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I hope by the length of my next sentence I'll be worthy of some small part of the praise you're giving the Seattle Times here :-) It seems to me that the only

I hope by the length of my next sentence I'll be worthy of some small part of the praise you're giving the Seattle Times here :-) It seems to me that the only difference between an exit poll and a voluntary disclosure checkbox which, if utilized by a statistically significant portion of the electorate, could be leveraged by official government commissions to audit election results where online voting is offered is that one these options is in the price range of the national parties and not publicly disclosed and the other strikes fear into the heart of everyone I've spoken to involved in election process. Voluntary disclosure doesn't have to be a slippery slope and I firmly believe can and will lead to more fair and equitable access to the voting process and greater participation if it enabled online voting to be audited. No one believes that large numbers of people will be blackmailed into disclosing their vote and if this or discrimination happens at scale then make it explicitly illegal. For those who aren't subject to these factors and are willing to participate in a census it would completely change how elections are run for the better.

Beldin 7y ago
Voluntary disclosure sounds as if it undoes the secret ballot. Just a reminder: the secret ballot is secret to protect those, whose genuine vote would otherwise be manipulated (/forced/extorted/...) Not every individual voter might need that level of protection for themselves. But every individual voter requires this level of protection for the whole process. Phrased differently: for some, anonymity in voting is nice. For others, it is necessary to get their genuine vote. For democracy to function, we need everyone's genuine vote. Thus: we need voter anonimity that cannot be rescinded by the voter - nor by anyone else.
- Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
  Again, this assumes a slippery slope. Organ donors abound. Should we be allowed to redact it on our driver's licenses for fear that we might be judged by our bosses and neighbors or compelled to donate or that it reveals our religious beliefs? When someone says, "America isn't ready for online voting." I hear, "The interests who already buy and aggregate enough information to have the results ahead of time want to stay 1 step ahead of regulators."
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    No one is going to pay you to tick the organ donor box, or threaten you or your family if you don't. Both of those things have happened with voting in the past, which is why ballots are secret.
    - Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
      World governments and wealthy private interests are right now paying huge sums of money to interfere with election results. That's happening right now. Not in the past. That's why we need enough people who aren't in danger to volunteer their data.
      - bobthepanda 7y ago
        > No one is going to pay you to tick the organ donor box > World governments and wealthy private interests are right now paying huge sums of money You are describing a different problem than the one the parent comment is describing. The latter is lobbying, which can be prevented through legal restrictions and auditing to make sure those restrictions are being adhered to. The former is outright vote-buying. People who are looking for money can, and will sell their votes for money, goods, or jobs. This happens in less rigorous democracies like India today. This happened in the US as well with the old-time patronage machines in big cities. Even if you don't necessarily need to sell your vote to get any job, you might lose a job offer to someone else who was willing to demonstrate that they voted "correctly". The existence of one problem does not minimize the other, and we should seek to strike as many impurities from the process as possible, rather than trading one devil for another.
        Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
        I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, only the cost and timeline for a grassroots effort to prevent disaster. If we leave this up to local parties to solve our great grandchildren will be having the same argument
    - alasdair_ 7y ago
- SamReidHughes 7y ago
  Keep in mind, democracy functioned in America for about a century without secret ballots.
