do people here actually believe the current system isn't rigged? does anyone believe an internet based system wouldn't be rigged?
Internet voting: Exactly what the 99% needs
41–50 of 59 posts
Re: Internet voting: Exactly what the 99% needs
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be misleading to gloss over IRV's significant failings if we're talking about criteria failure. * 8 people vote: A, C, B * 5 people vote: B, C, A * 4 people vote: C, B, A IRV eliminates C, despite the majority of voters preferring C over B (12 to 5). The order of elimination means that significant secondary preferences are often ignored.
Sure, but you really should not underestimate how important it is that everyone understand how their vote is counted. I had a roommate who worked for a voting reform nonprofit and he said even gathering signatures for "simple" IRV is quite challenging. It's just too hard to explain quickly.
Top 10 lists are not a novel concept for most people. Individual votes are precisely like that. Cumulatively, the person who did the best on everyone's lists wins. It's far simpler than the system we have now.
The plural of anecdote isn't evidence, I know, but: I had Condorcet voting briefly explained to me at a young age, and I grasped it immediately. I couldn't do the math, but it was conceptually really easy to grasp. I didn't fully understand the current US system until around age 20.
Re: Internet voting: Exactly what the 99% needs
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's MUCH more difficult than banking or taxes. Not only must your vote be secure and counted; it must be anonymous! Not even you should be able to prove to anyone else who you voted for and there must be no audit trail that could tie an individual vote to a person.
Doesn't bitcoin solve this problem?
No, bitcoin is "pseudonymous", transactions are public. It's not necessarily easily linked to your real identity (hence the pseudonymity), but with today's profiling tech, is that any guarantee?
Re: Internet voting: Exactly what the 99% needs
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's MUCH more difficult than banking or taxes. Not only must your vote be secure and counted; it must be anonymous! Not even you should be able to prove to anyone else who you voted for and there must be no audit trail that could tie an individual vote to a person.
Doesn't bitcoin solve this problem?
No, bitcoin has an unencrypted audit trail.
Re: Internet voting: Exactly what the 99% needs
#45Internet voting is a bad idea. It's vulnerable to coercion. Even if we can guarantee the votes are submitted and counted accurately, it's impossible to tell if my boss was standing behind me telling me what to vote (or lose my job). At a polling station they prevent coercion by enforcing secrecy. One person in a voting booth at a time, no cameras in the voting booth, etc. If you can't prove you voted either way, you'…
On the contrary, most voters will carry a cell phone which is capable of taking pictures. So your corruption scenario is as applicable to the real world as it is to Internet voting.
"Log in and vote for candidate X while I watch" is a much more credible threat than "Bring me a picture of your ballot where you voted for candidate X".
Re: Internet voting: Exactly what the 99% needs
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
dealing with unequal access to computers and the Internet. How is that a problem when most public libraries provide free access, and traditional early and on-time voting are still available?
This is not the biggest challenge to Internet voting, but surely you agree that it's unfair that some people would now be able to vote from home while others would not? At least around me, you might wait an hour for a computer at the library during busy times. If the point is to let people vote from home at their leisure, why not just mail everyone an absentee ballot?
First let me state that I'm arguing from an assumption that technology, when not obviously bad, is inherently good, and that increasing the use of technology is a worthy goal in itself. So in my case, the point isn't just to vote from home, but to vote from anywhere using technology. I don't believe that it's necessary to share this philosophy, however, to want to see online voting become a reality.
Obviously there are security and coercion concerns that are more detrimental to Internet voting's prospects than the class division aspects. And an absentee ballot sounds reasonable, but is not nearly as convenient as online voting (and has more potential for fraud and coercion than online voting).
My main point is that I believe class disparity is a weak argument against online voting. I don't like using postal mail or waiting in line for an hour or more at the ballot box -- does that mean that it's unfair not to let me vote from home or the library? At least in the US, with libraries, cheap DSL, and cell phones, the vast, vast majority of people not currently voting have easier access to the Internet than they do to polling stations on election day. Don't deny most people a benefit because a few people can't enjoy it.
Re: Internet voting: Exactly what the 99% needs
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's MUCH more difficult than banking or taxes. Not only must your vote be secure and counted; it must be anonymous! Not even you should be able to prove to anyone else who you voted for and there must be no audit trail that could tie an individual vote to a person.
Doesn't bitcoin solve this problem?
Good luck issuing every voter with a keypair safely.
Re: Internet voting: Exactly what the 99% needs
#48While internet voting could perhaps help, I think a much simpler and more powerful change would be to switch to a Condorcet method of voting. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_voting ) Nothing would do more damage to the two-party system than for the argument "if you vote for a third party, you throw your vote away" to be demolished.
The only problem with Condorcet methods is that people aren't used to them. Get people using them for book clubs, school boards, etc first. Only when they're comfortable with it and trust that it can provide fair results will they consider it. To that end, I built https://modernballots.com . It's difficult to get mindshare when it comes to these kinds of things though. Electoral reform activists are fractured between…
Perhaps if you named it something else and had people vote on more frivolous topics like hottest celebrity, best band, best city, etc.? Don't even mention politics at all.
Re: Internet voting: Exactly what the 99% needs
#49While internet voting could perhaps help, I think a much simpler and more powerful change would be to switch to a Condorcet method of voting. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_voting ) Nothing would do more damage to the two-party system than for the argument "if you vote for a third party, you throw your vote away" to be demolished.
I understand your inclination towards doing away with a two-party system, but as long as we elect exactly one president, a two-party system does tend towards moderate policy.
My intuition on this goes as follows: Imagine one single spectrum of policy, that goes from "Left" to "Right" for example. Assume voters exist somewhere on this spectrum, and will vote for the candidate whose policy is nearest to theirs on the spectrum. Then so long as there are exactly two viable candidates then they both have no incentive to deviate from the median voter. Each candidate picks up one whole side of the spectrum, and the only thing that can happen as a candidate makes their policy more extreme is that the median voters begin to see the other candidate as closer.
Of course, the actual US election system is far more complex. Very extreme voters do in fact "throw their vote away" if both candidates appear far from their policy. There are a lot more issues than just one, so a single spectrum of policy is oversimplified. Many voters vote on individual issues, which are often black and white (e.g. pro-life/choice, for/against gay marriage). You could probably argue that candidates actual policies have very little to do with their stated policies, or that voters are significantly more swayed by advertising dollars than policy. All of these are real concerns, but I think the basic point stands: a two-party system encourages both candidates to situate themselves at more or less the median of the American electorate, which I consider a desirable outcome.
Re: Internet voting: Exactly what the 99% needs
#50do people here actually believe the current system isn't rigged? does anyone believe an internet based system wouldn't be rigged?
Rigged how? I'm fairly certain that a centralized homogeneous voting system would be significantly easier to audit for security loopholes than the current implementation, but if there were a security breach one would imagine it would be far more disastrous.