Analysis: Reforming Political Technology 505
Our system for electing presidents takes too long, has grown outrageously expensive, and remains technologically primitive. Most ironic of all, the country that helped give birth to the Net administers its political system in an inconvenient, mish-mashed network of ancient and inconvenient systems, confusing methodology and out-of-touch bureaucracies, all right out of the 18th century.
That means it's time to begin moving towards a digital voting system. New electoral technologies don't have to be -- shouldn't be -- rammed down anybody's throat. People who don't want to drive long distances, ponder complex ballots or wait in long lines shouldn't have to. Those who want to use the Net to register and vote ought to be able to do so; those who prefer the current system could keep on using it. Inevitably, the country and it's political processes will become fully wired, as they should be. Science and technology -- however far from infallible -- could also help address some of the other problems surfacing in last week's election fiasco.
Our political media has suddenly discovered voting procedures, and the challenges that have long faced the average voter. We are hearing about poorly-designed ballots, suspicious tabulation delays, endless lines, possible vote fraud. And that's just out of Palm Beach County in Florida, one of the richest communities in the nation. Imagine the potential scandals and sloppiness still lying uncovered in the rest of the country.
It's easy to be cyncical about votes from Chicago cemeteries, but the primary problem may not be political corruption, but technological incompetence. From local municipalities to state legistrators, government has lagged way behind the rest of the country and private industry when it comes to using digital technology to gather and tabulate information. All kinds of institutions, from retailers to universities, can gather certain kinds of information rapidly with at least passable accuracy. Networked digital systems are far from flawless, but they're far more highly evolved than our lumbering electoral process.
It's time -- past time -- to start considering national online registration, voting and tabulation. For safety and accuracy as well as cost, new technologies can be backed up by software, paper and human beings, in much the same way companies like Amazon, L.L. Bean, or for that matter, Microsoft, deal with consumers and online ordering, and double-check identities to confirm purchase and identity.
In an odd way, this election debacle is about voting theory and primitive balloting systems as well as politics. Even the sophisticated predictive polling operations hired by the networks broke down under the strain of a voting operation out of Jefferson's time, not ours.
As badly as we may need campaign finance reform to keep corporate money from polluting politics, we may need technological reform even more. Those punch-a-hole ballots in Florida are ludicrous (19,000 people were disqualified in Broward County alone because they filled out their ballots improperty), and anyone involved in politics knows hundreds of stories all over the country that are as or more horrifying. There are no uniform standards or procedures for collecting and tabulating votes. It's astounding to track reported voting precincts online on sites like Votes.com and Cnn.com, only to be reminded they are dependent on ancient and unreliable tabulation systems in many parts of the country, in this supposed Information Age. Where's that bridge to the 21st century when you need it? If he ends up winning, maybe the Net's Daddy will remember how he almost lost it.
Shouldn't Americans be able to register from their computers at home or work, as well as at government agencies, post offices and other public facilities? With ISPs and now as cheap as cable television service (which reaches the vast majority of Americans), there would be almost no reason not to vote, and tens of millions of citizens could begin participating in the political system. Polling places could be computerized, machines made available to those who can't afford or don't want home computers (much as voting booths are). The results could be tabulated, stored and archived instantly, replacing a patchwork system of paper, punch, machine, computer and mail balloting.
Registrars could e-mail or snail-mail confirmation of registration, and of voting, in the same way many online commercial sites confirm that orders have been placed. If Amazon can do it, can't the federal government?
There are serious about digital politics and online voting, and plenty of technical problems. One of the biggest would be political zealots, crackers and vandals, people breaking into a political system for fun or for uglier motives. It would definitely happen. But hacking a federal election is different from breaking into Microsoft or the New York Yankees' website. Tampering with elections is a felony with serious jail time. There are serious design issues relating to ballots, bond issues and referendums. Aside from that, only about half of the country is yet wired. Millions of people don't yet have computers or know how to use them.
Possibilities of fraud also exist in any system, including the present one. But perhaps voting records could be cross-checked by independent polling entities, or even by official spot-surveys. If irregularities surfaced, officials would investigate.
The system doesn't have to be completely digital, and can be backstopped in various ways . Voters could receive paper registration and voting receipts, either at the polls or by mail. Human beings could spot-check voting patterns, as software programs check for fraud. Teams of programmers and techs could be trained to monitor the system. Computers could randomly check for fraud a lot quicker than elderly volunteers screening neighborhood address lists.
Naturally, there are plenty of questions about e-voting reform. We might examine the experiences of other countries where digital voting technology works, as in some of the Scandanavian or South American countries, who have been experimenting with it for years.
There are also privacy and authentication issues. In many states, citizens simply affirm their identities in order to register. Digital registrants may need passwords, social security numbers, addresses or pseudonyms to protect their voting choices, techniques most Netizens use when they buy things online or access their local paper's Web version. We may need other means of assuring phobic voters that they aren't being monitored improperly. But the truth is, evil-doers could get their hands on paper or machine ballots now if they really wanted to. It's a serious felony, as would be the case with e-voting.
Most Americans have voluntarily agreed to give up some measure of privacy for retailing convenience. Will they be willing to take some risks to use technology to reform voting? Or should citizens be given a choice of digital and paper voting? As more and more functions, from filing for divorce to renewing licenses, become digitized, online voting and registration seem more feasible. Web-page design and architecture has evolved to the point where election choices might be clearer than on those Palm Beach or other confusing ballots. Write-in votes and absentee ballots can also be transmitted online or, when computers aren't available, by paper or e-mail. A new system doesn't have to be absolute. It can simply take advance of new technology to organize a process that seems tailor-made for the Net, which is all about moving point-to-point information quickly.
There's no question there's potential for mistakes and abuse, for manifold technical difficulties. But that possibility clearly exists now, as "Decision 2000" showed, or in any system devised by human beings. Certainly digital polling would work better than those Palm Beach ballot cards.
Beyond the nuts and bolts of counting votes, the larger question of what a vote should consiste of is also up for grabs. The Internet, mathemeticians Donald Saari and Steven Brams argue in a Discover magazine piece, is a natural laboratory for testing alternative voting methods. Six scientific societies in America use a method called "approval voting," they report, most notably the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
Approval voting, which Brams favors, dates to the 13th Century, when Venetians used it to help elect leaders. In an approval vote, Saari explains, a person casts one vote for every candidate he or she considers qualified for the office, rather than just one. The voting is conducted much like a survey or an opinion poll, except the results are calculated to determine the winner. If this year's election had been decided by an approval vote in February, John McCain would be president, by a comfortable margin, since for much of the year more Americans approved of him than the two candidates who eventually led their tickets.
Saari advocates an election method called the Borda count election, in which each voter ranks all of the candidates from top to bottom. If there are five candidates, then a voter's leading candidate gets 5 points, his second-ranked candidate gets 4, etc. In the end, the points are added up to determine the winner. The Borda count, once used in the Roman Senate, was named after a French physicist and American Revolutionary War hero named Jean-Charles deBorda. This method is used to rank college football and basketball teams.
Neither one is likely to take root in the U.S. anytime soon, but in the wake of the current outcry about the role of the electoral college, perhaps systems like these deserve greater consideration.
It's increasingly likely that the uncertainty and confusion over this election will go on for weeks, even months. It's ironic and appalling that the country which has produced the most sophisticated information technology network in world history can't even count up the votes that will determine its most important asset, its own political system.
Political questions (Score:3)
This has the effect of rendering all Jon's questions somewhat meaningless and replacing his answers with more questions. I think that's a useful effect...
Jon appears to be advocating a sort of populist control of authority- the classic 'vote in your pajamas' scenario. While the problem of political corruption is serious, I'd like to look for a second at some of the underlying assumptions- primarily, the assumption of a hierarchical authority.
If it is possible for invidivuals to specify their values so directly through technological means, might it be possible for this to take the place of hierarchical authority? True anarchism is not simply the destruction of government but a school of thought resisting _all_ imposed authority, governmental, economic and social: for this reason it is always somewhat socialist, for this reason it cannot be considered outside of a community.
Slashdot discussions are anarchy of communications, because while CmdrTaco and the Slashdot staff make the site available, in practice you do not have to get permission to speak- though an amount of authority still persists, it is far from what you'll find on a news.com or msn.com. "Permission" is a key concept to anarchy: it's not an abstract hypothesis for how to set up constant Darwinian struggle, it is a concept for community guidelines, and the question to ask is 'Whose permission must I get in order to do this?'
- Whose permission must I get in order to make a post to slashdot?
- Whose permission must I get in order to walk down the street?
- Whose permission must I get in order to open a store?
- Whose permission must I get in order to mug passersby?
- Whose permission must I get in order to run an Internet server?
- Whose permission must I get in order to buy a pair of shoes?
- Whose permission must I get in order to listen to music?
- Whose permission must I get in order to distribute music that I didn't compose?
- Whose permission must I get in order to distribute music that is mine?
Plainly, for some of those actions there's going to be resistance from the community- permission to mug community members is not likely to be forthcoming even from an anarchist community, which may be a surprise to some! At the same time, this question reveals the power structures behind many current systems, and it's not always a pretty sight. For instance, if you wish to make a business selling productivity software to as many people as possible, you need to get the government's permission, sure (and it's largely a formality and some taxation) but you also need to get Microsoft's permission. Without it they will use their power to deprive you of resources and render you unable to conduct business.If you produce music, you need the RIAA labels' permission to distribute it widely, as they have a lock on distribution- except that the internet has undercut this radically! To the anarchist community the idea of 'distribution without permission' has to be more exciting all by itself than the typical corollary of 'damaging record company income'. The record company income is not itself a problem- the fact that you have to get permission from their authority in order to access mass media _is_. If Microsoft seized control of online music so that it was all totally costless and administrated through special 'MS content producer accounts', it would be just as repugnant to anarchist thought even though MS is not (quite) government: in this event you would, practically, have to seek permission from Microsoft in order to distribute media.
