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What would be so horrifying about buying selling votes? (other than the fact that it is punishable by up to 5 years in prison :-) Political campaigns could be

What would be so horrifying about buying selling votes? (other than the fact that it is punishable by up to 5 years in prison :-) Political campaigns could be run more efficiently (directly paying voters instead of a barrage of ads on radio, tv, youtube, billboard, every yard sign). Citizens may even pay more attention to important issues as they decide from whom they wish the accept payment. There would be a strong economic incentive to ensure that all votes are reliably cast and accurately counted. Depending on how voter incentives are taxed, local jurisdictions may even have an economic incentive to discourage (or encourage) gerrymandering.

jancsika 8y ago
Just to be clear: Our current election system is rag-tag, federated state-by-state, mostly-insecure, run by non-technical volunteers, and cannot leak a national database which links citizens' identities to their vote. Your election system perfectly implements a standard set of zero-knowledge proofs, probably implemented and maintained by experts. These experts can count and cryptographically prove the totals without being able to link citizens' identities to their respective voting choices. At the same time the citizen is granted ultimate control over their data such that they can reveal it to a third party in exchange for payment. Thirdly, a given citizen's voting data is plausibly deniable to any other party so that the third party offering payment cannot aggregate and sell the data. (Otherwise you'd be building a public nuisance that tyrants could leverage to punish citizens for anything in their now non-repudiatable voting history. This is also why I write "perfectly implemented" above.) Do I have this right so far?
- basementcat 8y ago
  Actually, I think I'm okay with all "paid" votes being public. That would be analogous to a campaign finance disclosure. Campaign contributions are currently public information and future tyrants/public servants are free to reward that information however they like.
pjc50 8y ago
You hand the election directly to whichever foreign intelligence service can buy the most votes?
- basementcat 8y ago
  The foreign intelligence services would have to compete with the petrochemical companies, Hollywood studios, NRA, tech companies, so on and so forth. I think everyone agrees that making choices for a representative democracy is hard and it would be great to have an opportunity to receive all the help we can get!
jacques_chester 8y ago
This isn't how it turned out historically.
emiliobumachar 8y ago
Tragedy of the commons. Everyone would just sell to the highest bidder, except a couple idealists.
- basementcat 8y ago
  The USA economy runs this way and it has grown to be one of the largest economies in the World and had provided it's citizens with one of the highest standards of living in the World.

jancsika 8y ago

Just to be clear: Our current election system is rag-tag, federated state-by-state, mostly-insecure, run by non-technical volunteers, and cannot leak a national database which links citizens' identities to their vote. Your election system perfectly implements a standard set of zero-knowledge proofs, probably implemented and maintained by experts. These experts can count and cryptographically prove the totals without being able to link citizens' identities to their respective voting choices. At the same time the citizen is granted ultimate control over their data such that they can reveal it to a third party in exchange for payment. Thirdly, a given citizen's voting data is plausibly deniable to any other party so that the third party offering payment cannot aggregate and sell the data. (Otherwise you'd be building a public nuisance that tyrants could leverage to punish citizens for anything in their now non-repudiatable voting history. This is also why I write "perfectly implemented" above.) Do I have this right so far?

basementcat 8y ago
Actually, I think I'm okay with all "paid" votes being public. That would be analogous to a campaign finance disclosure. Campaign contributions are currently public information and future tyrants/public servants are free to reward that information however they like.

pjc50 8y ago

You hand the election directly to whichever foreign intelligence service can buy the most votes?

basementcat 8y ago
The foreign intelligence services would have to compete with the petrochemical companies, Hollywood studios, NRA, tech companies, so on and so forth. I think everyone agrees that making choices for a representative democracy is hard and it would be great to have an opportunity to receive all the help we can get!

jacques_chester 8y ago

This isn't how it turned out historically.

emiliobumachar 8y ago

Tragedy of the commons. Everyone would just sell to the highest bidder, except a couple idealists.

basementcat 8y ago
The USA economy runs this way and it has grown to be one of the largest economies in the World and had provided it's citizens with one of the highest standards of living in the World.