[EM] danger of coercion (Re: First U.S. Scientific Election Audit...)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 03:06 AM 5/13/2007, Juho wrote:
>On May 13, 2007, at 6:16 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
>
>>I have also considered that, where
>>coerced cooperation is a reasonable possibility, a certain percentage
>>of ballots could be extracted and separately counted under closed
>>conditions. Images of these ballots would not be made public.
>
>A simple and quite effective rule is to simply reject all votes that
>have additional markings. Simple ballot format (not much information,
>not much writing to do) makes identification of coerced ballots more
>difficult, and reduces the number of rejected ballots (with the rule
>described above), and the need to fill another ballot if the voter
>spoils the first one.

Consider what actually happened in Florida. The ballot design made 
some people erroneously identify the position to punched for Gore, 
and they punched Buchanan. Then they recognized their error, and, 
perhaps dreaming that Florida law would be followed -- which required 
ballots with a clear expression of intention to be counted -- they 
punched Gore as well, then wrote in Gore. Extraneous marks.

And any write-in candidate involves extraneous marks. What is the 
situation now if a voter writes in the name of a candidate who is 
also on the ballot? I think the law would require the vote to be counted.

I suggested that, where there is concern about coercion, ballots with 
extraneous markings be handled specially. But I think that, in most 
election environments here in the U.S., the problem is largely 
illusory. The problem of miscounted ballots is very real. Note that 
all the arguments about coerced ballots and vote buying neglect that 
ballots are already seen by election officials, and they can really 
be seen by anyone who is willing to pay an official to stand there 
and watch (in addition to standard election observers). Incumbents, 
in general, may have access to the ballots (not necessarily legally, 
but in practice). Keeping the ballots private, so that only a few can 
see them, does not necessarily prevent the most serious election 
fraud: that which unjustly maintains incumbents in office. Fraud and 
corruption thrive in secrecy.

>>(2) Direct democracy generally requires open voting. Coercion seems
>>to be rare;
>
>Open voting opens a door to coercion.

Of course. But (1) coercion is illegal. Very illegal. and, since it 
has a victim, it has someone who would quite possibly cooperate with 
authorities in prosecuting it. And (2) My point was that existing 
democratic process in some places is open. Town Meeting: all votes 
are cast in public. State law here in Massachusetts does require 
secret ballot for some kinds of votes, and we see that sometimes the 
secret polls differ in result from what Town Meeting has openly 
decided, but the difference is highly likely to be participation 
bias, from what I've seen.

>  A violent husband of might
>easily tell his wife how to vote.

Or a "violent wife." Or maybe just pushy.

Is she going to require him to mark the ballot so that she can see 
how he voted? And if he does not, she is going to beat him up anyway?

And, something seems to be forgotten here. Elections are about 
aggregating votes. Rarely do a few votes matter. There is little 
reason to believe that, in the vast majority of elections, one side 
would be more likely to have violent spouses coercing votes, so such 
votes would, to some degree, cancel each other out, even if the 
victim cooperated. Someone with a violent spouse has a lot more to 
worry about than voting, I'm sure; I think that standing the whole 
system on its head to avoid a very theoretical and unlikely scenario is nuts.

It's specifically illegal to attempt to coerce voters. This might 
just give that abused spouse the ammunition they need....

>  Open votes also are likely to lead
>to less votes to candidates that represent minorities and/or values
>that the voter does not want to reveal publicly. This could apply to
>minorities (political, ethnic, sexual, religious) or any deviation
>from the family, village, working place or country tradition and
>favoured values.

Let me point out that in such an environment -- i.e., a minority 
position is being hidden -- that minority position is unlikely to win 
elections. However:

This is crazy: it has not been proposed that elections be public, 
only that ballots be public. The ballots do not identify the voters, 
unless the voter deliberately acts to identify the ballot, which, as 
we noted, in some cases would invalidate the ballot. *This risk 
already exists,* especially where ballots allow write-in votes. 
"Extraneous marks" do not include write-in votes. But you can write 
in any name you like, including your own.

In the situation described, a voter who feared that a vote would be 
considered "deviant" simply would not make any marks to identify the 
ballot. Why would he or she do this?