In this light, it's interesting to look at Katz's questions again: what is being established and why? He is arguing for technology-implemented direct manipulation of authority- yet the authority we have in the USA is based on a concept of public servants, not a concept of fascism or divine rule. This is the strongest argument I can see for what Jon is advocating- the authority we have is in essence community facilitation on a large scale, and only as hierarchical as it is because technology hasn't permitted anything more decentralised.
It may be possible to use technology in the service of community to approximate the anarchist ideal as it intersects with the American Dream: one day the state I live in, Vermont, might (for instance) reject the authority of the RIAA and DMCA and force them to negotiate from a position of equality, rather than an IP-derived position of assumed authority. One thing is for sure- using technology, it becomes much more practical to ascertain the status of USE: it may be difficult to search for 'patent information' denoting the property of ideas, but it's easy to search for usage information. Since usage rights are central to anarchist thought (as a community-derived replacement for hierarchical authority) it's plainly handy to be able to quickly access all information about how a thing is used- something that has historically been a lot more subjective.
Re:19,000 invalid BALLOTS!!!! NOT VOTERS! (Score:2)
And trust the machine?! (Score:2)
However, a compromise may be feasible. Consider this:
After entering and reviewing your votes on a screen, the machine creates three tokens:
- a data-based token
- the voter's preferences
- the current time
- protected via a digital signature specific to the machine
- a physical token
- an actual punched-out card
- printed or punched copy of the data token
- human-readable preference data
Now, consider the safeguards built into this scheme: All electronic data has a physical, printed copy. All printed data should have an electronically stored copy. In the event of any loss of synchronization between these two, the issue can be localized. Since there are three copies of all information -- one in the computer and two on the cards -- any discrepancies can be dealt with. If the digitally signed, probably non-punched copy on the cards doesn't match the punched data, the card can be machine-identified and localized. By comparing with the third, electronic copy (which can be done because the digital signature, done over the timestamp, is the same) the accurate representation of the vote can be found.human-readable, but machine-punched. Ideally, if the voting machine can't read back the info it punched out itself, it reports itself faulty. No more situations with individuals punching out their cards incorrectly.
The data token itself -- digital signature and all -- should be reproduced here. In case of any discrepancies, there should ALWAYS be a physical copy of the data available. Always.
The human can actually read what their vote is when they drop it in the box -- yes, I think that this dropping the physical token in the box is important, and should be continued.
Finally, if a change needs to be made after someone finished with the machine -- and it happens, trust me -- they still get to redo before dropping the ballot into the box. If a machine-registered ballot has no physical counterpart, it isn't counted (but any irregularities, with unually large numbers of ballots being cast and not counted, can be avoided).
But then, don't listen to me. I want preferential voting, too, so what do I know? :)
Re:Fixes to the balloting techniques. (Score:2)
Fixes to the balloting techniques. (Score:3)
But that said, here's some standards *I* would like to see, assuming that they can even be implemented, which I have my doubts about.
Right (Score:2)
No recipt! (Score:2)
Please don't give me a recipt. It sounds like a good idea, but in fact it is bad. With a recipt someone who really wants to win just comes by that night and shoots anyone who didn't vote for him. Don't have your recipt and you get shot for good measure.
Fraud hasn't been common in the US elections for a while. (Other shady practices, but in the end you cannot prove the homeless the democrats gave ciggeretts voted for Gore. Likewise if the republicans did something like this that I've not heard of)
Once I can find out who you voted for I can force your vote. If the election is public there will at least be more eveidence of who is cheating the system, making better odds that person is caught.
Re:Is it just me, or .. ? (Score:2)
You forgot a step: the booth prints out a sheet listing your choices, which you then slip into a slot on a fireproof safe (THe slot nullifies teh fireproof, but all well). That way if lightning strikes or the hard drive crashes there is a backup.
Re:most problems still human (Score:2)
in response to 1) we need voter registration as we have no national system of valid IDs (and SSNs are NOT supposed to be used as ID, so if it were used, it would be fought in court). Thus, what sort of block do you put on someone that votes from voting again if you lack registration? There needs to be registration available at the polls (which require some significant ID) while when you are actually there to vote, you should only need to present a photo ID and some encoded registration card (paper, not plastic) which is taken from you when you vote; the encoding would be based on individual so that only you could match that card. This reduces the chance for fraud and voting mulitple times, and you can still leave registration open on voting day.
On 3), there is serious talk in all the election reform to move the vote to a weekend. The second Tues after the first Monday in Nov is a holdover when people had to travel to reach the polls.
The problem with *any* technology in our system... (Score:2)
Now, most of the time we can deal with that error because the winner in the election usually wins by a few percentage points or more. This election, however, goes against that, where the two candidates differ by around 0.2% nationally, and less than 0.03% in FL. If there is any error (and there *is*), that error could easily be higher than those differences, thus causing inappropriate results.
Sure, I'd argue that the EC is broken, but as others have pointed out, there's a snowball's chance in heck that will be fixed before 2004. But there are things that can be added that can improve it. I'd personally like to see the splitting of all states electoral votes based on regional results, but I don't think that will happen either as each state would have to do something about it. Instead, what I suggest is to add in at the national level a rules that states if the difference between the top 2 candidates for President is split less than some X percentage, then the states' electors are split equally to both candidates. X here is some percentage that should reflect what the error can be in voting methods, somewhere around 0.1% or 0.2%, the true value calculated by some imparital committee after research of election results in the last 50 years. This would make most of the complaints in FL null and void, and a few other states (NM) would probably be split as well.
What just seems odd to me right now about the current system is that there is a definite cry in FL that there is no strong majority of either candidate, but this fence sitting is worth nearly 10% of the votes needed for Presidency, and by our current system, it's winner takes all. This IMO does not adequetely reflect the will of the people, and these types of problems need to be fixed now.
because.. (Score:2)
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Fair voting? No such thing. (Score:2)
You seem to be laboring under the illusion that our voting system can be made to be "fair". It can't. Arrow's Theorem [ua.edu] pretty much demolishes the concept.
A google search for "Arrow's Theorem" [google.com] will turn up lots of useful links, like this on path-voting [fortunecity.com] or this collection of notes [cmu.edu].
If you're going to talk about changing how we vote, other than just the mechanics, you really need to read up on this stuff. Yeah, it's all academic and abstract, but it's quite relevent (imagine that!).
Re:No, not unfair at all (Score:2)
If you really think that, then you must not get out much. Regional issues are alive and well. For example, in the Pacific Northwest there are all sorts of issues that we see differently than the rest of the nation.
For example, we aren't nearly as interested in the deregulation of power as the rest of the US, and we certainly don't want Californians deciding if our dams get breached. We are also concerned about being able to use Federal lands. I imagine in New York they would probably vote to keep all federal lands "pristine." No logging, no ranching, no roads. However, some of us actually live out here.
Trust me, regional politics will be alive and well long after we are all dead and gone. Silicon valley has its set of issues, and the Magic Valley in Idaho has a totally separate set of issues and values. Part of the reason that the small states chose to join this Union in the first place was that we realized that there would be checks and balances that would keep the more populous areas of the country from imposing their wills on us. Our votes would in essence "count more."
If you really think that the states are merely a convenient partitioning scheme, then you should consider moving to a state where your vote would matter more. For example, Wyoming has just as many Senators as California, and it's people have a lot more of say in the Presidential election per capita. Just don't be surprised when you find that the political climate in Wyoming is very different than in whatever state you happen to live in.
You really need to get out more.
Re:No, not unfair at all (Score:2)
I grew up in Eastern Washington, and so I definitely agree that the current boundaries for the states don't necessarily make as much sense as they should. As a child I could never understand why they called Washington the "Evergreen State." It certainly wasn't green in my home town.
Your solution is to just say that the majority voice should have its say. That's fine and dandy as long as you are on the side of the majority. If you, for example, feel that guns should be banned, then it probably upsets you quite a bit that the people in Eastern Washington are very NRA friendly. Or if you feel like breaching the dams on the Columbia river you are probably sick to death of hearing from the Eastern Washington farmers. On the other hand the people in Eastern Washington probably see these attempts as "those damn Seattle-ites trying to take away our guns and our livelihood."
The whole point of our system is that laws should be difficult to pass simply because any new law will effect some people in a negative manner. Our current system of presidential elections is part of this system. For example, radical candidates (like Nader or Buchannon) have almost zero chance of making any impact at all, and contrary to what the third party folks say this isn't due to advertising. It's due to the fact that Americans are very centrist politically. Our system isn't so much about electing the best man for the job as it is about electing the lesser of two evils. This may seem like a bad thing, but in reality it guarantees that any changes that are made are incremental, and widely popular. Even if your candidate does lose, it's not the end of the world, because the opponent A) was strangely similar, and B) can make incremental changes at best.
Contrast that with a world in which Nader gets elected one year, and Buchannon gets elected four years later. Losing that sort of election would be devastating.
You may feel that universal gun control laws and abortion statutes are important, but I can't imagine that a bureaucrat in Washington D.C. has any chance of coming up with a good compromise if we can't even come up with a workable solution at the state level. If the people on either side of the Puget Sound can't agree on a local issue, then what are the chances that someone not from the area is likely to resolve the issue correctly. Our national leaders would simply decide the issue based on what the average Californian thinks if it wasn't for our current system of government. The average Californian can't even find the state of Washington on a map.
I would rather have separate laws in every state than have one universally poor law in all states. Which is, of course, the crux of this whole argument. Fortunately for all of us it is the local elections that really matter, and we certainly have a say in those.
Re:No, not unfair at all (Score:2)
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We need international observers in US (Score:3)
This just disgusts me.
how to Amend the Constitution, and worth of votes (Score:2)
What would be MUCH better would be for all the states to split their EC votes ala Maine. Then the smaller states would get to keep their unfair influence over the election, but the EC votes would much more accurately reflect the popular vote. Not completely fair, true, but vastly more likely to happen (especially after this year's fiasco).
Why 'unfair', do you ask? Simple - yes, EC votes are alloted by population, but it's not proportional - a state with a population of 10 million doesn't have twice the EC votes as a state with a population of 5 million. If you live in a populous state, THEN YOUR VOTE IS WORTH LESS.
