I used an old computer & it deleted program

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

>D- I note again that looking at voted ballots before the polls close is a
>major election felony in *real* public elections.

Irrelevant, Demorep--this isn't a public election. Besides, you're
mistaken in that claim: Election returns from other timezones are
made available to voters in California. If your claim were correct,
then every Californian would be guilty of a felony when they turn on
the tv and find out the election returns from the Eastern timezone.

Aside from that, 6 voters chose to post their ballots. That makes
posted ballots the democratic choice.

>
>ALL of the voted ballots might be posted AFTER they are compiled  -- as 
>when
>ballots are counted in local precincts with poll watchers watching the
>counting.

That's one way to do it. But we've always used posted ballots here.
I like posted ballots because, even if I weren't the one conducting the
poll and therefore receiving the ballots, I'd want to know how many
people have voted. I'd also be curious how they've voted.

So really there are 3 alternatives:

1. Posted ballots
2. An ongoing posted report on how many people have voted
3. No information on the voting till the result is reported.

#3 seems dominated by #2. #2 avoids the risk of encouraging easy
offensive strategy. #1 seems preferred on EM. Again, if the topic
turns out to be voting systems, we have a pretty good idea of how
the various active members rank the voting systems, and so offensive
order-reversal might not be so hard to detect and thwart, by truncation
during the 2 day period reserved for that, after the balloting deadline.

While we're taking nominations for the next poll, the one whose topic
is chosen by the poll now being counted, I suggest that we also vote
between the following two ways of conducting a balloting:

1. Posted ballots
2. Ballots sent only to poll-taker. Poll-taker posts the running total
   of how many people have voted so far.

Mike Ossipoff



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