On Aug 17, 2008, at 3:49 , Jonathan Lundell wrote:
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.
I wonder what kind of a vote-by-mail system is in use there. If it is
just based on ordinary mail that one can send from one's home or
anywhere (and doesn't offer any way to cancel and replace the vote)
then that seems to offer opportunities for coercion and vote buying.
The early voting system that I'm used to (and that is very popular)
is however one where you vote under the observation of an election
official (that can be e.g. a post office worker that takes care of
early voting) that then puts your secret vote that you have put in
one envelope into another envelope (under your eyes) that he will
send to your local election authorities.
This method offers the election officials some more chances to
violate your privacy if they so wish (since your name will appear in
the papers inside the outer envelope) (not probable though) but
coercion and vote buying (without the involvement of the election
officials) is about as difficult as with traditional voting at the
official voting site on the election day.
Juho
The Civitas system has something to say about that, but it requires
quite a few other conditions to make it work.
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