The smaller states get their representation by their Senators & Reps - the President is for everyone, and should, IMO, be elected solely on the popular vote.
President -> Represents everyone, should be elected by everyone (against the Constitution)
Senators & Reps -> Represent their state, should be elected by their state (how it works now)
Simple, right? Fair? Seems so to me! *shrug*
I must say, though, that all this political talk on Slashdot & elsewhere is very heartening to see. Finally everyone seems to give a damn! Right on.
Re:No, not unfair at all (Score:3)
Western Washington has MUCH more in common with Western Oregon than with Eastern Washington.
Also, the regions that have REAL issues are usually not as large as a state would be, even IF those state regions were homogenous. Puget Sound has issues completely different than those of, say, Portland/Vancouver. And even smaller than that - Seattle versus the 'East Side' - very different issues.
If you look at how people voted during the election - there were major differences by region even within the small states, yet all you see is the total of the EC votes for that state going to one candidate or the other.
The United States may have started out as a conglomeration of states, true, but it's over 200 years later, and things are VASTLY different now. Implementing laws (say, gun control) in one state and not all is pretty ridiculous - people will (and have) just go over the state border and bring them back in. Same thing for state-by-state abortion laws, etc. The age where a 'state' in this country really made sense is long, LONG gone.
Optimizing Election Fraud. (Score:2)
Sure, we can have physical "backstops" to try and prevent these kinds of problems... but if these backstops have to be resorted to every time an election comes this close, how is it any improvement over our current situation? If a software glitch in your voting machine causes every voter whose last name begins with Z to get 10 votes, will that same glitch from causing your voting machine to print out 10 punchcards to backstop those votes?
Don't get me wrong, there's certainly a lot of room for technological improvement here. Some Slashdotter suggested a touchscreen voting machine which would give you a clearer GUI, prevent or check for any invalid double votes, and print out a sheet with your ID and only the names of the people you voted for, in easily machine-scannable form, so you could take that sheet and give it to the poll workers. That would prevent both the ballot and the discarded vote problems in Palm Beach, at least.
It's tempting to think that there could be something even better. A little smartcard (because I don't trust the nation who let Melissa and ILOVEYOU loose to maintain their PCs securely) with public key crypto could let your "vote" be a digitally signed statement that you could safely send over the net, and the collection of all those signed statements could be publically downloadable, to allow you to check and make sure nobody tampers with your vote or the vote count. But even in that case, who would we trust to distribute the private keys, and never have their systems compromised? Verisign? Even if you can check your own vote's integrity, how do you know that a 6 million vote list isn't actually 5 million real votes, plus 1 million fraudulent inserts?
Oh, yeah, I forgot; I titled this post "Optimizing Election Fraud" for a reason. Consider: Right now, tampering with n votes is an O(n) operation. A well designed computer system could make that an O(1) operation. In most programs this would be a fantastic optimization; in this particular case it is not an improvement.
New Slashdot Poll (Score:2)
* In person
* By absentee ballot
* Online
* By writing a Libertarian macrovirus
Re:Borda count has problems (Score:2)
No, a ballot that said "I prefer Browne to Nader to Gore to Bush" would be setting priorities (plural). A ballot that says "I prefer Gore to everyone else" sets a priority (singular), and millions of voters regularly set that priority in a way that makes it an inaccurate statement, a "lie".
Voters in the U.S. here have more power because they can decide they dislike a candidate so much that they'll vote for a stronger candidate who would otherwise be their second or third choice just to be able to knock the guy they dislke off.
Did you read about approval voting? Instant runoff voting? Those systems let you express an "I don't want this person to be president" opinion just as strongly; they just don't force you to sacrifice your other opinions in a multicandidate race to do it.
This leads to candidates who not only worry about energizing their base, but also worry about being considerate enough of their opposition to not unduly piss them off.
No, it leads to candidates who cannot afford be considerate of their opposition, lest their least moderate "base" voters splinter off to a more extreme candidate and fracture their party. It leads to primary elections which drop candidates like McCain who have broad bipartisan appeal but less appeal among the party faithful.
On the other hand in most EU democracies,
In most EU demt EU democracies, don't they have proportional representation to ensure that the legislature is just as split as the voters? That has nothing to do with any of the voting methods being discussed; we can dump the plurality system without getting rid of the "one district, one representative" House.
This leads to extremist parties (willing to switch votes on national concerns) in a position to make or break governments
You mean like the Green Party just did?
Multiple seats with one vote (Score:2)
Re:Optimizing Election Fraud. (Score:3)
By "ID", I mean the same ID you get on ballots in many places today: a unique number, on both the ballot and a tear-off stub, which could (in theory) be used for you to verify that your vote was counted correctly.
Imagine how much harder election fraud would be, if, instead of each district reporting "16,835 people voted for Gore", each district put a text file online saying:
PLMBCH000001 went to Gore.
PLMBCH000002 went to Bush.
PLMBCH000003 went to Buchanan.
Borda count has problems (Score:5)
I just finished reading your recent article, "May the Best Man Lose".
The author unfortunately underestimates one of the greatest weaknesses of the plurality system, and so fails to realize that this weakness applies nearly as strongly to the Borda count: both voting systems encourage voters to lie!
Of course, the media today doesn't call strategic voting "lying", they call it "not wasting your vote". It is considered standard practice to give your vote not to the candidate you prefer, but to the poll-leading candidate you dislike least.
This practice would not change under a Borda count system. Voters who prefer Nader to Browne to Gore to Bush will still be encouraged to vote for Gore above either Nader or Browne, because that way they will add 3 points to the separation between the leading candidates rather than 1 point, and their vote will have almost three times the impact in the election.
Strategic voting makes independent and third-party candidates nearly irrelevant, and gives the Democrats and Republicans a chokehold on politics. That bipartisan chokehold, by the way, is why we may very well soon see a constitutional amendment to eliminate the electoral college, but we will never see a superior system of voting replace the plurality system. The electoral college is much less damaging to our democracy (and had less of a detrimental effect in this presidential election) than the plurality system, but removing the electoral college will result in only a minor power shift from the Democrats towards the Republicans; changing the plurality system would result in a major power shift away from both.
I was surprised to see that one important voting system was not even mentioned in your article: Instant Runoff. In that system, voters rank their candidates by preference. If no candidate has a majority of first place votes, the candidate with the fewest first place votes is removed from consideration, and from the rankings of voters who voted for him. (i.e. if Alice's second place choice was dropped, then her third place choice becomes her new second, her fourth becomes her new third, etc.) Once a candidate has a majority of first place votes, that candidate wins. The results are not guaranteed to equal Borda count results, but they often will. I don't think strategic voting is impossible, but it's a lot harder.
I WANT paper! (Score:2)
Tabulating & reporting electronically sounds ok, but I want something that can be looked at later, and know that it hasn't been tampered with. Any solution should still allow some sort of physical, manual count, IMHO.
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Percieved current problems. (Score:2)
- The popular vote vs the electoral college.
- I mean, come on! 100Million people vote, one candidate has a majority, and he's facing the distinct possibility of losing by less than 500 votes in a single state?
- No universal ballot
- Some one tell me again why presidential ballots aren't designed by the federal government, and are allowed to be different everywhere?
- Hand vote counting introduces human error
- Eh? At least if you hand count ballots you can have them cross checked multiple times. On a polling place basis.
- No matching vote to voter
- Please. If you had some transient method of connecting votes to voters, than those supposed deluded individuals who spoiled ballots in Palm Beach by voting for two candidates could vote again (although I think political darwinism should take this lot out - if you mess up the process you don't count....)
Not that this would make everything perfect. Perfect is never acheivable, but better is, always.Re:Percieved current problems. (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, the process is broken. It needs to be fixed. But you have to get this election finished first. I feel you shouldn't look at changes until at least end of year 2 of presidential term.
As for mechanisms favouring the group who set it. Not really. They get to make highly generic rules.
A political commentor here noted at the last election "When the All Blacks (the national team for the national sport) lose, the government changes. When they win, the government stays in". Other factors, aside from ballot design, choose rulers. Every little bit counts.
Re:Standardize both ballots and process (Score:2)
Slowdowns and bottlenecks in the process of the
American government are *features* not *bugs*.
It's better to have slow bureaucracy than rapid
tyranny. Ironically, the success of this system
has sheilded many generations from the consequences of less successful systems.
> For starters - on a state-by-state basis >(because the Presidential election is, after all, >a series of 51 state elections), we must >standardize both
> ballots and recount processes.
Another feature of the election system is that
it cannot be manipulated from a central point.
Again, a feature, not a bug. If all the voting
systems were the same, the door is open to a corrupt federal government keeping itself in office indefinitely.
Changing the electoral process now sets a precedent for the future -- the process can be changed in arbitrary ways! We need to think about whether doing away with the
electoral college and replacing it with "something else" amounts to a bloodless coup d'etat.
Actually, it remains to be seen whether it will
bloodless. No matter what happens, there will be
a lack of confidence in the government that this
process installs. This government should definitely not be allowed to change the electoral process!! It's ONLY four years, and it probably
will not go wrong next time.
Not to worry; I believe the abolition of the electoral college is about as likely as Texas' independence or the voluntary income tax.
Re:Too high-tech, not too low-tech (Score:2)
" In the UK, we vote with pen and paper, and they're all counted manually. The system is transparent, and so has public confidence. It only
takes a few hours to count all the votes. "
My understanding is that in the UK, the people can call a general election whenever they want.
I'm not convinced that the voting public has any
real franchise in Britain (and N. Ireland).
On the other hand, Britain as a whole does give proper credibility to political parties.
Re:The errors have always been there, lost in da n (Score:2)
If the electoral college decided to screw the election... there is absolutely nothing that anyone could do about it."
During this long period of relative peace and tranquility that we have enjoyed, we seem to have forgotten the very basis on which our Republic was founded: That it is acceptable and necessary, under extreme circumstances, to violently remove the lawful authority from power and completely rebuild the nation from first principles. This is easier to do when the issues are divisive enough to divide the military as well as the common people. We don't want to exercise the option because it might cause us to miss our programs on cable tv, or we might go a week without a paycheck; not to mention that we might DIE, or be forced to kill our own brothers.
