On Apr 4, 2006, at 12:41 PM, Mike Miller wrote: On Tue, 4 Apr 2006, McIntosh Jason wrote:
On Apr 4, 2006, at 10:12 AM, Mike Miller wrote: --- It's pretty amazing and wonderful to think that a change to a fairer voting system, one that allows more real choices and let's Rick Buford have a shot, can actually completely alter our political landscape. It would happen overnight as soon as we implement a Condorcet system. Why hasn't this been done before? It is used in small elections, but you have to use a computerized system if there is a large number of voters. We have to get a good secure, open-source voting system working. After that, we can change to Condorcet and reap the benefits. Read about it and promote it in small elections, e.g., in your workplace, in high schools, etc.
I was thinking of this a while back, trying to find a good "open" voting solution using commputerized/electronic voting methods. The only solution I've come up isn't a diebold system, but something else like this:
Use electronic voting, which upon completion prints out two receipts. One receipt goes in as an "official" ballot. You can check this out yourself, see the results. This is where "officials" are elected from. However, your electronic vote gets stored in a database, and is used to validate the paper vote. This electronic vote also MUST be able to be verified online in an open way. Call it a generic, unique ID for your vote (i.e. concept of a sequence number). You can go online to a website, and type in the sequence number off of your receipt to make sure your vote is valid. There would be no identifying information on the vote (a CRITICAL feature in my view), nor would the number be tied to a person in any way. It's just a generic "vote number XYZ".
What use would there be in that? One problem with it is that some people could force other people to vote certain ways. Right now we have a system where that can't happen -- you can vote for anyone and lie about it.
You could still do that with this system - maybe an option to have a paper receipt for yourself? I'd like that so I could take it home and proudly display it ;) But, other people could just choose not to have it.
This system would support a number of checks - including the basic check of a) making sure the vote, both paper and electronic were counted correctly, b) reducing some of the overhead and making it easier for a person to vote, and c) allowing a way to publicly verify your own vote.
Having a copy of my voting ballot would not do very much to confirm that my vote was counted if there were more than a few votes counted at my polling place. I'm not sure that public verification is a good thing (I'm really not sure because I can see a downside).
What is the downside of the public verification? I'd think a good system would allow you to do such a thing. Course, there ARE considerations of "wait, that wasn't what I voted for!" - but that's why the paper receipt - so you could prove that it wasn't if you really wanted to do so. Right now, this kind of a thing doesn't exist at all. You have no proof that the vote you submitted really was tallied for whomever/whatever you voted for. So, I'm kinda curious where the problem here is... for me, the big thing is just to make sure that it's NOT traceable except by the voter. I do think people should be able to look at least at the calculated results.
The electronic system wouldn't have to be much different than what we have -- you go to a computer (not networked), fill in your votes, confirm, print one copy, bring that copy to the scanner, put it in. That's like what we do today except that we don't print. It might be possible to avoid the computer and just scan forms, but there are many more ways that can fail. Getting the equipment may be an issue, but computers are easier to get than voting booths. The printers could be the tricky part. It could be done a little differently, but I'm not sure how. We have to remember to maintain privacy.
Hmm, I don't know how the scanner system would work. I'd think that's good, but another option too would be to have a usb drive kinda thing, where you could download the days results. That way you could just essentially import a CSV type file into a database for quick calculations. I'd say you'd need sorta an integrated system, which has a receipt type printer - I don't think those are very complex, nor difficult to create.
Thoughts on this? (As a note, I came up with this idea while back, but the two paper receipts, one for the official tally, the other for your own records is a new idea). Jason
Thanks for replying. I think this is the most important thing we geeks can do for our country. We have to get the electronic voting systems working securely. It would really be a great advance with wide-ranging effects.
Indeed - I think we need electronic voting. I do think we need it though in a way that is publicly verifiable. The problem I have with the diebold machines is a distinct lack of accountability. Essentially, diebold can state whatever they want with regards to the results - there's no way for anyone to really validate those results. And, then, the question comes in what happens if there's a mistake? How do you check that, and who do you hold responsible? Instant runoff voting has already been used in some fairly major elections (e.g., in San Francisco). Instant runoff isn't as good as Condorcet, but it is better than what we have and, like Condorcet, it does use ranks. So I see widespread Condorcet voting as a real possibility for our future, maybe even within my lifetime.
Mike
I haven't looked at condorcet voting, but I'd say take small steps - an electronic system of some sort would be the first. I just don't trust electronic voting unless I have some way to make sure my vote WAS counted somehow. Essentially, a paper trail I think is needed.
Jason -- /--------------------------------------|---------------------------\ | Jason McIntosh | CELL: 573-424-7612 | | Webmaster, thinker, programmer, etc. | WORK: 573-884-3865 | |------------------------------------------------------------------| |"How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are | |for. I only coded it." | |(Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting) | \--------------------------------------|---------------------------/
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