On May 18, 2007, at 6:45 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
At 06:32 AM 5/17/2007, Juho wrote:
>> 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 asked for the most likely scenario. I'll take this to mean that
maybe the most likely scenario is one where the coercer sits in the
vote counting team.
The victim does not necessarily know where the coercer, or someone
allied with the coercer, sits. I don't think, in addition, that we
can make any general statement about how likely it is that the
coercer has inside access. We can, indeed, conclude that access to
what is visibly expressed on ballots will broader the actual access
of one who would coerce votes, but it also will make coercion
schemes more visible and more likely to be discovered. I don't
think we can predict whether ballot imaging will, overall, make
coercion more or less likely. My intuition is less, but I can
easily understand that someone would think that it would be more.
However, the level of cooperation with coercion is very unlikely to
be large; if it looks like it is headed that way, procedures can be
revised. *Massive* coercion is actually easier to detect and
defeat, what would be very hard would be the isolated coercion of
one individual over another, such as a spouse coercing a spouse. I
think this, however, would remain extremely rare. And vote coercion
should be treated as a serious crime. It is a dangerous business
for the coercer, actually, much more than for the coerced. If my
vote is coerced, the cost for me to comply is small. It is really
only when large numbers of votes are coerced, in some pattern, that
a different level of cost emerges. One vote is only one vote, it is
vanishingly rare that it affects an election outcome. As I
mentioned, if evidence emerges, as it must with public imaging,
that there is more than minimal coercion, steps can be taken to
interdict it. Those steps have a cost. One of the obvious steps is
to shut down the imaging program. I consider that a high cost,
frankly. There would have to be more than a rare instance of
coercion to make the disease less costly than that particular remedy.
An alternative method is to require potential additional candidates
to collect a list of e.g. 1000 supporters before the election and
thereby become "regular candidates".
My own suggestion has been merely to require registration. The
proposal Juho makes misses the point of write-in candidacies. They
are for candidates who were unable to get on the ballot. Ballots
are printed in large numbers, with fairly onerous security, and
they must be widely distributed. They cannot be printed the day
before the election, it would practically guarantee that some
polling places would not get their ballots. Presses can break down,
printing can be delayed. You don't want to push it. There are
absentee voters as well, who need ballots in advance of election day.
Maybe it would be ok to require all the candidates to wake up already
let's say two (?) months before the election.
Another approach would be to use ballots that do not list the names
of the candidates but just contain space where the number of the
candidate can be written (that's what I'm used to - adds some risk of
handwriting recognition when compared e.g. to just ticking boxes, but
I can use my left (weaker) hand if needed). Very much like what you
propose below.
Registration would result in the candidate receiving a registration
number, which could be indicated on the ballot, where needed, using
standard marks, avoiding the written name, which would be far more
reliable for identification.
But my real point is that we don't need cumbersome restrictions to
solve a problem that is practically nonexistent. We are trying to
avoid coerced voting where the coercer requires the voter to make
the ballot identifiable. Quite simply, I expect this to be
vanishingly rare. When you get millions of people voting, "rare"
may be almost guaranteed to happen sometimes. But that does not
mean that we stand everything on its head to prevent a rare
occurrence. Rather, we consider the cost of that occurrence and
balance it with the cost of attempting to totally prevent it.
My advice to someone who is a victim of attempted vote coercion
requiring validation? If you fear that your vote will actually be
observed, that if you do not mark your ballot as required so that
it satisfies the coercer, you will be subject to serious harm, vote
as required. And if you can find any authority you trust, report
that you are doing so. Your vote is visible, by the conditions of
this problem. You can prove that you voted in this way. And you
could, for example, wear a wire when you go back to your dear
tyrant husband and tell him that "I voted as you wished, dear, but
I'm worried that the mark I made will rub off." If he answers "You
better hope it doesn't," then, well, you can be relieved of his
presence if that is what you want.... otherwise ....
Of course, if you have enough time, you could have a similar
conversation before the actual election....
But if you think all this too risky, and it's your call, just vote
as directed. The cost to society is only one vote, and your life
and security are far more important than that.
I propose simple ballots and separate ballots for each race in
addition to what you said.
Not a snowball's chance in h e double toothpicks, as my wife's
father used to say.
The public expense is relatively large. What is the evidence that
the cost of not doing this is greater?
Simple ballots would be cheap to print.
>> 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.
No need to remove cell phones, just to make it clear to all that
taking pictures is forbidden (maybe even punishable if extreme
measures are needed).
Oh, dear. But vote coercion is already a serious crime. Why would
such a rule make any difference at all?
Keeping the system healthy is easier and cheaper that healing it
after it has become seriously ill. Light rules may be enough.
>> 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.
Bad design. I have never voted in an election with several races on
one sheet. (Usually there has been only one race per election, but
when there have been more the ballots have been separate.)
Really? Where do you live? What elections have you participated in?
Finland. Mostly local, national and EU level PR elections and
national single winner elections.
>> 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?
