It's Party Time! (Answers)

[etherial]

With SFS Advisor and WPI Professor George Phillies getting a lot of lj-press today regarding his 2008 Presidential bid, I find these entries of my own topical:

Unenrolled Voters	2,000,062	48.8%
Democratic	1,526,711	37.2%
Republican	532,319	13.0%
Libertarian	23,900	.6%
Green	9,509	.2%
Other	6,133	.1%

"Unenrolled" has been the largest political affiliation in Massachusetts since 1992, and has been growing in "popularity" every year! To help keep this poll free of meddling, I included in my response what I would have estimated before I knew the exact figures.

A long time ago, we had "cross-endorsement" or "fusion voting" as standard operating procedure here in the United States. Basically, a candidate could receive nominations from several political parties. This allowed people to vote for a candidate, but also help indicate which aspect of that candidate's position most closely reflected their own views, by aligning themselves with one of the many parties nominating that candidate. This practice was systematically eliminated in 42 states as Democrats and Republicans feared losing electoral battles against more than one political party.

With roughly half of Massachusetts voters as unenrolled, it is abundantly clear that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are offering what Massachusetts voters want, yet they consistently get all the electoral attention because of the perceived inability of "third" parties to be electable. One of the more powerful minority parties in New York, the Working Families Party has been trying to expand into Massachusetts. They've managed to put a referendum on this year's ballot to reinstate cross-endorsement (vote YES on #2!)

So, uh, they want me to work for them. I don't particularly agree with their political stance, but the opportunity to work to repair American politics and be a leader of that change is very appealing. I love the idea of working to bring back the people's confidence in the core of our political system - voting - while simultaneously eliminating the two greatest threats to our country - the Democratic and Republican parties. The hours suck - 2-10pm and the pay will be unpredictable and probably lousy, but I'm having great difficulty dismissing the idea of being a part of a movement to effect change in an ailing world, to move Massachusetts and the rest of the country forward.

Comments

Re: Americans spend more time researching a car purchase...

[teenyweenyowen.livejournal.com]

Slot machines don't care about double-voting (they encourage) it and so aren't relevant to a discussion of voting security. ATMs and bank transfers are secured less by electronic measures than by incredibly strict accounting and audit trails. With voting there MUST NOT be an audit trail which can tie a particular voter to a particular vote. If there is such an audit trail than the voter can be rewarded or punished based on his voting record. That allows bribery, coersion, and a long list of other currupt practices. Without an audit trail that tight there is no effective way to secure electronic or other methods of voting. The only semi-securable method I'm aware of is the traditional 'wait in line once, mark form, stick in big box that later gets counted' voting. It's an interesting idea but it's really unworkable in practice.

Re: Americans spend more time researching a car purchase...

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

as opposed to all the graft already in the political system, where lobbyists can (and do) bribe both candidates?

as opposed to assuming that (for example) non-white ethnic voters are going to vote democrat and punishing them as a group?

Also... I used slot machines and ATMs as their requirements for electronic security are much more rigorous (and above board) than that for electronic voting machines made by the same people.

It -is- possible to confirm that someone sent a message, and to give them a number which will subsequently let them confirm that their vote is correct, without disclosing the contents of said vote to a third party.

It is called "encryption," or so I'm told.

And it -isn't- like trunks full of stolen ballot boxes found on the side of the road months after the election have ever turned up... so paper ballots are perfect because there is no way to prove that X ballot was cast by Y person who registered without revealing the contents of the ballot.

Re: Americans spend more time researching a car purchase...

[teenyweenyowen.livejournal.com]

Money is still needed for a campaign, so no help.

Mass disenfranchisement through 'loosing' of voter registrations or similar means is still viable. Voter ID cards might reduce dead people voting and some things but has obvious privacy concerns. Purging of 'felons' also doesn't help any.

I will agree that slots and ATMs do have a lot higher standards right now. The point I was trying to make is that no standard, however high, is acceptable.

True it is possible with encryption to transmit the vote and confirm it without letting a 3rd party intercept it. What if you WANT the 3rd party to intercept it though? So you can collect $100 for voting 'right' for example. Just let them watch your screen as you cast your ballot.

The real problems though are what happens when all or part of the second party (i.e., the government/Diebold or some of thier employees) wants to currupt the vote? There's no electronic audit trail that can't be forged by someone with sufficient knowledge, skill and drive. Encryption can make it harder to forge a vote but does little to prevent selective loosing.

Paper ballots have a lot of problems, theft being the most obvious. However we can track that fairly well (election monitors (both/all parties( count how many were sent and how many arrived). I prefer a system where the amount of curruption can be measured and, if large enough, a recount is called (not what we really have now but achievable). Electronic voting systems inherently require either a trusted party or a way to track who voted what way to measure/prevent curruption. Neither are acceptable for political voting. That means that curruption with electronic ballots isn't really measurable. Exit polling comparisons can be used but we've seen just how effective they are at convincing people about curruption. Basically electronic-only systems cannot work acceptably so we should concentrate on improving the current systems without electronic means.