Chaumian blinding & public voting?

ken bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk
Mon Nov 3 02:44:24 PST 2003


Major Variola (ret) wrote:

> Currently voting is trusted because political adversaries supervise the
> process.
> Previously the mechanics were, well, mechanical, ie, open for
> inspection.

That really is worth saying more often.

If we here can't agree on how to make machine voting  both robust 
and private, then  EVEN IF A PERFECT SYSTEM COULD BE DESIGNED it 
is extremely unlikely that a large number of people could be 
persuaded that it /was/ perfect.

So if public confidence in the mechanisms of voting is considered 
desirable, no electronic or digital system is viable.

 > You can run an algorithm on any subset of codes, including just
 > your own,
[...]

you already lost 94% of the electorate.  They are saying "huh?" 
and going back to whatever they were doing before the election 
rudely interrupted them.

Current electoral systems work - where they do - because the 
officials keep their hands above the table, and because members of 
opposing  political parties co-operate in snooping on each other, 
because it is in their interest to do so.

This adversarial system not only works (sort of, most of the time, 
in jurisdictions where the local law enforcement isn't entirely in 
the hands of one sector of society) but it can be made to appear 
to work (well enough to satisfy that minority of voters who seem 
to care)

And leaving aside the ritual invokation of gas ovens and 747s, 
this nasty socialist agrees with the burden of Tim's rant - if 
people don't want to vote what business is it of government to 
force them to vote?

If someone doesn't want to vote, that's their choice, and a tiny 
increment to the tiny portion of influence possessed by those of 
us who do vote.  So no skin of our noses. If all of you zombies 
give up voting than the rest of us get to choose the government, 
for what its worth.

As for lotteries - you want to encourage stupid people to vote?

Public holidays for voting are as bad - they are likely to lead 
fewer people to vote of course - just as in every other public 
holiday those who get off work will head for the hills or the 
beaches or the bars or the sports stadiums (and why not if they 
want to?) and those who have to work anyway will be even busier 
than normal.

It is enough if registration is simple and open, if there are 
sanctions against employers/landlords/unions/political 
parties/thugs in general  preventing people voting,  and if there 
is a postal vote scheme for people who really can't make it on the 
day. Most countries don't even have all that yet (big chunks of 
the USA didn't not that long ago), why complicate things 
unnecessarily?

Ken Brown
(resident evil lefty)





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