On 1/5/06, Greg Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Personally I don't think we'll see Internet voting any time soon. > There is just too much that can go wrong and non-techies (the majority > of the population) still doesn't trust the Internet enough. Back in November the New York Times Magazine ran an article by the Freakonomics guys which, among other things, described what happened in Switzerland when they made it easier to vote. They introduced mail-in ballots which allowed any Swiss citizen to get and mail in a ballot instead of going to the polls. The also did this gradually over the country, introducing it in different cantons over time. It seems that the Swiss have frequent votes on various things. The Swiss historically turned out in large numbers for these votes, but turn-out percentages had started to slip, and the mail-in ballots were introduced as a measure to turn this trend around. Surprisingly the effect was just the opposite of what was expected. Voter turnout often decreased, and because of the staggered phase-in it could be correlated to the mail-in ballot introduction. The two independent variables which seemed to correlate with the decrease were the availability of mail-in ballots and the size of the population of the canton or community. One explanation of this might be that the peer pressure to be SEEN voting in the community encouraged turn-out. Mail-in voting (or internet voting) removes this pressure. http://www.freakonomics.com/times1106col.php Some other interesting ideas about voting in the article as well. -- Rick DeNatale Visit the Project Mercury Wiki Site http://www.mercuryspacecraft.com/ -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
