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

[Michael Allan <mike@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tracy, you've scored a direct hit on this strawman.  It may still
stand, but only with some added support.

Problem is (I paraphrase) negative and positive messages in the
network (trust and mistrust-links) give the community long distance
weapons.  Under attack, people will try to protect themselves using
the same weapons, and the conflict will escalate until it endangers
the entire network.

The natural solution is to reduce the range of the weapons. If we
bring them down to human scales, people can deal with them.  We can do
this by restricting messages to near, physical neighbours. Then
attacks cannot be concentrated from afar.  And local attackers will
not be so brave in hurling their missles, when they know they'll be
exposed up and down the street. (Email and land addresses are revealed
in any attack.)  Will that prevent major conflicts? Or do I still have
work to do?

There may be occaisional "flame wars between neighborhood groups" but
only if the neighbours are almost physically at war with each other,
anyway.  That should not be a problem for the system as a whole. (And
hopefully those neighbourhoods could get some help, in dealing with
their problems.)

>                                          And all this leaves aside  
> the tweaking of registration databases.

Internal sabotage? That's a common problem for businesses and
government, I assume.  We could employ the same measures.

Also, the community could help here too. The registry is entirely
public info (nothing hidden, if we can help it) so any inconsistencies
are liable to be noticed.

-- 
Michael Allan

http://zelea.com/


On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 12:24:20PM -0400, Tracy Lightcap wrote:
> 
> 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

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