Re: [apsa_itp] open electoral system (strawman plan)

[Tracy Lightcap <tlightcap@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael:

Stephen has laid out some cogent objections to you scheme. However, perhaps the biggest flaw in this design is the determined way it ignores the possibilities of collusion and intimidation in establishing the "trust networks". 

If we look at the annals of vote fraud in all its forms in the US, one thing stands out. It is precisely the "public community" you fear is too attenuated that is the root of most of the problems. Given the "neighborhood registrars" and the use of voter established trust networks, isn't it obvious that collusion to establish the credentials of voters and to disenfranchise others would become a national sport? Google-bombing of voting rolls and flame wars between neighborhood groups would be the order of the day until political parties took the lead in coordinating voter exclusion. And all within the rules! Karl Rove would be gratified. And all this leaves aside the tweaking of registration databases.  

Also note that this would not take anything more than an intense minority to pull off. If you can get church groups or Move On to give generous volunteer time to canvassing neighborhoods, I'm sure they could be persuaded to take to the internet for 15 minutes or so a night to "reform" the voting rolls their way. 

You have a problem here and it stems from exactly what you think is the main weakness of your scheme. Give people a chance to participate and at least some of them will. Give them a chance to participate in such a fashion that they can skew the results of an election their way and, believe me, a LOT more will take you up on it. Enthusiastically.

Tracy

On Aug 20, 2007, at 7:12 AM, Michael Allan wrote:

Hello all,

I have a strawman design sketch for an 'open electoral system', and I

wonder if it can stand up to scrutiny?  In particular, I make some

assumptions about community participation.

The plan is to develop it now, and deploy it as a test-bed in the

community, operating as an advanced poll on official elections.

(Details are still rough, and this was written in haste, please pardon

oversights.)

I am posting separately to APSA_ITP (social and computer scientists),

and to TorCamp (developers/engineers):

http://lists.hmdc.harvard.edu/lists/apsa_itp_at_lists_hmdc_harvard_edu/2007_08/threads.html

http://groups.google.com/group/torcamp

Open Voter Registry

-------------------

Design-wise, the #1 problem is enforcement of a single vote (to

prevent ballot stuffing, etc.).  The solution proposed here is similar

to a traditional, enumerated registry: it's an address-by-address

database of neighbourhood voters. Its difference is, instead of being

validated by a periodic survey, it would be validated by a continuous

web of trust.

Structurally, each entry in the voter registry has:

  * land address

  * name

  * e-mail address

A web of trust then interlinks and validates the entries.  Each link

(trust-link) is directed from one entry, corresponding to a registered

voter, to another entry. To become eligible, a voter must aquire a

threshold of trust (say 3 trust-links).

There are also mistrust-links. Each mistrust-link cancels a

trust-link.  Voters will use mistrust-links to "point the finger" at

dubius registrants in their neighbourhood, such as houses with too

many occupants, or non-existent addresses.

Functionally, the registry accepts commands directly from citizens.

Citizens send in their intial registration, and maintain their

trust-links, by email (verified by challenge/response; later, a Web

interface too).

The full registry will be shown on the Web, complete with all trust

links, etc. It will be especially easy for a voter to browse through

her own neighbourhood, and adjacent neighbourhoods.

Neighbourhood Registrars

------------------------

These will be unofficial volunteers, living in the community, who are

especially active in assisting their neighbours with the registration

process, and with policing the web of trust.

For registration, the registrar might visit other people in the

neighbourhood to explain the purpose of the open electoral system. If

they give permission, the registrar could then proceed to register

them, and grant them an initial trust-link. (People could

self-register too. They would begin with zero trust-links.)

The registrar could then send each new registrant an email, explaining

how to cross-link with their near neighbours, and thus bring an entire

neighbourhood into eligibility.

The registrar would be especially active in policing the resulting web

of trust, in her own neighbourhood. She would often be the first to

point down abusers of the system. In all of this, she would set an

example for others in her neighbourhood.

Voting System

-------------

Once a voter is registered, she can begin voting for all government

offices in her jurisdiction. End-candidates need not be registered,

but must register in order to cast their own votes (and thus channel

the cascade to higher candidates). All candidates will be chosen by

the voters, simply by the fact of voting for them. (There are no

'nominees', all citizens are eligible candidates.)

Votes (and vote shifts) are sent in directly from citizens by email

(later, Web too).  The current state of each elections will be visible

on the Web, complete with the delegate heirarchy. Voters will thus

know where their votes cascade to. (This is a 'delegate cascade'

system, as we discussed earlier in APSA_ITP. People vote 'close to

home', based on their own knowledge, and on information they trust.)

A single voting system is used for all levels of

government. Candidates are identified by email address. (The same

voting system might be used for other purposes too, such as ad hoc

polls. More important, it will later be used to vote for draft bills

in community legislatures.)

Problems

--------

Vote buying: Can a law against that be enforced, or not? If not, we

need to hide all or part of the cascade from the public (so illegal

buyers cannot easily verify the voting behaviour of their purchases).

But that solution would introduce problems of its own (complexity,

policing the hidden parts against fraud, all the problems of secret

ballots in traditional voting).

Some people will not want their addresses posted on the Web (web of

trust or no).  However, back when people were listed in the phone book

-- address and all -- most people accepted *that*. And this is a

community intiative (not top down) so people may be more receptive to

it. And, if it makes neighbours more aware of each other, would that

not make the community safer? So, hopefully, not too many will opt

out.

Jurisdictional scale: Is it a single national system?  Or multiple

regional systems that cross-talk to calculate the cascade?  Cross-talk

complicates things. (But consider, international elections and polls

etc. would necessarily require it, anyway.)

Disenfranchisement of voters lacking computer/network access: Maybe

the community needs to come up with ideas. Since delegation is built

into the system, it should not be too hard to use it, at least as a

temporary stop-gap; e.g. sneaker-net between voter and trusted

delegate in the neighbourhood.

Over-representation of residents ineligible to vote in the official

election, e.g. non-citizens. In some types of community, this might

significantly skew the 'poll'.

Summary

-------

My main concern is on the social side: Am I assuming too much of the

public community here?  Especially in the registration process, will

they pull together and participate? (I can't forsee why not. We could

assume political leadership.  But I have been cautioned against

assuming too much of a community, especially in new tasks.)

On the technical side, we could develop and deploy this system fairly

quickly:

  * email challenge/response (easy with TMDA)

  * database (any)

  * a Web view of the registy/elections (bulk of the work is in here,

     but nothing fancy is needed, at first)

  * glue, to hold everything together.

Maybe we could be ready for registration, in a single riding, in 4

months? (I assume it would be a community development effort.

TorCampers, can I assume leadership/organization from TorCamp,

do you think?)

The significance is, the unofficial system could have a decisive

effect on official elections.  When fully deployed, it would offer a

continous, around the clock, 'poll' -- showing top candidates, and

likely winner -- well in advance of the next, official election. Come

the election, if the unofficial candidates ran, they would start with

full public backing. If the top candidate held onto it, she would

likely win.

-- 

Michael Allan

http://zelea.com/

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Tracy Lightcap

Professor and Chair

Department of Political Science

LaGrange College

601 Broad St.

LaGrange  GA  30240-2999

(O) tlightcap@xxxxxxxxxxxx (H) altlamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

706.880.8226

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