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  >Just a reminder: the secret ballot is secret to protect those, whose genuine vote would otherwise be manipulated (/forced/extorted/...) For mail-in voting (which is how the majority of people in King County vote), what makes the ballot secret? Can someone be forced or extorted to fill in the ballot in front of their persecutor? >For democracy to function, we need everyone's genuine vote. I'd honestly like to see anonymous voting in the house and Senate. This would vastly reduce the influence of political parties. Yes, it means that it's harder for constituents to track what their representative actually does, but the way modern politics works, "what their representative actually does" is essentially vote the party line on almost every vote.
  - mjevans 7y ago
    Source: I vote in King County (of which Seattle is a member city and probably uses the same process given the same elections office). The Mail In Ballot procedure here uses a double-envelope system. The inner envelope has the vote (with a matching identifier tab pulled off). It is supposed to contain only the vote. The other envelope contains the inner envelope and this envelope is marked with the address of the voter, and a legally binding contract (signed by the voter and/or representative witnesses if they are unable). My belief is that the validation process for these ballots includes multiple stages and probably blinding, wherein, the outer envelope is authenticated as a registered voter and that it contains something likely to be a vote (there's a small viewing circle). This would then be stripped and the trusted inner envelope, still sealed, added to a tabulation bin. Said tabulation bin would then be counter later in an anonomized manor.
specialist 7y ago
Forgive me, I don't know what you're advocating for here. I greatly appreciate that you're chewing on the policy, problem, tech. For the USA, I no longer think polls are useful predictors, nor are exit polls useful audits or verification. For polling to work (be useful), like is done in Germany, requires the whole system to be designed as such. Our gold standard is the Australian Ballot. Private voting, public counting. We weaken this system to extend the franchise, eg absentee ballots. But the real kicker is our FPTP (winner takes all) election system. It's so brittle. The inevitable error rate intrinsic in any form of voting (casting ballots) coupled with durvergers law virtually ensures drama. Said another way, my militant defense of the Australian Ballot, this recurring national spaz attack, would be mooted by switching to a more robust form of elections. Ranked choice and proportional representation have the most interest and support, though I prefer Approval Voting for a better balance of fairness and simplicity. Back to your point about disclosure, if I follow you: I very much would like to see tech, POCs, research into time boxed privacy. Like maybe all election materials, including ballots, are released when an election is certified. Versus hidden and then destroyed a few weeks later. My motivation is to find other balances, equilibria, between people's privacy (and protection) against society's need for confidence in the results.
- Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
  From one side of your mouth you're demanding perfect privacy and from the other side I'm sure you'll tell me its necessary because of the laws in the US for voting procedure and policy to be bottom up starting with localities, then states, then federal elections. I think we both know perfect privacy is cost prohibitive at the local and state levels and largely a talking point that ends with the listener assuming it is impossible to achieve online voting with perfect privacy in our lifetime. If we can't afford to change the way people vote then why not change the way we measure it so its not so cost prohibitive? Between exit polls, aggregate voter data held by the national parties, private and public data sources it is already possible to accurately predict the outcome of most elections. Its already being used by national parties as the foundation for when and where they choose to challenge election results and allocate resources. There is no such thing as a, "Secret Ballot" with modern analytics. There are just those who can afford to find out how you vote and those who can't. Those who can't in today's world includes regulators and the government themselves.