The remedies are all spelled out in the laws of the land, but either we don't have the stomach to perform the duties mandated by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, or else circumstances have not deteriorated enough to lead us to such dire consequences. But to say there is "nothing we can do" is to deny the entire history of this country, and shames everyone who has ever died for freedom.
"As it currently stands 50% of the college is bound by law to vote for their party's choice. "
Do you realize the fines are $1000.00 or less? That no criminal penalties would be imposed? There would be little risk to the faithless elector, who might actually be seen as a hero for
taking the risk, voting their conscience and bringing us out of this dark space.
The resulting government would at least have been legally elected. I would much prefer faithless elector votes to decide the president than for the decision to be made by the judicial branch or appointment by the House.
"A real democratic system would be a lot cheaper. "
Maybe in the short term, but I fear the real price would be paid in graves. Does no-one take into consideration the fact that the people who decided a representative system would be more stable and more equitable, were standing on bloodstained soil?
The rest of your message is rhetoric that I can't address right now.
Re:Percieved current problems. (Score:3)
> The popular vote vs the electoral college.
> I mean, come on! 100Million people >vote, one candidate has a majority, and he's >facing the distinct possibility of losing by less
> than 500 votes in a single state?
The time to address this is *before*, not *after* the election. The campaign and election were held under the framework of the electorate. You can't just change the rules now without starting over. And there are bigger problems with that than most people consider. For instance, where does the money come from? The electoral college is a great
way to give a voice to states with less population. You think little old ladies in Florida are a problem now? Wait until the suggestion that farmers in Iowa give up some of their political power takes hold. You'll see plowshares beaten into swords before that happens.
> No universal ballot
> Some one tell me again why >presidential ballots aren't designed by the >federal government, and are allowed to be >different
> everywhere?
That's the way it ought to be. It vastly increases the complexity of any attempt to control an election. Consider that the federal government that you would put in charge of the election will always be controlled by the incumbent party -- the
challenging party cannot ever regard this as fair. We have state boundaries and state governments and state laws for very good reasons. Are you suggesting that we do away with statehoods? That notion has led to significant bloodshed in the past. States' rights and sovreignty are considered by many to be among the most important freedoms.
All the people who support the integrity of the Constitution when it comes to the 1st amendment seem to be willing to wipe their asses with it when other parts of it don't make them happy.
Just because something seems to make sense in the midst of a crisis does not mean it is a better approach. Do people not realize that there would be potential problems with any other system of voting?
Re:Make voting mandatory (Score:2)
Australia doesn't elect judges, sheriffs, school boards, doesn't have citizen-initiated referenda (a few local councils are starting to try them, but it's not widespread) and so on, and federal, state, and local elections are on different days, so the problems of knowing how to vote on ten squillion different ballots doesn't arise. If voting is shifted online over time, the need to have one big polling day disappears and people can consider each ballot appropriately.
Additionally, could somebody convince me that it's really appropriate to elect judges, prosecutors, and police? While I'm not naive enough to believe that those jobs aren't political, wouldn't that just encourage those people to make legally dubious but politically popular decisions?
As for misinformed people voting, that is a concern, but in Australia we look at the American system, see that it's overwhelmingly the young, the poor, and minorities who don't vote, and the general (but not universal) view is it's better to make sure that politicians have to work to attract votes from those people. There has been some agitation towards voluntary voting from the conservative parties, but support for a change is very limited.
Oh come now. (Score:2)
Oh, please. You can't have it both ways. Either I stole it from someone or I invented it myself (possibly simultaneously with others).
I will grant that I wasn't trying to be original; I was critiquing a fool's rant. It's entirely obvious that Katz doesn't give much thought to what he writes, as the logical and historical errors in his columns almost always demonstrate. One need not have original or stolen ideas to nevertheless be "insightful" in pointing out a writer's errors (and I do not mean to say that I was "insightful" or "interesting;" I'm merely pointing out that neither of those descriptions requires "ideas" and can apply to one's analysis of another's writing).
You're not a Gore drone, are you? Or are you Katz himself? :-)
No, I'm not a Bush drone; I didn't vote for him and would never even consider voting for him. I simply reject the fantasies of those who suppose -- as Katz does -- that there's something wrong with the system. There's nothing wrong with it. Gore and his gang of election thieves could figure out a way to steal the election under *any* voting scheme we might devise, and it's simply absurd to pretend otherwise.
Our system of government has always assumed and depended upon the fundamental notion that the citizens must be virtuous, because without that it cannot work. Gore's chicanery (preceded by Clinton's in the impeachment) is simply evidence of the veracity of what the Founders believed: the Republic cannot survive if the people are not virtuous.
Katz is Whacked (Score:3)
Our system for electing presidents takes too long. Rubbish. Under normal circumstances it does NOT take long. This happens to be a very close election with an increasing amount of political fighting instigated by a poor loser (that would be Gore).
the country that helped give birth to the Net administers its political system in an inconvenient, mish-mashed network of ancient and inconvenient systems, confusing methodology and out-of-touch bureaucracies, all right out of the 18th century.
This is an adequate example of Katz's historical myopia. If it's older than he is, it can't be any good -- or so says Katz. Of course this is pure nonsense. Katz has no problem with that good 'ol "ancient" First Amendment, though.
What part of a punch card system comes from the 18th century, Katz? Which modern American bureaucracy dates from the 18th century, Katz?
Science and technology -- however far from infallible -- could also help address some of the other problems surfacing in last week's election fiasco.
This is laughable. Everyone in the Gore campaign is sputtering and fuming about the errors and failures in Florida, and Katz wants to replace it with...another fallible system! What a "brilliant" idea! Note to Katz: fallible sytems fail. That's why they're fallible. Absent physical data as we have now, exactly how would we verify an election if we were to go to a digital election system as you so blithely recommend?
We are hearing about poorly-designed ballots Baloney. That ballot was NOT, NOT, NOT poorly designed. As has been demonstrated in various news reports, 2nd graders have been able to successfully fill that ballot out. Whining about that ballot after the fact is pure sour grapes. The ballot was designed by Democrats, approved by Democrats, and sent in advance to every registered voter in the county. No complaints. If these whiners really did screw up, they were a) incompetent (because it was NOT hard to fill out that ballot), and b) unworthy of the privilege of voting, because they failed to exert even a tiny bit of energy to get help with it at the time they were voting -- which shows the contempt in which they held their privilege.
And that's just out of Palm Beach County in Florida, one of the richest communities in the nation. Imagine the potential scandals and sloppiness still lying uncovered in the rest of the country.
In Katz's demented worldview, having less money implies carelessness about a solemn privilege. He has no evidence for such an assertion, but he makes it nonetheless. I'm sure the poor would be pleased to hear about this.
Networked digital systems are far from flawless, but they're far more highly evolved than our lumbering electoral process.
Katz doesn't really care whether the process is error-free; he just wants more "highly evolved" errors. Great, Katz.
As badly as we may need campaign finance reform to keep corporate money from polluting politics,...
We don't need any such thing. It's called "Freedom of Speech", Katz. See that First Amendment you love so much.
There are no uniform standards or procedures for collecting and tabulating votes.
Katz assumes that if the national government inflicts national standards on everyone, then we won't have problems with the election system we use. Dumb, Katz. Dumb.
they are dependent on ancient and unreliable tabulation systems in many parts of the country
So Katz would replace them with...new and unreliable tabulation systems? Great, Katz. No thanks.
There are serious about digital politics and online voting, and plenty of technical problems. One of the biggest would be political zealots, crackers and vandals, people breaking into a political system for fun or for uglier motives. It would definitely happen. But hacking a federal election is different from breaking into Microsoft or the New York Yankees' website. Tampering with elections is a felony with serious jail time.
Katz is also terminally naïve. Even though there is all sorts of computer crime going on even as we speak, and even though people commit felonies all the time, he thinks that crackers would be scared off of tampering with a computerized election. Wake up and smell the reality, Katz.
Approval voting, which Brams favors, dates to the 13th Century,
But Katz! That's "ancient!" You don't really mean that, do you??? What hypocrisy.
Katz, you fancy yourself an informed critic, but you are desperately far from being informed at all. The shallowness of your historical perspective is simply appalling. You far too readily condemn systems and ideas that have stood the test of centuries, in favor of the latest modern fad. Hint, Katz: there's nothing new under the sun. Your "ideas" have been done, and we don't use them because they don't work.
Re:A Complex Ballot? What are you smoking? (Score:2)
Re:A Complex Ballot? What are you smoking? (Score:2)
Ah, well... it's only news, not like it's supposed to be investigated or make sense or anything.
Re:A Complex Ballot? What are you smoking? (Score:4)
Don't pretend that this somehow justifies us overturning the results of a lawfully conducted and lawfully counted election! This is a motivation for overhauling the system in the future, not for overturning what has already been lawfully done. ex post facto, dude.
Again, arbitrarily inserting words in my mouth. Thanks for your input. Election law requires that a voter exercise due care and give due attention to the process of executing their vote. You can argue until the cows come home about what constitutes an "adequate diligence" and whatnot, but it seems to me that we're stooping pretty low on this one; call me elitist if you want, but this is the kind of decision lawmakers and judges make daily, and many of them set a much higher bar for "due diligence" and "appropriate care" than I would. And it worries me that "elitism" is (once again) being used as an inflammatory mark against those who disagree with the political ends some wish to see accomplished.I do not disagree with you that there may be room for improvement in the layout and format of ballots - in Palm Beach County and at large. I would love to see computerized voting stations printing out bar-coded hard copy ballots, so we have a physical ballot count to validate the computer count. But as a matter of present case law, there is no right to ballots being a "perfect user interface", and as a matter of present statutory law the election was conducted properly, and as a matter of constitutional law we are able to redress concerns raised by this election (that, if they're such a big deal, should have been raised and addressed long ago) for the purposes of future elections.
