<div dir="ltr"><div>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?</div>
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<div>But anyway, if vote buying is really a big concern to people: I have now successfully redesigned my system in such a way that the certificates by themselves <em>cannot</em> be used to prove to another party how you actually voted (this is done in a way similar to Rivest-Smith's VAV), so having my system provide a certificate does not facilitate vote-buying at all, but it does still catch any substantial fraud in the counting.</div>
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<div>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. If the voter takes enough pictures, or continuous video, it seems to me that he can probably manage to prove how he voted no matter how the balloting system works. (OK, maybe not if you have to vote by feel, say by pulling levers in the dark, but that seems pretty error-prone.)</div>
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<div>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?</div>
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<div>-Mike<br><br></div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 6:54 PM, Raph Frank <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:raphfrk@gmail.com">raphfrk@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div class="Ih2E3d">On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:29 AM, Mike Frank<br><<a href="mailto:michael.patrick.frank@gmail.com">michael.patrick.frank@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> And anyway, politicians effectively "buy<br>
> votes" all the time already, whenever they promise certain classes of voters<br>> goodies such as tax rebates and the like<br><br></div>Just a note, that is actually different from vote buying in a fundamental way.<br>
<br>The problem is that it in your interests to sell your vote even if you<br>know that the person is going cost you more than he pays if he is<br>elected.<br><br>The is because you are certain to be paid, but the probability of your<br>
vote actually making a difference is tiny.<br><br>Gain = payment<br>Loss = p*(cost of electing the person)<br><br>It would be worth accepting $10 to vote for a candidate who is<br>planning to increase you taxes by $100.<br>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Dr. Michael P. Frank, Ph.D. (MIT '99)<br>820 Hillcrest Ave., Quincy FL 32351-1618<br>email: <a href="mailto:michael.patrick.frank@gmail.com">michael.patrick.frank@gmail.com</a><br>
cell: (850) 597-2046, fax/tel: (850) 627-6585<br></div>