Ranking can violate secrecy.

[David Marsay]

In response to:
> From:          Bart Ingles <bartman at netgate.net>
> Subject:       Re: Ranking can violate secrecy.

(Copied below)

proposed criterion:
'signature'
The number of possible distinct ballot papers shall not exceed 5% 
(say) of the electorate.
(To avoid the possibility of voters 'signing' votes to prove to the 
winner that they did vote for them.)

(E.g., voters can mark a 1st and 2nd choice. Given the 
unavoidable problems of tactical voting, this may not be too great a 
limitation.)

> Mike Ositoff wrote:
> > 
> > Interesting. That hadn't occurred to me, about the possibility
> > of a bought voter identifying himself by a unique ranking.
> > It sounds possible, and it sounds like possibly a fatal problem
> > for rank-balloting in many-candidate elections. Is there a
> > solution?
> > 
> > Mike
> 
> Sure.  Limit the number of ranks allowed, with only one vote per
> ranking.  If you want to allow votes for additional candidates, you can
> allow the voter to rank them equally in the next-to-last position (as
> well as in the last position, which would be equiv. to truncation).
> 
> Note that allowing multiple equally-ranked candidates in all positions
> would increase the opportunities for a unique pattern.  If you want to
> do this you would need to reduce the max. number of ranks even further
> to compensate.
> 
> 
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Sorry, but apparently I have to do this. :-(
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