A Complex Ballot? What are you smoking? (Score:5)
The fact that 19K ballots were discarded in the presidential tally for double-punching is not a surprise - because it happens every time there's a presidential election in PBC! (1996 it was 16K IIRC.) Why is it that only after the fact, when it became apparent that Gore was going to lose, did these thousands of people turn up, hell-bent on telling the world that they screwed it up? If they're so certain, why didn't they address the problem at the appropriate time, when they were in the polling location casting their vote? Why is the system unfair now, after the fact, when all the mechanisms were in place at the appropriate time to address their confusion? You can't change the rules after the game has been played - remember the ex post facto clause in the Constitution?
The only answer I've heard anyone make is "I was too embarassed to ask for help". Which is not surprising given the pride and snootiness that permeates much of PBC. But find 19K (mostly Democrat) friends who made the same undeniably stupid mistake and it's not embarassing any more?
I'll probably get marked as flaimbait for saying this, not to mention ruin my chances of ever getting elected to public office in PBC, but I'm getting tired of seeing so much pandering to this kind of irresponsibility and foolishness.
Updating govt (Score:2)
Yet again, I don't think they could understand any other solution than buying a ton of Microsoft VOTE©® licenses at taxpayer expense, then we'd really be in a pickle.
Further reading... (Score:4)
Security of electronic voting in public elections [ncl.ac.uk]
which contains many pointers to discussions on the topic of "net voting". Also see issues 21.11 [ncl.ac.uk] and 21.12 [ncl.ac.uk], which contain some interesting comments on the current recounts going on in Florida and whether machine counting is more or less accurate than hand counting (spoiler: Peter Neuman and Lauren Weinstein disagree with the Bush campaign's contention that machine counting is more accurate).
--Jim
The errors have always been there, lost in da noiz (Score:2)
The US is a republic not a democracy. The elections are there as a salve to public opinion but its not the people who vote. If the electoral college decided to screw the election and write in votes to elect Ralph Nader or even you there is absolutely nothing that anyone could do about it.
As it currently stands 50% of the college is bound by law to vote for their party's choice. (Though that's never been tested in the courts and of dubious legality or practicality.) In this election, that 25% for Gore, 25% for Bush and 50% for grabs.
If we could corrupt enough college members (and a million each ought to do it,) we could dispense with this expensive and humiliating election process of racking up favors by one party and the other (notice, and nor or,) which will have to be paid back with partisan contracts awarded or with non-interference in illegal but lucrative business practices. (What M$ is hoping for after contributing to (both sides.)
If you want a democracy, you just have to recruit representatives by conscription.
Just pick names from the phone books. Four years in, and you're out, here's your job back. See ya, an' thanks.
Imagine! Government without constant currying of favors, whining about the opposition who have said exactly what you said because both of you are two sides of the same slice of tasteless white bread.
And not to watch these Bozos trying to come up with creative ways to repay hose $50,000,000 worth of favors. Remember, vulture capitalists and other industrial strength investors expect to be repaid between 10 and 100 times their investment. That's gonna cost you between $500,000,000 and $5,000,000,000 over the next four years in sheer budget fat that wasn't trimmed.
Remember Papa Bush's famous line, proclaimed loudly at every sound bite opportunity? Read my lips. No, New, Taxes! Remember the next famous line, muttered once while he signed a new tax bill to pay for those favors? Read the page.
A real democratic system would be a lot cheaper.
Total cost 1 television program every four years. No election race, no people not doing their job because they're too busy running for re-election. No trees dying for A to talk trash about B.
If you want a democracy, you just have to recruit representatives by conscription.
Just pick names from the phone books. Four years in, and you're out, here's your job back. See ya, an' thanks.
Band aids on an amputated HEAD! (Score:2)
Anyway YOU don't elect a president. The electoral college does. You are there to contribute, (and not just crowd noise either.)
Re:Fixes to the balloting techniques. (Score:2)
Re:most problems still human (Score:2)
This would be a very bad idea. Why shouldn't groups of like-minded people be able to organize and pool their resources for political purposes?
Did you ever notice that when someone agrees with a group, it is grass roots democracy. When they disagree with the group, it is an evil special interest group.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:First, eliminate the electoral college (Score:2)
And any system that can make the 2nd place runner up winner is rather flawed, wouldn't you say?
The EC makes votes count less, and keeps canditates form campaigning at all in states which they know they won't do well in, because the votes a state hands out are on an all or nothing basis. There's no incentive for a canditate to try to get 50,000 votes out of a state that the majority of citizen won't go for him, because if they don't get the majority of votes, they get nothing.
If we don't get rid of the EC altogether after this election, we really need to move to make each vote independant of one another. So a candidate would have to fight for votes in every county. And mandate that electors vote according to the "will of the people" rather than being allowed (in some states) to disregard the citizens votes and cast their ballot however they choose.
EC: Get rid of it altogether, or at least reform the hell out of it.
Re:Too high-tech, not too low-tech (Score:2)
We also use a similar system in France, where we
also elect directly a head-of-state with executive
power (a not-so-frequent situation in industrialized democraties).
We use pre-printed ballots instead of pencils,
but the system basically consists in putting on
of the ballots in an envelope and putting the
enveloppe in a poll box.
Counting is proposed to people when they vote.
I did it once and it couldn't be more transparent
and efficient. It is quite formal, we formed
groups of four on separate tables, number one
opens an envelope, number 2 reads the name on
the ballot, number three counts, number 4 checks.
Any ballot with anything written on it or any mark
of any kind, or any enveloppe containing anything
else than one ballot are presented to the
people in charge who stamp it, have everybody
on the table sign it, and it is put aside to
be discarded.
Results are progressively entered on a computer
system that sends them to the interior ministry.
The counting was done by 11pm in an office that
closed at 8pm. Even though exit polls have always
called the election at 8pm when the last offices
close, final results are given by the interior
ministry the morning of the next day.
Another thing is that there is no vote-by-mail
at all. It would be considered non-constitutional
since it doesn't guarantee that the vote is cast
free from any pressure. It is possible to mandate
someone to vote in your place, if you can justify your need for it (I did it during my military service).
Bottom line : the simpler the better.
it goes even further than that.. (Score:2)
This problem we are seeing with the election is asymptomatic of the problems in the goverment today. We need to implement a better and easier way of dealing with elections. People also need to be able to get a reciept after they vote so that they know who they voted for.
The patent office is filled with this type of inadequacies. The DMV, and many other offices. What can be done? Don't let Bush or Gore in the white house. Neither of them know enough about technology althougth Gore may be a little better. Get this the Republicans think that the electronic counting system is more accurate than hand counting Yet there were 33 votes that were found when hand counted cause the card reader did not pick up on holes that were not punched through correctly. To top it off who do they think programmed that thing? Robots? How stupid do they have to be to think that? Now they want to mess with the Fl voting system which is none of there business. Both Bush and Gore need to get the hell out of Fl and take there parties with them and let FL do its job. If Bush gets into office then let it be after all the counts are done. Let the Fl voting system work its way out.
Even if we reform the political system and govement beaurocries (sp), we will still have problems. There is not an easy answer and technology is only as good as its programmer. Hey what programmer out there has never made a mistake? ALL software has bugs and by putting a machine in to deal with the voting system does not guarentee anything. Just my .02 cents.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Be glad... (Score:2)
Letters from the UK.... (Score:2)
OTOH, I think both candidates have caused a certain loss of dignity to America with this pulling and tearing over the corpse of the election. Maybe they should both agree to step down and allow someone else to try. Both candidates should wait till all the postal votes are in and agree to accept the result. For once Tricky Dicky Nixon was in the right in accepting the result even though there was clear evidence of some vote rigging. This problem is not even due to criminal influence, just a major cockup in form design.
The common opinion in the UK seems to be that if you can't see a damn big arrow pointing at the hole you should punch out then you are too daft to vote. Secondly both main parties accepted the format of the paper before the vote and therefore should accept that it wasn't quite perfect after the vote. In the UK, I believe that you have the ability to get a new ballot paper provided you return your spoiled one before you pop it in the box.
P.S can anyone provide a link to that joke Florida ballot paper that's doing the rounds ? I think it says it all...
BTW, as far as being poorly sighted goes I was -10.25/-9.75 till the wonders of LASIK had their effect, so I do understand about eyesight problems.
Re:information design (Score:2)
You didn't have to be that literate to understand the form, just punch the hole indicated by the d**n big arrow for your candidate. Both parties accepted the form layout before the election, so they should accept the result after the election. All elections have some spoiled votes, and it is only due to the closeness of the result that both parties are doing themselves no justice by squabbling over them.
As for getting the same number in two different counts forget it. Any two manual workers will disagree in small ways as to what constitutes a valid paper and what is a spoiled paper; no matter what system you use there will always be spoiled papers, sometimes done deliberately to indicate none of the above.
Yeah, right. It'll never work. (Score:2)
In my view, the current political system pays lip service to 'democracy' while in fact to be represented you have to pony up $millions in various contributions (bribes). The only way, for example, some piece of 'important small business legislation' could ever be passed is if the small business owners got together, threw a bunch of money in a pot, and hired a professional lobbyist.
Whether we vote on punch cards, or computers, the basic political system itself will not change. I suspect that computerizing the election process would cause much more trouble than it cures. Have you ever voted? The people signing you in and operating the equipment are not exactly your typical computer literate crowd.
The implementation details are what kills this -- it's one thing to have a slashdot poll, but any election comes under a lot of scrutiny. By the time everyone has had their say in the system it's unlikely that it would ever work, and even if it did, it would cost 10-20 times what we pay now.
Disgruntled voter in New York -- the carpetbagger state!
Re:Yeah, right. It'll never work. (Score:2)
In practice only the people with axes to grind are going to bother getting involved until it comes time to actually do something -- then everyone who wants representation gets it in person, and if they're unwilling to represent their interests, they either don't get represented or they could nominate someone else to represent them in whole or in part.