No, there are only two residual issues: vote-buying, where the voter 
is induced to vote for some consideration, and the buyer wants proof, 
and coercion which requires the victim to mark the ballot. The former 
is controversial as an actual problem; and vote-buying does seem to 
take place, rarely, but without validation of the vote. The buyer 
simply assumes that the voter will vote as bought, fair and square. 
(There was a Miami mayoral election reversed because of allegations 
of vote-buying, but my take on the situation is that the candidate 
tossed out of office was himself a victim. Even if he was a 
Republican. It is highly unlikely that vote-buying actually turned 
that election; rather, the court decided that all absentee ballots 
would be considered suspect and disregarded because some may have 
been bought.... a very strange decision, actually.)

This leaves coerced marking of ballots. Marking of ballots to verify 
voting has been done, and still can be done. It does not depend on 
ballot imaging! But I doubt that elections are being turned, anywhere 
in the U.S., based on such coercion. Rather, they are being turned by 
biased counting of votes. We have a *real* problem, a serious one, 
and a very obvious solution is being discounted because of a small 
and quite possibly imaginary risk.


>>I'm sure that
>>people do sometimes alter their votes because they think they will
>>not be popular; but actual coercion is another matter.
>
>I note that you already covered the "popular opinions". I think the
>border line between following popular opinions and being coerced is
>not a clear one.

That's correct. However, having lived in a Town Meeting town, I'd say 
that Town Meeting debate was spirited, and there were plenty of 
people willing to voice unpopular opinions. When you have true 
democracy in government, people are fierce about defending it. Town 
Meeting is not perfect, it suffers from participation bias.

But, in any case, this is moot. We are not proposing public voting, 
only that public voting does exist and does not seem to have the 
level of problem that is being asserted.

Note that if you hold a very unpopular opinion and voice it at a Town 
Meeting, you could suffer approbation and, in rare circumstances, 
actual violence. But this is a quite different problem. Such opinions 
are not going to win votes before a Town Meeting, they probably would 
never even get to a vote. While free speech is important -- very 
important -- it is not protected by keeping ballots sequestered. It 
is not even protected by requiring secret ballot. After all, a ballot 
is not a speech, it is an act. And if an act is so unpopular that to 
take it carries the kind of risk being described, it is not going to 
be politically effective. If that act is voting for a candidate, that 
candidate is not going to win, at least not in plurality or Approval 
or Range environments.

But there is a place for secret ballot. It validates that what is 
happening publicly does, in fact, have genuine support, that it is 
not coerced -- or, alternatively, that there is some disconnect, 
which might be coercion, or it might be participation bias. (The 
people who actually participate in Town Meeting are not a 
cross-section of the population; rather, they are a skewed sample, in 
various ways.)

>  Also border line between individual voters being
>coerced vs. whole society "banning" some opinions is not clear.
>Therefore secret ballots are a good main rule (exceptions allowed but
>justification needed).

Secret ballot can be appropriate for elections; but I would reverse 
what was said here. Secret ballot, in a mature system, would be the 
exception, not the rule. The proof, however, that secret ballots were 
not generally necessary would be that secret ballot merely confirmed 
what was happening publicly. Further, with Asset Voting, it is 
possible for citizens to decide whether they will vote publicly or privately.

>  Strict rules that try to eliminate coercion in
>individual cases even if the coerced votes would not have any
>meaningful impact on the overall result is (in addition to protecting
>the rights of the individuals) a good precaution that aims at
>guaranteeing that the system will not one day start to corrupt as a
>whole.

It's quite difficult to corrupt direct democracy. Once the transfers 
of power happen secretly, it becomes easier to corrupt. Why is this 
so difficult to understand?

My right to have my vote counted accurately is being infringed. I 
know that it has been personally infringed in at least one case; and 
it only happens that there was one case in which I could know: it was 
a write-in vote that wasn't counted. Or, more accurately, it was 
counted -- an observer remembered the name being mentioned -- but it 
was not recorded. My right to be protected against coercion, I do not 
depend on the rules of secret ballots for. I depend on the police and 
the legal system. Try to coerce my vote, I would appear to cooperate. 
And I'd wear a wire.

(Now, if the coercer had control of the police, obviously, this would 
not work. But we are back where we started. Secret ballot and the 
sequestering of ballots away from public view does not protect us 
from coercion where it really hurts: by the authorities.)