[EM] A quick, dirty, and somewhat obvious method for a secretproxy ballot

[Paul Kislanko]

"Actually, on second thought, maybe "delegable proxy voting" is a bad
term to use.  In political science, we often talk about a distinction
between representatives who serve as delegates versus those who serve as
trustees, where generally trustee representatives are expected to have
more leeway in determining what's best.  Perhaps "voting by trusted
proxy" or "trustee voting" would better describe the idea here."

I think this is the crux of the issue. Those are two different things, yet
the same terminology is used in both cases.

With regard to delegable proxy as an election method, I stated with respect
to the discussion about anonymous votes vs open elections that my vote
should be anonymous without regard as to whether I was voting directly or
selecting a proxy, but that once I voted for a proxy to vote for me I must
have some way to hold that proxy accountable. 

Clearly when I vote for a congressional representative (or against the one
who wins) that is one of the models you mention, but it is exactly the EM
model I require. I participate in electing the representative, but all of
her congeressional votes are public record, so I can see whether she really
was a proxy or not.

Yes, there's a big difference beteen the "trustee" paradigm and the "proxy"
paradigm. When it comes to using proxies in public elections representing
voters, it is MANDATORY that the "proxy" cast her vote the way she said she
would when "campaining" for voters to select her as proxy. Hence, anyone
casting more than one vote (i.e., hers and all the proxies she holds) must
make her vote public.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Ritchie [mailto:scott at open-vote.org] 
> Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 6:55 PM
> To: Paul Kislanko
> Cc: election-methods at electorama.com
> Subject: RE: [EM] A quick, dirty,and somewhat obvious method 
> for a secretproxy ballot
> 
> On Wed, 2005-11-16 at 18:20 -0600, Paul Kislanko wrote:
> >  
> > > 
> > > If you have a preference, why are you delegating to a proxy?
> > 
> > Why have proxies? I guess you're saying it's a dumb idea. 
> 
> I pick you as my proxy since I trust you to vote properly 
> when informed
> on the issue rather than myself.  If you can betray me by voting
> "wrong", then doesn't that signal that I think I have more information
> than you, and hence it was irrational of me to designate you 
> as a proxy?
> 
> > If the idea of delegable proxy is to have folks with no 
> preferences allow a
> > proxy to vote their ballots, then only folks with no 
> preferences must choose
> > from available proxies. Now, that would be equivelant to 
> their votes being
> > replaced by random ballots, since if they have no 
> preferences, their choice
> > of a proxy can be random.
> 
> It wouldn't be random at all, unless I selected my proxy at 
> random.  But
> that's exactly not what I'm doing - I'm choosing someone I 
> trust to make
> a better decision.
> 
> > One of us doesn't understand delegable proxy. 
> 
> I designate you as my proxy to decide which of us it is.  But if you
> decide it's me, I'll be really mad!  
> 
> > 
> > I doubt any voter asked to change from plurality to 
> delegable proxy would do
> > so based upon the arguments made by "experts" on the subject.
> > 
> Cool, I'm an expert now.  Do we have a secret decoder ring?
> 
> 
> Actually, on second thought, maybe "delegable proxy voting" is a bad
> term to use.  In political science, we often talk about a distinction
> between representatives who serve as delegates versus those 
> who serve as
> trustees, where generally trustee representatives are expected to have
> more leeway in determining what's best.  Perhaps "voting by trusted
> proxy" or "trustee voting" would better describe the idea here.
> 
> Thanks,
> Scott Ritchie
> 
>