No evidence, just the understanding that allowing the ballots to be
inspected by whoever has interest, with sufficient time to do careful
analysis and with whatever techniques may reveal something of the
identity of the voters of the ballots.
If the voters do not choose to make that information explicitly
visible, it would be extremely impossible simply from looking at
the images. If you can gain access to the ballots themselves, it is
more possible.
> 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 society. Sorry for my non-native English.
"The society" has the same problem. To say "the society" avoids
specifying who actually counts the ballots. It avoids facing the
issue of how counters are chosen, and how that process can be
manipulated. If you *really* want the society to count the ballots,
you might warm to my idea! That is exactly what I'm proposing:
> 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.
The step of initial vote counting (and possibly imaging) may be even
more critical point to safeguard.
What I'm suggesting is this: votes are typically deposited in a
ballot box. In the small town where I recently lived, the ballot
box was a machine that is probably over a hundred years old. It has
a slot on the top and a crank that you turn when you insert a
ballot in the top. The machine is designed such that you can insert
a ballot into it, but you cannot retrieve a ballot from it, without
removing the locks on a door. It is not always that elaborate, but
the point is that ballots are deposited into a secure box that is
guarded. In fact, these things, the boxes, get lost, or are
deliberately discarded in some places, but that is another
story.... It would be pretty hard to lose the box in Cummington, it
was pretty bulky....
Anyway, at a certain point the box is opened and the ballots are
removed. I'm suggesting that this would take place with multiple
observers, and that the ballots would be immediately numbered,
imaged, and sequestered. When they are being imaged, they would be
available, under continuous observation, for imaging by observers.
Certainly an observer from each party, but also media observers.
This all happens together, in a place where everyone sees what
everyone else is doing. The handling of the ballots would be
closely controlled, but the best control is redundant observation
of every step.
(It would be enough for me to just count the votes (in the presence
of the multiple observers (from all parties etc)) and then pack and
seal the votes in a box (in case there will be later doubts about the
process).)
The counting is then done with images, not with the original
ballots. The counting is *easier* than now, because the security
required is much less. The images are expendable and replaceable.
The counting is done with a copy of the images, it is not as if
there is only one image and they handle it. That's the official
count. It can, with images, be done more rapidly than with actual
ballots. But parallel to this, media and other interested
individuals would also be counting the ballots, using images made
available on the internet. I'd personally find it interesting to
count a few.
That's what the serialization is about. When I count a ballot, I
would enter the information on a form. If we assume that the serial
number is easily machine readable, that number could be
automatically filled in on the form; and so all I would need to do
is check off "votes" on a form that resembles the ballots,
converting the image to vote data. At the same time, I'd assume
that automated recognition would be doing the same thing. Anyone
could run the automated recognition software, so I'm not sure how
much actual hand counting would take place. Public databases would
be built up with all this information. There will be count
conflicts, and these will be flagged, and then people will pay
special attention to those ballots. Truly ambiguous ballots will be
identified.
So a final report, which would represent a general consensus, would
segregate ambiguous or controversial ballots from those where there
is no controversy. None of this public process affects the official
outcome, which is announced from the official counting process.
Rather, the public process is a watchdog, it barks if there is
something wrong with the official count (which likewise reports
exact ballot information as entered, including the serial numbers).
The public count does not interfere with the official count.
If however, the public count shows discrepancies with the official
count, there are then immediate and clear grounds for a recount
request, and clear evidence to present, not speculation. And if the
recount leaves the discrepancies unresolved, then there would be
court action, and it might be necessary to examine the sequestered
ballots. I'd expect this to be extremely rare.
> 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....
Sounds a bit dangerous from privacy point of view. The next step
could be to include the voter's profession, age etc. Better be
careful with these.
Juho, nothing was suggested about collecting private information.
Ok, my words exaggerated a bit, but the point is that risk of losing
privacy grows when larger amounts of person related data is linked
together.
Juho
What was suggested was that the information on ballots, which has
become *public* information, in fact, be made available. It's
already public information, you should understand that. You can get
access to it if you want. But it is inordinately expensive. I'm not
sure how much the media spent recounting in Florida after the 2000
election, but it was a fortune. It was a consortium that did it.
If ballot imaging had been in place, and the ballots had been
simple paper ballots, the whole thing would have been over in a few
days. For the public to count the entire election with massive
redundancy should not take more than a day....
One of the big errors made in Florida was to require that a
*decision* be made on each ballot. Because of the nature of those
voting machines, there were lots of ambiguous ballots, with the
famous hanging chad. Instead of deciding on each ballot, the court,
in my opinion, should have ordered and instituted a classification
system. A set of observers would follow established standards for
identifying ballot characteristics. This was done to some degree,
but instead of requiring a decision on the vote result right then,
I would have had, instead, the *votes* of the observers recorded as
to the characteristics. The court would have then sorted it out by
determining the exact standards to apply: for example, a two or
three corner attached chad might be considered unpunched, and a one-
corner as having been punched. Specific overvotes would have been
reported instead of merely discounting the ballots and recording
them as spoiled. Etc., etc.
It's really what any scientific investigation would do....
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