle differences in marks or >>other techniques. But any substantial increase in this would be >>detectable. The coercion risk is not a privacy risk. You cannot >>maintain privacy where the voter cooperates with the coercer. > >In good voting methods/processes it should be and is quite hard to >prove to others how you voted yourself. It has always been relatively easy. To prevent it entirely, you have to outlaw write-ins, you have to prevent all physical contact between the voter and the ballot, and you still can't avoid the possibility of special voting patterns, which will get easier to pull off with Range. Even IRV makes it easier. >Of course cameras and video equipment should be banned in the voting >location. It is not possible to guarantee 100% that such recording >will not take place but one should try. I disagree. And nobody searched me for my cell phone when I last voted. >Combining multiple elections in one ballot is a risk. Sure. But it is absolutely the norm. In fact, I've never voted in a public election where there were not many races on the single ballot. >The risk of allowing access to the ballots to everyone is much >riskier than having multiple vote counters (maybe not local people) >each counting a small portion of the votes. You say so. What is the evidence? There is a lost performative in the last comment from Juho. "In having multiple vote counters".... *Who* is going to "have" multiple vote counters? The fact is that this is what I'm suggesting: multiple vote counters! Ballot imaging would put the public in the position of being an election observer, to a degree. By the way, ever try to get correlated election data? Did people who voted for Bush vote against the school bonds? That kind of data has plenty of legitimate use. And you can't get it now, unless you are willing to spend prohibitive amounts of money to get it.... ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info