As for the minority issue, where minorities would be under-represented in a true 'democracy'; if everyone had direct access to the political system, the system I outlined would be vastly more level than it is now. Would the rights of some be compromised in the process? Possibly, but then of course you would most likely see coalitions form as they do in other countries. Rather than two dominant parties you'd see all of the current interest groups (NAACP, AARP, NRA, etc. etc.) coalescse the support of their respective members. In this 'new order', political influence would not be peddled for money, but channeled by specific interests. Instead of the NRA making huge contributions to candidates, they would mobilize their members on specific issues, or collect some form of proxy voting power on their behalf. This sort of system would immediately be stable and correct itself through negative feedback. Hmmm... there's a thought... Engineered politics.
Out of chaos flows not entropy but a complicated system of order.
Look, it's easy to just say we should use tech... (Score:2)
Others have thought about it already, and despite my positive view of technology, I have to agree that we're not ready to vote in the home, and won't be for a long time. Where's all those people decrying SDMI for having the "trusted client" problem? This one is thousands of times worse! What if someone plants a lil' program on your computer that causes your vote to magically change from Democrat to Republican between the time you click "Vote" and the transmission of the results?
An excellent essay that has actual thought involved instead of just knee-jerf reaction is this study from the Voting Integrity Project, Is Internet Voting Safe? [voting-integrity.org] It's a great essay, it doesn't say "Yes" or "No", it says both and qualifies them.
Think, people, think! This is too importent to just throw technology at the problem and assume it will magically make the problems just go away!
Re:The internet age will NOT make this easier! (Score:3)
In 1996, 16,000 Palm Beach County ballots were discarded. In 2000, of the 19,000 ballots, only a small percentage were discarded due to multiple presidential votes. As a resident of West Palm, I have yet to hear from ANY of my friends or family (Republican or Democrat) who found the election difficult. Long, yes. Mechanically difficult, no.
The people crying fraud out my friggin office window seem to be blissfully unaware that a Democrat designed and another Democrat approved the ballot. Where's the fraud?
On another topic, on Friday night, a whole bunch of us went down to the protest with signs like "Vote for J.R. "Bob" Dobbs", "fnord", "Garage Sale", and a blank, black poster board. You can see us behind the announcer on CNN and on Larry King Live. :) Tonight, I'm going to carry a "First Post" sign.
--
Evan (Long dark hair in a neat ponytail, dark trimmed beard, glasses. On Friday, we were on the Bush side of the street)
Re:A Complex Ballot? What are you smoking? (Score:2)
Does it take an idiot? There have been a number of times in my life that I took an exam and figured out about the time I got home that I had misunderstood a question and therefore gotten it wrong. Does that make me an idiot too?
Sure, knowing human nature, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it turns out that lots of liars are stepping forward now. But are they all liars? There were plenty of complaints on election day -- before the polls closed -- and the double-punched ballots tell a tale that does not need human testimony for support.
Re:A Complex Ballot? What are you smoking? (Score:2)
Florida state officials are saying lots of things this week. The more interesting question is, which of those things will hold up in court?
The page also gave a link to the actual text of the law, so Slashdot readers (and Florida's judges) can develop their own opinions about how well the sayings of the Florida state officials are supported by the laws of the State of Florida.
Re:A Complex Ballot? What are you smoking? (Score:3)
Not. See this note [pitt.edu] on jurist, and read the part about allegations of a confusing ballot. IANAL, but it certainly sounds like the ballot does not conform to the requirements of Floridian state law.
> Instead, the dems us ed a telemarketing firm to stir the pot and get people to complain when it became apparent they they weren't going to win Florida.
Actually, the problem was reported long before the outcome of the election was clear. By 11:24 AM Florida time, there had already been enough complaints to prompt a FAX from the DNC to contact county officials, asking them to post a clarification. A note was then distributed by the county to the actual voting sites, arriving mostly between 1:00 and 2:00 PM. (I have seen at least once source claiming that the clarification never did reach all the sites.)
See th is Salon article [salon.com] for a pretty good review of the situation, including a link to a scan of the memo.
Also, now that a bit of information about the disqualified ballots is finally leaking out, it turns out that there was indeed a high fraction of Gore+Buchanan punches (over 2x the number of Gore+Bush punches, IIRC).
It is at best misleading for you to portray the current dispute as a post hoc attempt by the Democrats to throw a fair election.
Let's not confuse. (Score:2)
tcp/ip is NOT the most technologically advanced, it is simply the most popular, and most widely used protocol out there.
Technologically backward state has advanced voting (Score:5)
In Louisiana, the voting is 100% digital. With the exception of absentee ballots, no vote ever touches a paper ballot, its all done electronically.
Here's how it works:
The voting machines contain an embedded computer and consist of a panel that is a programmable array of pushbuttons and LED's.
A PC software application programs the machine, assigning the buttons and LED's to certain functions, and the same application prints out a paper overlay, that they actually call a "ballot" that is placed over the button and LED array on the voting machine.
The paper overlay contains detailed instructions and the names of candidates. A black square is printed on the overlay above each active button. An arrow points from the candidates name to his/her assigned button. When the button is pressed, a green LED directly behind the arrow lights up. The LED shows through the paper at the arrow, and confirms the selection.
Any selection can be cleared and re-entered as many times as desired. When the voter is happy with his/her selections, he/she presses a "cast ballot" button that registers the selections in Flash EEPROM.
When the polls close, all the machines are taken to regional collection centers where their data ports are plugged into collection computers that spool the votes out of the machines and directly into an Oracle data base. With the exception of omitting an entire machine (or precinct!), no human error is possible, it's 100% electronic.
This is a far cry from that system in Florida where 19th century technology mechanical machines count punched holes using rotating wheels with mechanical metal feelers! Each time a ballot is run through one of these machines there is a risk that additional punch-outs will fall out, rendering that ballot invalid.
And hand counting, give me a break! Studies have shown that reasonably intelligent and diligent human beings can't even sort white marbles and black marbles from one another once they have been overcome with the monotony of sorting several thousand! It surely would be even worse staring at hundreds of thousands of ballots with little holes punched in them!
Louisiana's system is a huge step in the right direction and should be a model to the other states with more primitive systems. Throughout the 20th century, Louisiana was a national laughing stock due to continuous allegations of voter fraud. They've made it a priority to start out the next century with a robust solution. I think they're doing an excellent job in that regard.
Too high-tech, not too low-tech (Score:3)
In the UK, we vote with pen and paper, and they're all counted manually. The system is transparent, and so has public confidence. It only takes a few hours to count all the votes.
If you vote by computer, how can you ensure public confidence in the outcome? How can you refute allegations of 'hacking'? How can you recount if you need to?
I do agree about the need for electoral reform, but that's not likely to happen because of the difficulty of amending the Constitution. (The only change which could happen is states allocating electoral college votes in proportion to their popular votes, but even that's unlikely because states gain from being able to swing a large electoral college vote).
One other factor which I've not seen mentioned in the extensive coverage the last few days is, why are the electoral officials themselves elected? The electoral officials should be non-partisan civil servants, otherwise people won't have confidence in the impartiality of their decisions.
The internet age will NOT make this easier! (Score:3)
Pen/paper/punch ballots are the SIMPLEST form of voting out there. Could you imagine when everything is on computer, and the server goes down? watch complexity rise to a near-infinite level as they scramble to put back what was discarded.
Then you add in the 3r337 h4x0rz and you are in for a world of hurt, reliability issues with the outcome become of paramount concern.
The "complexity" of the WPB ballot came from ignorance on the part of the voters. And who said that those 19,000 ballots didn't include those who voted correctly after realising a mistake. And why would either side double-punch those ballots? Those are the questions, and they all too often come up this century..
Re:You don't know what you're talking about, Jon (Score:2)
National Holiday Problems (Score:2)
First of all - when you aren't obligated to vote (as brazilians are) - people that don't care will just stay home - as a matter of fact, most people will just stay home, the voter turnout will be much lower than the already are (think about it, would you go out in the cold to vote for something that won't affect you). Second, not giving a holiday is good to keep vote herders to a minimum, I know it's legal but doesn't everybody hate to be harassed by some smuck (or smuckette) giving you stickers, pins and hats for their candidate?
I can't see the reason to make it a holiday, especially when it isn't a mandatory vote. Even for a mandatory vote, holidays are just an excuse to go travel and have a plausible cause to not vote.
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All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Interstate Ranking (Score:2)
Candidates qualify separately in each state. Each state can use various voting systems, and the winner in each state is used to select that state's electoral votes. But this system won't work interstate if different candidates are in each state, as the points can't be compared between states.
Not that I'd like to be forced to rank nine candidates. It would be quite enough work to rank the top four, as it involves finding out the issues of each of them and trying to compare various phrasing. "Okay, this one is totally in favor of bringing the dodo back from extinction, while that one is totally against it, but this one hasn't answered the question, and the last one is against it if it is found to be impossible do do it."
Re:Brazil Elections (Score:2)
Name for Condorcet: IPRV (Score:2)
However, "Condorcet" is not a descriptive name for a voting system. Call it "Instant Pairwise Runoff Voting". That way it sounds more palatable to IRV supporters. It also emphasizes that the two are related improvements on the current system.
Both are ranked ballot methods. Unlike the Borda count, neither one rewards partisan tactical voting (favoring your favorite candidate by lying about your less favored candidates). However, IRV rewards defensive tactical voting (disfavoring a hated candidate by lying about preferred candidates), whereas IPRV/Condorcet does not.
Also, IPRV can deal better with "spoiled" ballots and recounts. Each ballot can be counted in any pairwise race where it's unambiguous. The matrixes of pairwise preferences can be hand-counted and added precinct-by-precinct. Ballots with X's instead of numbers, or duplicate numbers, or indecipherable numbers can still be counted as a matrix, simply put a 0 wherever it's ambiguous. This is not so for IRV.
Desirable characteristics of a voting system (Score:2)
(1) seems to conflict with (5). Perhaps there's some way with digital signatures and one-way keys to accomplish this? Perhaps the voter has a printed token that they can use to verify their vote is "as cast", without revealing what it was, and if they have significant doubt (like in the Palm Beach butterfly ballot) and don't mind revealing how they voted, they could combine their token with the Registrar of Voters' token to see how their vote was recorded; the same information as on the screen when they voted. You need both the token on the slip of paper the voter got and the Registrar token to get the individual vote information.