Beldin 7y ago

Voluntary disclosure sounds as if it undoes the secret ballot. Just a reminder: the secret ballot is secret to protect those, whose genuine vote would otherwise be manipulated (/forced/extorted/...) Not every individual voter might need that level of protection for themselves. But every individual voter requires this level of protection for the whole process. Phrased differently: for some, anonymity in voting is nice. For others, it is necessary to get their genuine vote. For democracy to function, we need everyone's genuine vote. Thus: we need voter anonimity that cannot be rescinded by the voter - nor by anyone else.

Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
Again, this assumes a slippery slope. Organ donors abound. Should we be allowed to redact it on our driver's licenses for fear that we might be judged by our bosses and neighbors or compelled to donate or that it reveals our religious beliefs? When someone says, "America isn't ready for online voting." I hear, "The interests who already buy and aggregate enough information to have the results ahead of time want to stay 1 step ahead of regulators."
- reaperducer 7y ago
  No one is going to pay you to tick the organ donor box, or threaten you or your family if you don't. Both of those things have happened with voting in the past, which is why ballots are secret.
  - Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
    World governments and wealthy private interests are right now paying huge sums of money to interfere with election results. That's happening right now. Not in the past. That's why we need enough people who aren't in danger to volunteer their data.
    - bobthepanda 7y ago
      > No one is going to pay you to tick the organ donor box > World governments and wealthy private interests are right now paying huge sums of money You are describing a different problem than the one the parent comment is describing. The latter is lobbying, which can be prevented through legal restrictions and auditing to make sure those restrictions are being adhered to. The former is outright vote-buying. People who are looking for money can, and will sell their votes for money, goods, or jobs. This happens in less rigorous democracies like India today. This happened in the US as well with the old-time patronage machines in big cities. Even if you don't necessarily need to sell your vote to get any job, you might lose a job offer to someone else who was willing to demonstrate that they voted "correctly". The existence of one problem does not minimize the other, and we should seek to strike as many impurities from the process as possible, rather than trading one devil for another.
      - Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
        I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, only the cost and timeline for a grassroots effort to prevent disaster. If we leave this up to local parties to solve our great grandchildren will be having the same argument
  - alasdair_ 7y ago
SamReidHughes 7y ago
Keep in mind, democracy functioned in America for about a century without secret ballots.
alasdair_ 7y ago
>Just a reminder: the secret ballot is secret to protect those, whose genuine vote would otherwise be manipulated (/forced/extorted/...) For mail-in voting (which is how the majority of people in King County vote), what makes the ballot secret? Can someone be forced or extorted to fill in the ballot in front of their persecutor? >For democracy to function, we need everyone's genuine vote. I'd honestly like to see anonymous voting in the house and Senate. This would vastly reduce the influence of political parties. Yes, it means that it's harder for constituents to track what their representative actually does, but the way modern politics works, "what their representative actually does" is essentially vote the party line on almost every vote.
- mjevans 7y ago
  Source: I vote in King County (of which Seattle is a member city and probably uses the same process given the same elections office). The Mail In Ballot procedure here uses a double-envelope system. The inner envelope has the vote (with a matching identifier tab pulled off). It is supposed to contain only the vote. The other envelope contains the inner envelope and this envelope is marked with the address of the voter, and a legally binding contract (signed by the voter and/or representative witnesses if they are unable). My belief is that the validation process for these ballots includes multiple stages and probably blinding, wherein, the outer envelope is authenticated as a registered voter and that it contains something likely to be a vote (there's a small viewing circle). This would then be stripped and the trusted inner envelope, still sealed, added to a tabulation bin. Said tabulation bin would then be counter later in an anonomized manor.

specialist 7y ago

Forgive me, I don't know what you're advocating for here. I greatly appreciate that you're chewing on the policy, problem, tech. For the USA, I no longer think polls are useful predictors, nor are exit polls useful audits or verification. For polling to work (be useful), like is done in Germany, requires the whole system to be designed as such. Our gold standard is the Australian Ballot. Private voting, public counting. We weaken this system to extend the franchise, eg absentee ballots. But the real kicker is our FPTP (winner takes all) election system. It's so brittle. The inevitable error rate intrinsic in any form of voting (casting ballots) coupled with durvergers law virtually ensures drama. Said another way, my militant defense of the Australian Ballot, this recurring national spaz attack, would be mooted by switching to a more robust form of elections. Ranked choice and proportional representation have the most interest and support, though I prefer Approval Voting for a better balance of fairness and simplicity. Back to your point about disclosure, if I follow you: I very much would like to see tech, POCs, research into time boxed privacy. Like maybe all election materials, including ballots, are released when an election is certified. Versus hidden and then destroyed a few weeks later. My motivation is to find other balances, equilibria, between people's privacy (and protection) against society's need for confidence in the results.

Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
From one side of your mouth you're demanding perfect privacy and from the other side I'm sure you'll tell me its necessary because of the laws in the US for voting procedure and policy to be bottom up starting with localities, then states, then federal elections. I think we both know perfect privacy is cost prohibitive at the local and state levels and largely a talking point that ends with the listener assuming it is impossible to achieve online voting with perfect privacy in our lifetime. If we can't afford to change the way people vote then why not change the way we measure it so its not so cost prohibitive? Between exit polls, aggregate voter data held by the national parties, private and public data sources it is already possible to accurately predict the outcome of most elections. Its already being used by national parties as the foundation for when and where they choose to challenge election results and allocate resources. There is no such thing as a, "Secret Ballot" with modern analytics. There are just those who can afford to find out how you vote and those who can't. Those who can't in today's world includes regulators and the government themselves.