more on The other major problem with modern balloting procedures

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brad Templeton <btm () templetons com>
Date: October 31, 2004 2:58:51 PM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: plevy () citizen org
Subject: Re: [IP] The other major problem with modern balloting 
procedures

> From: Paul Levy <plevy () citizen org>
> With all the attention that is being paid to the problems of electronic
> voting and attempts to discourage minority voting, another major 
> problem
> with voting is being ignored ? the decline of the secret ballot.

This essays speaks only of one of the two major components of the secret
ballot concept -- hiding your ballot from officials.  This is important,
but many feel the other major reason for secret ballots -- inability to
prove to others how you voted -- is at least as important, and we have
also thrown this out the window.

The entire state of Oregon votes by mail, and many states allow anybody
to request a by-mail absentee ballot.  Some insist on you giving a 
reason
why you can't vote that day but you can always get it.

A by-mail ballot allows you to reliably sell your vote.  You take your
ballot and sign it, and hand it to the vote-buyer, who then fills in
the choices or verifies you made the paid for choices and hands your 
cash.

(Of course vote-buying is not always for money.  It is also a risk in
strong organizations like unions which might wish to assure that all
members voted the desired way.)

This is illegal of course, but physical barriers to vote selling are
almost all gone.  Just as the official who watches you insert your
ballot into the scanner is not supposed to report back to party HQ
what they saw.

For all their flaws, the electronic voting machines can at least, if
progammed to the rules and not tampered with, provide a better level
of secret ballot than the systems described.

In Canada, you tend to take your ballot behind a small cardboard shield,
but it is easy to block others from viewing how you mark it.  Then
you fold it in half (to the chagrin of those who will count, I suspect)
and place it (still folded) into a ballot box or a worker does that.
You're pretty confident nobody saw it, and you can't sell it.

Note that in many places, vote by mail is extremely limited.  Those who
can't vote on election day itself instead must show up at advanced 
polls.
The only ones who vote by mail are those overseas and the infirm.  This
limits the number of ballots that can be sold or otherwise affected
in the by-mail system, though there have been stories of nursing homes
that by remarkable coincidence cast all their ballots exactly the same.

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