[EM] Asset voting and so forth, in practice

[Michael Allan]

(Thanks for comments.)

Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> Okay, comments. First of all, great. And bells and whistles are nice. But 
> it's also important to make the system bulletproof, protecting it from 
> hazards and even hazards that come from an insider, a sysop, not to mention 
> hackers.

Right, otherwise it won't work.  So everything's made public.  Votes
are public and identities of voters are public.  The register in which
those identities is authenticated is also public.

Where poll results are reported, the results are based entirely on a
snapshot of the votes, and the snapshot is made public.  Anyone may
access it, and do a full recount (same as with paper ballots, but
voters are ID'd on each ballot).

> You appear to have set up a delegable proxy system. Great. And for general 
> polling purposes, that could be fine. However, I do have some strong 
> recommendations.
>
> 1. Delegable proxy is very safe if it's an advisory system, and the 
> interpretation is up to those who want to be advised. So:

Yes, of course.  So people may decide what the norms (laws, plans and
policies) and power structure of society *ought* to be.  The *actual*
norms and power structure are not so interesting, because people
already know about those.  (Presumeably the latter will soon fall into
alignment with the former, or people will revise their expections of
democracy.)

> 2. There may be a totally anonymous layer corresponding to secret ballot. 
> You would still want to have some kind of registration confirmation, I 
> suspect. This would mean an engine for privately voting. If that's done, on 
> this layer, everyone privately votes. These votes are considered in a 
> distinct way. Can they be amalgamated secretly through delegable proxy? I 
> suggest not, because then responsibility is lost, as is traceability. If I 
> secretly vote for A, I can see the secret vote total for A go up 1 vote. 
> However, if A votes for B privately, B's vote does not go up.

It's too difficult to add a private voting facility, up front.  So we
keep the requirement in mind (allowing for it in designs) but we don't
attempt to implement it.  The verification and authentication
challenges are too steep.  We'll bolt it on later, after the basic
(public) system is proven.

> In an Asset system, everyone votes in the secret ballot system, if they 
> want. From there up it is all public voting, and the secret votes cannot be 
> cast directly, until the next open election. To cast a vote on an issue, 
> you must be an "elector," i.e., a public voter. The "election" could be 
> every day or even continuous, but it's probably best if it has a specific 
> period involved, or vote calculations could get hairy.

(I'm not sure about Asset, but fully public polls can run indefinitely
 with DP.  The calculations aren't a problem.)

> What this means is that you can actually talk to the opposition; that's 
> impossible with public elections --- which can be pretty frustrating!
> . . .
> Part of the whole "plot" is to get people talking with each other, not 
> merely shoving electrons around on a web site. Actually meeting and talking 
> about issues...

Yes, talking is crucial to the theory of it.  (We both know this.)
But the technology - how voting, drafting and discussion are
interconnected at the micro-scale, and how this practice ties in with
theory - is something we're only discovering.  It's become the main
focus of our efforts in the last couple of weeks.

>> Even if party leaders could grant a substansive democracy, that might
>> not be the best way to acheive it - receiving it as a gift from on
>> high.  Wouldn't it be better to build it ourselves from the ground up?
>
> Safer, perhaps. However, it is always possible that someone with power will 
> see the ultimate benefit, and will act to implement it. It's not normal 
> behavior; people who have attained influence or power through the existing 
> system will generally fear that a shift toward wide distribution of power 
> will cause loss of intelligent direction. I.e., their direction. There is a 
> truth to this; simply shifting to raw direct ad-hoc ochlocracy can indeed 
> make things worse. Vide Wikipedia, which works very well in certain ways, 
> but which breaks down badly in the presence of serious controversy, since 
> oligarchies naturally formed, per the Iron Law of Oligarchy, see the 
> Wikipedia article!

Any change is risky.  Our macro theory does not require touching any
of the existing institutions.  So there's no structural change in
those.  There's just additions bolted on externally.  (Like the party
system bolted itself on, 150 years ago.)

But structural change can (and did) lead to functional changes.  So
yes, there is still risk.

> [your Wikipedia example]
> . . .
> The important thing about delegable proxy is not voting, as such, it is 
> communication, filtered communication.

Our voting engine (DP) connects with drafting media in a manner that
frees people to speak their minds.  Nobody has to be filtered out.

  http://t.zelea.com/wiki/P/grfin

So, for example, anyone may add a new position (alternative proposal)
of their own.  Nobody is ever filtered out or suppressed in any way.
We use the same drafting medium as Wikipedia, but we use it
differently.

>> ... Does it look theoretically sound, what we're doing?
>
> I couldn't tell enough details from the pages you pointed to.

The home page has links: http://zelea.com/project/votorola/home.xht

> But this is the basic principle for bulletproof delegable proxy: public 
> proxy table. If it's considered necessary to have a secret ballot layer, 
> let that be considered separately, it's an optional analysis. I.e., there 
> are public participants and private participants.

I don't know if we use proxy tables (not sure what those are).  Here's
the current proxy stucture for an ongoing poll.  I just voted for you:

  http://t.zelea.com:8080/v/w/Pollspace/?u=Abd-LomaxdesignCom&p=m

(Pardon the slowness.  The server is ancient and the code is still
unoptimized.)

> And direct communication established when a proxy/client relationship is 
> established. For some reason, Clint Eastwood became the model for the mass 
> proxy. You can designate Clint Eastwood, but will Clint accept? It means 
> you'd get contact information for Clint. Clint, if for some reason Clint 
> wants the burden, could accept and use an address that is essentially 
> opened by an agent. If the agent provides good service, why complain? But 
> would the agent provide good service? It's expensive. If all this is used 
> for is advice, why spend that money? So, what would happen is that Clint 
> would have direct clients, and would advise people who want to designate 
> Clint to name one of them instead. Same ultimate "voting power." But a 
> filtering link inserted. Don't like the person Clint suggests? Well, that 
> might say something about Clint. You can name someone else. With public 
> proxy tables, you might be able to find someone you are compatible with who 
> is linked to Clint. Or not, in which case you might realize that everyone 
> whom you might trust and who will trust you doesn't trust Clint. That, too, 
> would tell you something.
>
> If you want Clint's advice, you can still sign up for a mailing list Clint 
> controls.....

(I think that by "proxy table", you just mean "proxy structure".)

We can vote for Clint if you want.  He couldn't refuse to accept the
votes, but he could choose to ignore them.  Clint can't refuse a
nomination, in the sense of suppressing it.  It's a matter of free
speech.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, 647-436-4521
Skype michael_c_allan
http://zelea.com/