[EM] Mae West was interested in voting methods?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 08:41 PM 4/2/2007, Jan Kok wrote:

>If the forum does become influential, then there is some incentive for
>people to corrupt the polls to their advantage. How to avoid that?
>- Make it part of the culture of the forum that proxies are
>responsible for verifying that any clients they accept are who they
>say they are. In order to avoid one person masquerading as several, it
>would probably be necessary for the proxy list to use people's real
>names. For a bit of additional security, add the person's street
>number or the last three digits of their phone number, etc. If a proxy
>is found to have accepted a fake or duplicate person, just post a note
>to the forum reporting the evidence. The credibility of that proxy
>would go down if it happened more than once, and people would start to
>discount votes associated with the proxy's supposed constituency.
>- Make the polls open (no secret ballots). Then anyone can interpret
>the ballots however they like.

There are two approaches to the sock puppet problem in an FA/DP organization.

The first might seem laissez-faire, but it is by far the simplest 
response: that is, one doesn't do anything to prevent it. However, a 
caucus may wish to demonstrate that its membership is valid and not 
artificially expanded. And such caucuses could develop a validation mechanism.

In an open system like this, everyone would know that polls are 
possibly warped by the addition of false votes. It's possible to 
detect a certain level of false votes by IP analysis, but, of course, 
a sophisticated fraud could get around this. Voting patterns, 
however, would reveal all but the most sophisticated frauds. The 
membership registration date and dates of proxy assignments would be 
useful information; also if a proxy is exercising a high number of 
totally anonymous votes, that is, persons who have never participated 
in any other way than registering and assigning a proxy.

A lot of this could be automated. Who would do this analysis? Anyone 
who cares to, the necessary records should be public. This does not 
prevent anyone from joining in an anonymized way, but it would 
prevent major warping of poll outcomes. Remember, in the basic FA/DP 
organization, I've noted that poll analysis need not be a centralized 
function. The FA/DP organization is going to *advise,* and there are 
two kinds of advice: internal and external. FA/DP members -- which 
can be anyone -- can advise outside persons and groups regarding 
FA/DP polls and the discussions which preceded them. These would be 
public record. Nobody is obligated to follow such advice. If a 
politician sees the FA/DP results and an independent poll result and 
they are divergent, something is to be suspected. The FA/DP poll may 
possibly represent a more informed point of view (and thus a more 
stable one), but not if it's been distorted by sock puppets. I think 
that an observation of the arguments presented in the process 
preceding polls will pretty quickly show up the difference.

Imagine if there were a face-to-face meeting and a motion was made 
and debated, and nearly everyone speaking was in favor of the motion. 
There is someone arguing against the motion, with arguments that seem 
defective. (To whom? To anyone reading the record, and I'm not 
implying that everyone would agree. Readers can make up their own 
minds.) Then, after there is no more cogent argument appearing, a 
motion to call the question passes and then the unexpanded poll 
results are, as expected, heavily in favor of the motion. But the 
expansion reverses this. Examination of the expansion shows that this 
is all coming from a very few proxies with large numbers of 
memberships with no confirming evidence that the people are real.

In the other general approach, memberships can be validated. If 
unvalidated memberships are still active, but are simply flagged as 
unvalidated, poll expansions can be conducted using only validated 
memberships (and also including all memberships, but understanding 
that the former is more authoritative). The problem with this 
approach is that it requires a central mechanism. The laissez-faire 
approach, of course, still permits validation, it merely does not 
make validation part of the central structure.

FA/DP organizations aren't actually moving power, they merely advise. 
And the organization is not going to issue a statement that says "The 
River City Free Association voted to support the candidacy of Zilda 
Gooch for Mayor." The River City FA isn't going to endorse anyone. 
But anyone can report the poll results, and probably there will be an 
official report that is as NPOV as possible, including validation 
analysis if there is a centrally recognized validation mechanism.

The actual advice is going to be delivered through proxies who choose 
to deliver it. So a proxy might approach a politician and say, "I 
represent 3,000 voters in your district. A poll of my clients reveals 
that...." Do you think he would toss you out the door?

Or a caucus of proxies who agree could designate one of their number 
to make the approach. Once again, the proxy could, with respect to 
the expanded membership of this caucus, claim to represent the full 
expanded number, on the issue involved. And could prove it. The 
politician doesn't believe her, she writes her clientele (together 
with other proxies in the caucus), providing the text of a letter, 
and asks that her clients sign and mail the letter.... and asks if 
some of them can show up with her, next time she visits the office....

The problems of sock puppetry are problems that will come with 
success. I don't think they are insuperable, and we really don't need 
to worry greatly about them in the early stages.

A sock puppet proxy would have difficulty assembling that 
demonstration at the politician's office.... but not a proxy 
representing real people.

There *are* precautions that should begin early. Proxies should have 
direct contact information for their clients, and likewise the 
clients for the proxies. The tradition that I consider essential to 
establish, informally -- there is no formal requirement for it -- is 
that a proxy assignment is an agreement between two parties to allow 
communication at the instigation of either. You should generally be 
able to telephone your proxy, not only writing by email. In a local 
FA, you should meet face-to-face. If either of you doesn't want to 
allow this, the proxy assignment is generally inadvisable, I'd say. 
(There might, of course, be exceptions, I won't list them.)

Once one has accepted a number of direct proxies, it becomes 
increasingly advisable to refuse further. That is, instead of 
accepting, the proxy would suggest someone else, perhaps one of his 
or her clients, or someone further down the hierarchy who has room. I 
won't specify the number, because it will vary with the nature of the 
organization, the capacity of the proxy, and other factors as well, 
such as security risk.

(High-level proxies functioning under difficult circumstances may not 
wish to allow personal information to be open, and one way of 
obtaining such information would be to designate the person as a 
proxy and request the information. Of course, the proxy could write 
back and say, "I'll accept your proxy, if you like, but you should 
know that I don't know who you are and don't feel secure giving you 
my direct contact information, I'm sure you understand. I'll send you 
blind copies of any announcement I'm making, and you can write me at 
[email address given] or [P.O. Box].)

It is possible to set up software systems that will allow delegable 
proxy to be securely managed, but the problem is that such systems 
must have trusted administration. While I think that generally FA 
admin would be trustworthy, an exception in a major FA could be 
disastrous, particularly under difficult conditions.

("Difficult Conditions" is my term for, say, Iraq. Or anywhere that 
open expression of opinion, even if lawful, is personally hazardous.)

My solution for truly difficult conditions would be Asset Voting with 
restrictions, a certain minimum number of votes that one must receive 
to become active at the next level, and that number is high enough 
that security can be provided. I'm assuming that there would be a 
*relatively* secure administration that could notify persons who 
received votes below that level and which would then allow them to 
secretly recast those votes so that amalgamations took place to raise 
up proxies to the required level. From that point the proxy actions 
are public (or as public as would generally be the case for actions 
of legislators in an assembly).

We do not need, at this point, to solve the problems of "difficult 
conditions".... Once there are functioning FA/DP organizations, under 
easier conditions, we will have far better resources to develop 
procedures to aid work under difficult conditions.