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

[raphfrk at netscape.net]

  Juho wrote:



> > (2) Direct democracy generally requires open voting. Coercion seems

> > to be rare;

> 

> Open voting opens a door to coercion. A violent husband of might  

> easily tell his wife how to vote. 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.  David Friedman has posted on his blog that when he lectures, one of the issues he has is 
 determining if the students actually understand what he has just said. The problem is that
 if he asks "Did everyone understand that?", nobody will raise their hand as they don't want 
 to be seen as the one who doesn't understand.
 
 His proposed solution is that each student would be given a yes/no button. They can
 then answer questions using the button. This would not achieve perfect privacy, but
 it would likely greatly increase the accuracy of the result. He could then repeat any 
 section of the lecture that doesn't hit a threshold.
 
 Something similar could be used in a town meeting type setting. OTOH, it might break
 the consensus building effect of the town meeting. If there is no penalty in acting to 
 prevent consensus, then it is less likely to occur.
 
 
  Raphfrk
 --------------------
 Interesting site
 "what if anyone could modify the laws"
 
 www.wikocracy.com
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