[LINK] How many eyes / delegation of democracy

[Jan Whitaker]

At 10:19 AM 19/11/2006, rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au wrote:
>Yes, Jan, we do delegate activities to others. This raises a 
>specific question and a general philosophy.
>
>Specifically, the delegation of democratic process should not be 
>exclusive. Viewing and counting of votes should be as inclusive as 
>it can possibly be, and arguments of convenience (you get the count 
>quicker), cost (specious and probably wrong anyway), or simplicity 
>don't outweigh the need for an inclusive process. And the delegation 
>should not be coercive - "you will trust us because there's no other 
>choice" is inimical to democracy.
>
>Since delegation is necessary to life, it's always better that it be 
>voluntary rather than coerced. An electronic voting system demands 
>that most of the population delegate trust in the process, and 
>removes their access to that part of the process ... you can no 
>longer choose to delegate or participate.

I agree that the philosophy of simplicity to a point of understanding 
is important, that the result is observable and trusted, and that 
everyone has equal opportunity. But in elections this has always been 
the case but we've been fooled! Maybe not in Australia where the 
paper ballot is still being manually completed and then counted by 
human eyes. But dare I point out the hanging chad debacle in the 
close election of 2000 in the US? Who would have thought! What could 
be simpler! But it was found to have an error rate and Gore lost.

Then there were (are?) the mechanical voting machines. In this 
version, there was a row of candidates listed by office and party. 
You could flip a lever for each individual or a single lever to vote 
for a party slate in total (equivalent to above the line I guess - 
haven't voted in Australia yet!). I have no idea if these machines 
were accurate. But a country of probably +130m people used them for years.

So, even though the simpler version of paper ballot meets the 
underlying criteria, in many places it hasn't been used in years. 
Maybe the issue here is the degree of the shift that is being 
presented, while in the US (where the creators of the e-voting is 
happening) it fit within the parameters of the existing forms. But we 
must not forget the chad. That was the wake-up call for greater 
scrutiny there. People started looking under the hood, and they 
didn't like what they saw. But I don't hear them scrambling to go 
back to paper ballots either.

Jan

Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
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'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, 
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