[EM] Why We Shouldn't Count Votes with Machines

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Aug 16, 2008, at 5:24 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote:

> On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 07:27:10 -0700 Jonathan Lundell wrote:
>> On Aug 16, 2008, at 12:54 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>>>>    I am for a record on disk of each ballot, but done in a maner   
>>>> to not destroy secrecy.
>>>
>>>
>>> You have to be very careful when doing so, because there are many   
>>> channels to secure. A vote-buyer might tell you to vote exactly  
>>> at  noon so that the disk record timestamp identifies you, or he  
>>> might,  in the case of Approval and ranked ballots, tell you to  
>>> vote for not  just his preferred candidate, but both the low- 
>>> support communist and  the low-support right extremist as well, so  
>>> that he can tell which  ballot was yours and that you voted  
>>> correctly.
>> In the US, at least, voting by mail has become so prevalent that I   
>> wonder whether it's worthwhile making voting machinery absolutely   
>> impregnable to vote-buying. All else being equal, sure, why not,  
>> but  if we trade off other desirable properties to preserve  
>> secrecy, and  leave the vote-by-mail door unlocked....
> There are two topics here:
>     I LIKE the secret ballot, have had it most of my life, and know  
> many others have similar desires for good reason.  That thought  
> inspired my words at the top.
>     Vote buying needs discouraging, but I concede perfection is less  
> essential here.
>
> Voting by mail requires humans obeying rules.  I believe the rules  
> in NY still require placing the ballots in an anonymous stack  
> without humans reading their content while having the voter's  
> identity associated.

California, too, or a method to that effect. It's vote-buying (or  
coercion) that vote-by-mail enables.

The Civitas system has something to say about that, but it requires  
quite a few other conditions to make it work.