[EM] Approval vs Condorcet. Voting in Approval.

[Michael Garman]

I have to hand it to you, Mike. You’ve kept that tinfoil hat nice and shiny
for almost a quarter century. Do you also think “the ES&S machines” cost
Amy McGrath the 2020 Senate election in Kentucky? Those claims are equally
sound.
On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 8:39 PM Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> It could be argued that, if the pairwise-count software is in each
> voting-terminal, then it would be more work for the tampered. But it would
> also be more work for count-security to make sure that there isn’t
> tampering.
>
> Besides, what if the terminals arrive from the manufacturer with the
> fraud-code already in them, well concealed?
>
> If that sounds far-fetched, then I remind you that a voting-machine
> manufacturer (Diebold?) promised to “deliver” the election to Dubya (& then
> did so).
>
> Look at Harpers Magazine for immediately after Dubya’s two elections. The
> report mountains of evidence for big count-fraud in each of those 2
> elections.
>
> Anyway, isn’t computer-security always an ongoing touch-&-go battle
> between security & wrongdoers?  …with the wrongdoers sometimes winning?
>
> On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 02:08 Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> It’s necessary to  count N(N-1) pairwise vote-totals.  …2 for each pair.
>>
>> What if there are lot of candidates?
>>
>> The trick-software could be in the part that initially increments the
>> N(N-1) vote-totals, even if that’s immediately done at the  voting-machine.
>>
>> The only thing that the voter checked for accuracy was his ranking.
>> There’s no guarantee that the pairwise  vote-totals were incremented
>> honesty.
>>
>> So a handcount-audit would require doing the whole exhaustive
>> pairwise-count, from the raw rankings.
>>
>> 25 candidates? 600 pairwise  vote-totals to count.
>>
>> Of course there’d be an effort for security, but, undeniably, it would be
>> easier & more able to be counted-on with approvals.
>>
>> To maximize count-security, of course it’s Approval.
>>
>> It’s getting late ⏰, so I’d best continue this topic in the morning.
>>
>> In. Vermont it’s 6:00 a.m.  I hope you’re getting up early, & not staying
>> late !
>>
>>
>> On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 01:06 robert bristow-johnson <
>> rbj at audioimagination.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> > On 05/16/2024 2:04 AM EDT Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > …
>>> > Count-fraud is a problem. Condorcet’s humungously
>>> computation-intensive count ridiculously facilitates count-fraud.
>>>
>>> I consider Condorcet to be precinct summable with no more than N^2
>>> number of tallies.  I think 16 tallies for 4 candidates is feasible.  Even
>>> 25 tallies for 5 candidates.
>>>
>>> The N(N-1)/2 pairwise comparison are done as the ballot is scanned by
>>> the tabulator machine.  That part is opaque, but the rest of it is
>>> completely transparent and the complexity is small.
>>>
>>> Unlike IRV has been, Condorcet RCV can have election results on election
>>> night.
>>>
>>> > …
>>> > You want to do a handcount-audit of a Condorcet count?
>>>
>>> Hand-counting Condorcet is processing the pile of ballots N(N-1)/2
>>> times.  Hand-counting IRV is processing the pile of ballots N-1 times.
>>>
>>> > …
>>> > Additionally, the count-program itself is easier to hide or add
>>> fraud-code in.
>>>
>>> But, this is only at the tabulator level.  When the ballot is inserted
>>> into the tabulator.
>>>
>>> No different than we have now with FPTP.  That part of the data trail is
>>> opaque to protect the Secret Ballot.  But the rest of it can be transparent
>>> with Condorcet RCV, as it already is with FPTP.
>>>
>>> > …
>>> > As a general principle, then yes it’s much better to have the voters
>>> do it for themselves rather than having a complicated fraud-prone
>>> automatic-machine do everything for them.
>>>
>>> Pick a precinct and hand count it.  Not much worse than IRV.
>>>
>>> Results are summable.  Not so with IRV.
>>>
>>> This is pretty transparent.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com
>>>
>>> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>>>
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
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>>> info
>>>
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>
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