I should have thought, when you had somebody who > > has always believed that a voting system was against his interests > >and works to discredit them at every turn and opportunity. its time to apply the old adage, 'Better the devil you know than the devil you dont.' If indeed > > There is no way you can convince him not to, because it really > > IS against his best interest for them to exist and become > > effective. then surely, isnt he the best tester of a proposesd system? Its all too easy to assume the best; isnt it handy that someone is available to prove the worst? This is the internet, as you may recall: there are holes in everything. There is no such thing as a fool proof system (TINSTAAFPS). When the alrternative is to spend years going over and over the same ground (secure/ insecure, blind/ abusive, autocratic/ representative/ captured, etc etc etc), therefore, what is one to do? A voice of sweet reason would of course seek to persuade, enlighten, or explain to the discussants that they are wasting their time -- and would be immediately tarred with the same brush, because (of course) no one is persuaded or enlightened until they see it themselves. The subtle route may be devious, but it may not take any longer: for every pos, state the neg, and just keep your fingers crossed that people will figure out their own 'synthetic' middle ground, balancing the likelihood that anyone who is not out simply to prove TINSTAAFPS would actually gain anything by fraud or forgery against the ease and convenience of being able to have if not 'pop elections' at least referenda at any time by keeping system overhead to a minimum. However, the fact that the 'deviant' keeps on and on providing negs for pos (and of course vice versa) is a problem in its own right. What can be done, since we're so democratically minded as to not filter him out of existence? Just quietly, now, so as to not get everyone confused, I have a suggestion: what if we all *appeared to be getting on with the job of actually putting an internet voting system in place? What if we *seemed to have found such a balance point - without our continually providing (the same old) pos- itions, there wouldnt be so much point in his (just as old) neg-ation, would there? kerry
