[EM] Open Voting Consortium for e-voting?

[Paul Kislanko]

-----Original Message-----
From: election-methods-electorama.com-admin at electorama.com
[mailto:election-methods-electorama.com-admin at electorama.com] On Behalf
Of Ken Johnson
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2004 4:12 PM
To: election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com
Subject: [EM] Open Voting Consortium for e-voting?



>From: Ernest Prabhakar <drernie at mac.com>
>Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:12:01 -0700
>...
>  
>
>>...  Is there any way other groups could
>>get access to summaries (e..g, the pairwise matrix) or scrubbed subset

>>of ballots, for research purposes.
>>    
>>
>Certainly precinct totals should be made available.  We haven't done
>the threat analysis to determine whether or not individual ballots  
>should be made available.
>  
>
In my view, public disclosure of precinct totals should be construed as 
a potential violation of voter secrecy. If a high percentage of people 
in my precinct vote a particular way, one could draw a highly probable 
inference about how I voted based on the precinct totals. Politicians 
may show favoritism toward or bias against certain precincts based on 
their voting patterns, or may use the information for targeted political

marketing campaigns.

PK replies:
Anyone who would draw a conclusion about about how any specific voter
voted from the totals for a precinct is not worth worrying about, unless
one of the totals is zero. 

In any case, precinct totals ARE reported publicly already. Every
election night they are prominent features on my television screen.
Precint totals are a public record, and they MUST be if we're not to
turn over vote-counting to the powers in charge. 

Ken Johnson:
Furthermore, public disclosure of ballots, even devoid of any voter or 
precinct identity information, could also be construed as a secrecy 
violation because the ballots could be used to determine correlations 
between different ballot issues. For example, if the election includes a

ballot initiative for Electoral Reform, one could use the ballots to 
determine the political constituencies of Electoral Reform advocates. 
This kind of information might make some politicians less likely to 
support Electoral Reform.

PK replies:
Counts for or against an initiative are necessarily public knowledge,
since one is decided upon by the election. The "issue" really isn't one,
because no one has suggested that the ballots be disclosed, only the
sums (according to whichever "method" was previously approved to count
the votes). 

Ken Johnson:
Of course, the ballot information could be obtained by conventional 
polling methods (e.g., exit polling), but in this case the voters have 
the option of withholding or misrepresenting their views. From my 
perspective, the only kind of "research purpose" for which ballots can 
be legitimately used is to determine the election outcome. Ballots and 
precinct-level totals should only be available to election officials and

auditors who are obligated to maintain such information in confidence.

PK replies:
This is where all of the "election-reform" advocates lose my support
entirely. "Of course, the ballot information could be obtained by
conventional polling methods (e.g., exit polling), but in this case the
voters have the option of withholding or misrepresenting their views" is
an example of confusing "election methods" with "voter preferences."

Polls are irrelevant to a vote-counting method analysis. As was pointed
out, any voter could answer questions to an "exit pollster" that are
completely different from their ballot (I know I certainly would, if the
"exit pollster" could get past my initial "none of your business"
response - if after I gave her that one she kept badgering me I'd make
up something different than what I put on my ballot just to make myself
feel better).

The idea that "precinct level totals should only be available to
election officials" is just flat repugnant. Once the Repulicans are in
charge of appointing all of the Election Officials and only they are
allowed to see the totals (and tell the voters who won) then we can't
even talk about being a "democracy" and can't have any faith in our
votes being counted, so why bother to vote at all?


There's no harm in collecting results of an election "by precinct" -
those are a public record. The only question is how easy should that be
for researchers. It's already not difficult for anyone who wants to put
the effort into it, since they are available to anyone as soon as the
election is certified and the winning outcome is announced. If you want
to keep the vote totals secret, we can just let the election officials
decide who won without knowing what method they used or whether they
were just making the results up.