[LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote

[Saliya Wimalaratne]

On Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 09:42:19PM +1000, Chris Maltby wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 08:45:26PM +1000, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
> > >* Making the whole process easier to understand and navigate
> > >  
> > I wonder ... it surely depends on the interface designer. Yes, the 
> > "tablecloth" senate paper is a pain, but then again, how would we turn 
> > that into a GUI without causing confusion? And I frankly didn't budget 
> > for interface design and test in my $400 million guess...
> 
> First, abolish above the line voting.

Hi Chris,

Have to disagree: one of the first requirements in my book would be
backward compatibility (that is, let people draw numbers in boxes
on the screen if they want to). That also has the benefit of being 
easiest to implement :)

The other problem with this is that any time you make people do more
work you increase rejection rates. There's no need for 'doing more work'
to be tied to 'electronic voting' - if above-the-line voting _should_
be abolished; it should be done separately...

> Offer the list of parties first and an option to choose the most
> preferred or least preferred. There will also be a choose your own
> option (though paper may be best for these people).  When you choose the
> party, give an option to number up or down or some other order.  After a
> certain number of columns are filled in, offer a "randomise rest" or
> "autopick" option as well as the next (least) preferred option. Allow
> party column order to be finally rearranged by dragging.  

I think that by discussion and review (including external review)
such a process could be refined very quickly to something that would
be readily understood by the majority of voters. I don't know whether
it would end up exactly like this - but there are a few things 
here that I'd certainly like to see.

> Print a card with a summary of the steps and the actual vote.

Yep. 

Regards,

Saliya