Absentee ballots definitely fail (1), but I don't see any help for that. (Guess why the Democrat operatives were carting the homeless down to the Registrar's office to pick up absentee ballots in exchange for cigarettes, rather than to the ballot box on election day?)
Unfortunately, any Internet voting scheme is also going to fail (1), because you can't verify that the voter is alone at his/her PC. Unless, perhaps, you make it possible for the voter to change his/her vote at any time before the polls close.
Anonymity means two systems (Score:3)
One of the critical concepts in the american voting system is anonymity. The current system, for all its flaws, achieves this. They know that I voted, but they don't know who I voted for. This was done because people in power (at any level: bosses, politicians, even husbands) were able to force people to vote one way or another by retaliating if someone voted "incorrectly."
A lot of the "vote on the internet" stuff that you see doesn't have this anonymity. Electronic booths to replace the levers and punchcards are a good idea. Voting booths that might permit traceable votes aren't. If we're worried about people making it to the polls, we need to look at the absentee ballot handling (Oregon has a fantastic system for this) and perhaps we should declare voting day a national holiday and strongly discourage businesses from remaining open.
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You don't know what you're talking about, Jon (Score:4)
-russ
Re:Eh? (Score:2)
Unfortunately, there is a reason. It's called money. I live in Osceola County, Florida. I know that I had asked the elections office after an earlier election why they were using a punch card system. The response I recieved, same response a lot of the media has gotten, the county can not afford the couple of million dollars to upgrade the voting equipment.
Granted, Osceola is a small county compared to the others in this mess. I am not sure why Palm Beach county can't or won't change. However, Volusia county shows even the scantrons aren't infallible. One precicnt had a problem with the scanner and could not get through too the tech desk because of the volume of calls. They had an emergency bin that filled up, so she did the only thing she knew how, cycled power. Guess what, it last the records of the 300 or so ballots that had already been scanned. It would have been caught and corrected later; but even the scantrons are not perfect.
Money is probably the biggest issue to upgrading these systems. It always will be.
Re:Too high-tech, not too low-tech (Score:2)
The major difference between the parlimentary system as compared to the US system is that it's impossible for the leader to not have a supporting majority in the lower house.
Re:Eliminate the Electoral College... (Score:2)
Whoever wins the entire state gets the 2 senate seat votes, and whoever wins each house district gets the appropriate vote... this is an automatic 3 for the small states, of course, but would break up the larger states such as NY, CA, FL, IL, MI, PA, etc... so that you wouldn't see that 55 vote swing. The two Senate seat votes give you that popular vote edge, but the others come down more locally. It would be interesting to calculate what that would have resulted in for this election...
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information design (Score:2)
The private sector occasionally knows the importance clearly presented information. Ask for a picture menu at McDonalds sometime. Of course the private sector counts ever $.69, government is currently content to ignore thousands and thousands of votes each year.
The Palm Beach ballots were not alone in their incompetence. Evidence from all over the US indicates many ballots were as easy to understand as a Tax form, which is not at all. The nature of English reading (and all other horizontally read languages) is to read down one verticle column and then move on to the next column. This reminds me of those silly high school tests where there was a long list of convoluted directions with the last item in the list saying "ignore all previous directions."
A whole lot of people on both sides of the party fence are having their careers skewered over this. I feel bad for the local Democrat woman who approved the ballot. Her job was not to redesign the voting system, her job was to make sure the names were spelled correctly. Florida law indicated the order of candidates on the ballot, maybe it should have put everyone in the middle. A whole lot of grief could have been avoided if the ballot design had "wasted" a bit of paper and left some space between the candidates names. There appeared to be plenty of unused space at the bottom of the ballot card.
Regardless of who wins this election, wouldn't it be nice if Florida could get the same number in two separate recounts?
Some of the protest signs have been rather disturbing. I don't believe the people who screwed up their votes were "stupid" as I've heard and seen them referred to. But even if they were, we are all free to be stupid, and to be frail, confused, illiterate. All votes are equal, no one voter has any more importance whether they have an MBA or never went to high school.
Re:information design (Score:2)
There are accounts of election officials being instructed to turn away anyone who needed assistance because it would slow down voting and turnout was much higher than normal. Because of this, people who did ask for help were turned away and their votes voided.
*I don't remember which paper I read that in, I'm reading about 10 these days from all over the place. It might have been in the New York Times or AP coverage of the NAACP hearings.
There is mention of it in this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/20 00/ 11/13/politics/13TOCK.html [nytimes.com]
Why Vote (Score:2)
I didn't vote for a few reasons the BIGGEST being that the process of voting is more prohibitive than any other process in my life (besides renewing my drivers liscence or other interactions with
The system is self perpetuating in a sense
this is NOT a technology problem (Score:2)
There was an election some time in the 1800's that took six months...SIX MONTHS...to decide. How's technology going to help absentee balots? Americans that live and work abroad have the right to vote, and if the vote is close enought that it comes down to those absentee balots, well, then that's how it's going to be.
Now, if people have a problem with the electoral college, then that's a separate thing. I'll admit that the system could use some reform, but it has worked well up to now. I think this is a matter that doesn't have a correlation to technology; we don't have to tie technology to every single issue in our lives. If anything, this illustrates the need for people to vote, not the need for technology. We saw one case in florida, where a confusing ballot machine (technology) may have caused people to vote incorrectly. Now, you can say, hey, that's how the cookie crumbles; we can't be held responsible for every person that votes incorrectly, or is confused by the ballot. But they're old people; cut them some slack. It's somewhat strange to have a platform that harps on social security reforem (something that the elderly are more concerned about than any other age group), and then be unsympathetic when your system confuses them. It's easy for Bush to say, "tough", cause he's ahead.
And then people bitch about people that voted for Nader, saying that their votes probably would have gone to Gore, and blah blah. Well...at least they voted!!! I don't see how we can complain about the voting system when a staggering percentage of our popultation doesn't even vote!
If we think that more technology in the voting sector is going to help, then we're way off the mark.
Re:Is it just me, or .. ? (Score:2)
Actually, it would be prudent to have a printout card listing the voter's choices drop into place behind a window (look but don't touch). If the voter confirms the vote, it drops into the locked ballot box. If the voter rejects the vote, it is marked "VOID" and dropped into the locked reject box (or maybe all dropped into the same box, if the VOID marker is sufficiently reliable and indelible), and the machine allows the voter to enter new choices.
That provides a printed confirmation as a double-check against machine error (or corrupted programming). The cards can be counted automatically or manually if the machine tally is called into question.
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Re:Here's Better Idea ( was Re:Katz is Whacked) (Score:2)
I don't think that issuing voter receipts is a good idea, precisely because of the coercion issue. Even if the receipt merely contained an ID number for the vote, someone could use it to verify that he voted "correctly".
IMO, providing a printout for final review behind a window (which could be marked VOID if the voter rejected it and started over, or dropped into the verification lockbox if the voter accepted it and entered the vote) is sufficient.
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Re:Free Speech protection and other Bullshit (Score:2)
The states can do as they please.
When will people (especially /.ers) learn to read.???
Good question. Your reading test for today is:
And, from the advanced reading excersize [2ndlawlib.org]:/.
Re:Eh? (Score:2)
One of the gripes raised in Florida was that about 19k ballots in Palm Beach County (not Broward County, as Jon Katz stated) were thrown out because of a double-vote...someone punched a candidate, realized he made a mistake--and then failed to get a new ballot and proceeded to screw up his vote altogether by punching another candidate.
The electronic voting machines used here in Nevada (or at least in Clark County; I'm not sure about the rest of the state) since 1996 or so keep this from happening. When you step into the booth, an arrow shows up for each candidate/question for which you can vote (since one booth can serve multiple precincts). When you press a button for a candidate, the arrow moves to that candidate. If you then try to select another candidate, the machine won't allow it until you press the button for your first selection to deselect it. Double-voting is impossible with this system. Once all your choices are made, you hit a big "cast vote" button and your ballot is recorded in a memory cartridge. At the end of the vote, all of the cartridges are read into the tabulating system, which then spits out the vote. There's much less room for monkeying with the vote. About the only thing that can happen is an electronic or mechanical failure of the equipment, and that isn't as likely or as prone to fraud or manipulation as looking at a punchcard and determining if a bit of chad is or isn't punched out.
Delaware has a fix already... (Score:4)
This technology is from the 70s.
When I first voted in 1980 in Delaware, they had mechanical voting machines. You pulled levers inside a booth and it advanced mechanical dials indicating who was voted for. At the end of the day, those results would be phoned in, the machines locked up, and the results later certified by officials checking the dials.
Now we have computerized voting machines. Loud audible tones are heard when a poll worker sets it up for a vote, the watchers hear this so they can be assured no one gets more than one vote, the voter goes inside a booth and presses buttons to indicate who to vote for. You can change your mind and unselect it, all candidates chosen are lit up by bright red LEDs and those races where you haven't voted have a reminder LED blinking.
The votes are recorded into a cartridge and also into the machine. At the end of the day, the cartridge is somehow uploaded to a central place and the machine itself folds down into a self-carrier that can be sealed for later reverification if needed.
From what I can gather, the system also advances analog counter dials as a backup if the electronic part fails. (I couldn't get near the rear of the machine at my polling place but at a friend's poll I tagged along to, I was actually able to wait for her by sitting behind one of the machines and checking it out visually!)
In a primary election this past September, the two Republican governors were within 44 votes of each other. A recount was quickly done and lo and behold, the result was again 44 votes.
These computerized machines have been in use for about 6 years. When is the rest of the country going to catch up?
Standardize both ballots and process (Score:3)
Ballots: For reasons which should be obvious to all. Whether the Palm Beach County ballot was "simple" or "confusing" appears to be a matter of whose party you support.
By standardizing the ballot, we could ensure that these allegations are no longer an issue, and that if a usability issue becomes a problem, at least the effects are uniform across the state.
