[EM] Idea for a free web service for (relatively) secure online voting

[Raph Frank]

On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 12:35 AM, Mike Frank
<michael.patrick.frank at gmail.com> wrote:
> That is a good point, although may I point out that it is similarly
> improbable that the vote-buyer will successfully influence the election
> outcome by buying only my one vote.  To have a good chance of influencing
> the outcome, he has to buy a lot of votes.  This increases the chance he
> will get caught, as well as the cost; mightn't it be more cost-effective
> just to take out a really misleading television ad?

The fact that vote buying requires so many votes and the fact that it
is illegal makes it hard to achieve.  However, some 'machines' have
handled it by coercion rather than by buying.

However, assuming it was legal, you could offer to pay every $100 for
their vote and then tax back $1000 when you get elected.

> But, I might point out though that, even if the system itself doesn't do
> anything to help the voter prove how they actually voted, it may still be
> logistically difficult to prevent the voter from sneaking a cellphone
> camera, for example, into the voting booth, and taking a picture of their
> ballot screens (or bubble sheets, or whatever kind of ballot is used) to
> show to the vote-buyer.

Often it is just a matter of 'keeping honest people honest', i.e.
unless it is easy to break the rule, most people won't bother.

> Do we need metal detectors at the entrances to the polling places, so people
> can't bring in their cellphone cameras?  What if they bring a low-tech
> paper-and-plastic disposable camera?  Do we have to pat down the voters like
> criminals, or strip-search them, just in case their hidden camera is really
> small?  (You can already buy really tiny cameras, they are expensive, but
> the vote buyer can buy them and loan them to the voters.)  Basically, what
> I'm asking is:  How far is too far to go to try to make vote buying
> impossible?

I would say that precautions should be taken such that it is keep to a
low level.  Probably that means that little if any precautions are
required, other than banning cameras.  Checks probably wouldn't even
be needed.