[EM] 3ballot - revolutionary new protocol for secure secret ballot elections

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:07 AM 10/2/2006, Jan Kok wrote:
>On 10/1/06, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
>
>This can be alleviated by putting different contests on different ballots.
>
>There is still the possibility of mischief if there are many
>candidates in a contest.

Very difficult. However, what about write-in votes? It seems to me 
that it is presently easy to identify a ballot by a write-in vote on 
it.... And eliminating write-ins further solidifies the establishment.

>With Range Voting, each _candidate_ can be put on a separate ballot.

And, of course, this is also true for Approval (Approval is the 
simplest form of Range Voting.) Indeed, Approval Voting seriously 
damages the impact of vote buying or coercion.

>Range Voting ballots can be made simpler (and make it more difficult
>for voters to identify their ballots) by reducing the number of
>rating-choices available. For example, is anyone going to be upset
>that they can't give some candidate a 53? The choices 0, 10, ...90, 99
>or 100 should be sufficient, with I think one exception: I would like
>to vote max-1 for second choice and lesser-evil candidates. (It's
>symbolic, and also can be used for distinguishing non-favorites from
>favorites for allocating public campaign funds.)

I think that allowing ten choices is actually even more than is 
necessary. I really doubt that the second digit represents more than 
the finest shade of opinion. Okay, I prefer A to B, but they are both 
really, really good, so I'd give A a 99 and B a 98... But a 9 and an 
8 is *almost* as good for this purpose; however, the purpose itself 
is not sound. If A and B are reasonably close, I should rate them the 
same, and let statistical variation in the public create the refinement.

The fact is that if I rate one a 9 and the other an 8, there is very 
little difference; my preference is quite likely coming from 
something other than a rational judgement of their qualities in office.

However, even this purpose is satisfied by adding one more box: 
Preferred. Which would not affect the ratings, Preferred would be 
counted as a 9, but would be separately tabulated. For example, for 
public campaign finance funding....