(I'd argue that if we go to an electronic system, the order in which the candidates are presented should be randomized on a per-voter basis.)
Process: The more important issue to me would be standardizing the process whereby votes are counted or recounted.
This election is likely to turn on chad - bits of paper from punch cards that either fall out of the card or remain attached by a corner.
That's bad. But at least chad affects both candidates identically. Or does it?
Ballots Again: An election in which voters in heavily-FOO counties vote with #2B pencils, and voters in heavily-BAR counties punch cards (with attendant risk of "chad" not being counted by the counting machines) will skew the results for FOO.
Indeed, even if we use the same technology (say, "fill in the dot with the pencil"), but FOO-county voters use #2B pencils, and BAR-county voters use #2H (hard) pencils, the lighter markings produced by the "hard" pencils will lead to a higher "uncounted" rate, and a skew to candidate FOO.
Process Again:Because the Bush team screwed up and didn't demand a recount in heavily-Republican counties (and the deadline passed on Friday), and Gore was smart enough to demand a recount in four heavily-Democratic counties, votes in those four counties count more than votes in other counties.
(Which is to say that while the "old farts" in Palm Beach may have been "stupid" if they couldn't tell Gore from Buchanan, the Bush team made an even dumber mistake - effectively giving the election away because they didn't understand how the mechanical technologies of the voting machines affected the results. The "old farts" can be excused. The guys who are being paid millions to run a campaign can't ;-)
But because our ballots aren't standard, it's possible that votes in heavily-Republican counties may not even have used a punch-card system. If that's the case, then votes in Republican counties count more (by about 0.001%), and Gore's just evening the score.
(Evidence: The fact that almost all counties show an "uptick", not a "downtick" in the number of votes cast, and that the hand recount in the four precincts last week showed a 33:14 advantage for Gore, in line with the ~2:1 ratio of Democrats to Republicans in that county.)
So because the laws call for recounts, but don't specify how the recount must be conducted on a statewide basis - it's up to each county to decide - both teams have the option of calling for recounts until they get the result they want, leading to a crisis of legitimacy (in the minds of the people, even if not in the eyes of the law) if the results differ.
Bottom line: How to make sure this never happens again.
If all voters in Florida used the same ballot and ballot-marking technology, there would be no controversy over whether "a misleading ballot in one county" could swing the result:
If all counties in Florida were required to use the same ballot-counting technology, there would be no controversy (the issue hasn't surfaced in the press, but it's clearly a possibility) over whether the counting technology could skew the results.
Finally, if all counties in Florida were required to use the same recounting technology, and agree to it in advance of the recount, we wouldn't be having the flurry of lawsuits we see today.
The voting technology, default counting process, and recounting process (including number of recounts) must be laid down in law, and must be laid down before the vote is taken.
(The reason for that should be obvious - it appears that old Republicans had no trouble with the Palm Beach County ballot, but old Democrats had trouble with it. It appears that Republicans think hand counts are a great idea in Texas, but fraught with inaccuracy in Florida. It appears that Democrats think that a machine recount is adequate for all counties in Florida except for the four most havily-Democratic ones.)
The only thing that's certain now is that all parties involved have lost sight of what's at issue - what constitutes a fair recount. "Fair" has ceased to be an issue of ensuring uniform error rates across the state and between candidates, and has been redefined by both sides as "that which may give our candidate the lead".
Right on. (Score:3)
It already WAS a "high-tek" replacement for paper ballots. And the problems we see now are exactly the problems we'd see in spades with a more electronified solution.
Katz says you don't have to ram a new system down people's throats. But you DO ram the results down their throats. That's the nature of elections. They'll only swallow them if they believe in the system. But they've seen how computers can go wrong, and now they've seen how punched cards can go wrong. So don't bet on them EVER accepting a netified election.
"Pay the Two Dollars!" Count the bloody ballots.
(It's a LOT better than counting the bloody bodies after the people stop trusting the elections and go back to pre-election methods of conflict resolution.)
Eliminate the Electoral College? Absolutely NOT! (Score:4)
Go to any news site and look at the election map. (Here [cbsnews.com] for instance.) This election is EXACTLY what the electoral college is INTENDED to address.
Further: The partitioning of the vote into states limits the ability of a corrupt political machine in one big state to swing the election. With it a cheater can only capture the electors of his state - which MIGHT swing the election, but only if the other states split just right. Without it his fake votes could swamp the genuine voters any time the election is at all close. And we'd be recounting the WHOLE COUNTRY, not just a few counties or a couple states.
most problems still human (Score:5)
Rather than try to graft cryptography on top of the voting process, I would rather see human reforms. For example:
1) The notion of voter registration is quaintly arranged to make voting more convenient for the government and the parties in power, not more convenient for the voters. Let's figure out a more efficient way to check the validity of a voter's identify at the polls, and scrap the idea of registration before voting day.
2) If campaign money is speech (Buckley vs Valejo!) then my voice is being drowned out by the roar of corporate cash. Let's investigate public financing so that we know in advance who has bought the candidates - us!
3) Just exactly why isn't voting day a national holiday?!?
Technology can help us solve our problems, but it's important to realize that voting in America is defective in ways that go far beyond mere ballot mechanics.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Borda Count? (Score:3)
Much better would be Instant Runoff Voting, which still can be manipulated by strategic voting, but not nearly as much as the Borda Count or a simple majority. The best solution would theoretically be Condorcet voting, but remember that this is America. Not so many Americans would be able to grasp the concept of how a Condorcet vote is tallied. Then again, CNN could make a killing making pretty illustrations of the results.
The other system Katz recommends is approval voting, which is simply dumbed-down IRV. And someone who doesn't grasp the concept of ranking candidates in order of preference is probably voting for the candidate whose hair they like best.
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Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.
Re:An outside look at the eleccion process (Score:3)
And, FWIW, Gore only called for hand counts in certain Democratic counties. That introduces additional inaccuracies in the margin, which is what matters, since hand counting is biased towards finding additional votes. The ONLY fair hand-recount is a statewide hand recount with uniform standards (e.g. standards for dealing with chad), and where each ballot is handled a minimum number of times (because this can loosen chad).
It's analogous to rolling 200 fair six-sided dice, rerolling all the dice that showed 1 or 2, then re-rolling those that still show 1 or 2, and then reporting that the dice have an average of 4.8 or whatever instead of 3.5. Any self-respecting statistician would die of laughter.
Web voting = bad idea (Score:4)
Katz argues that people shouldn't have to drive long distances to vote, so they should be able to vote in their own homes, electronically. There just isn't enough security this way. I guess, IMHO, the ideal voting scheme is electronically, in a private booth, where you may have to drive a long distance.
First, eliminate the electoral college (Score:3)
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erf (Score:3)
Could this have anything to do with the fact that the country has nothing to do with it, it's up to the individual states? Don't tread on me...
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Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
Instant Runoff has problems (Score:4)
A system in which strategic voting is really hard is Condorcet voting. In Condorcet voting, strategy is only possible when the public prefers A to B, B to C, and C to A, and even then, it's tricky. Condorcet also satisfies many rigorous fairness criteria that instant runoff (and other methods) fail.
While it is important to realize the problems with simple majority voting, it is also important not to fall into another, less obvious, snare, like Borda or instant runoff. Instead, look at the results of hard logical and mathematical analysis. People who study this generally agree on Condorcet. (There are some variations, so to be precise, they agree on the basic idea.) See electionmethods.com [electionmethods.com] or other sites
Re:First, eliminate the electoral college (Score:3)
Among the issues that would arise would be oversight of the polling process. Currently, it is done by the states (or counties within the states), and they are free to conduct their elections as they see fit.
Having a national election would require either that the states remake their local ballots to conform to the national standard (clearly unconstitutional), or to separate the balloting for President from the balloting for local and copngressional elections.
Re:Eh? (Score:3)
Secondly, all this talk about thousands of people claiming they were confused is a fraud. It has just been discovered today that Al Gore's people hired a telemarketing firm to call thousands of Gore-friendly voters (in those close Florida districts we are hearing about) on election night, asking them to complain about confusing ballots. Over 5,000 people were called by that firm in the first 45 minutes, once the decision was made to start making a stink about the election.
All these "disenfranchized" voters picketing the streets in Florida is a total lie. Every one of those people is a Gore activist trying to reverse the loss of their favorite candidate, regardless of the legitimate outcome.
The democrats now claim to have somehwere around 8,000 sworn statements from people who think they accidentally voted for Buchannan, even though he only got about 3,500 votes in the disputed district.
The ballot that Jesse Jackson is waiving around and calling unfair is the same style as was used to elect his son in Chicago.
This ain't about a poor election system, folks. It is about a PR campaign to undermine the nations confidence in the process which left Al Gore on the losing side.
Re:Eh? (Score:3)
Re:Yeah, right. It'll never work. (Score:4)
The reason pure democracy is dangerous and would take away more freedoms than a republic is because it is simply mob rule. A republic can shield some of the smaller groups from the majority when they are wrong. A good example is racism. In the past, minority groups were not treated equal with the majority. It doesn't mean all American white people were bad then, just that they had looked at minorities (even other whites such as the Irish immigrants) as 2nd class people. If you were black/native american/irish/chinese/etc would you really want to be alive back then if they had a pure democracy? I sure wouldn't. It's only because it was more of a representive form of government that we were able to gain the freedoms for the minority groups. If we were in a democracy now, we would all eat at McDonalds, shop at Walmart, be Christian, pass laws that fear technology like computers, but use it to lease movies to watch on our MPAA approved DVD players, we would close the borders from those evil foreigners from Mexico China and India that want to come here to be citizens, and we would be even more sheep than we are now.
If you have ever been any part of any minority group (even the "geeks" Katz is always bitching for) you would know that mob rule such as democracy destroys freedom of choice and freedom to have different opinions. Democracy is a dangerous thing. It is the cousin of communism and I hope to never live in a country that is a pure democracy. I don't want laws passed against me to infringe on my constitutional rights.
My take (Score:3)
Eh? (Score:4)
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.