[LINK] How many eyes / delegation of democracy

Daniel Rose drose at nla.gov.au
Mon Nov 20 09:49:49 AEDT 2006


 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at anumail0.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at anumail0.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of 
> rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au
> Posted At: Sunday, 19 November 2006 10:19 AM
> Posted To: Link List
> Conversation: [LINK] How many eyes / delegation of democracy
> Subject: [LINK] How many eyes / delegation of democracy
> 
> 
> Thanks to Roger and Jan for doing something which the 
> passionate advocates of e-voting *didn't* do, and that's 
> addressing a point which to me forms the foundation of the discussion.
> 
>  From Jan:
> 
> > All sorts of things in society are handled by experts, your term 
> > sub-groups, on our behalf and we don't need to know how the thing 
> > works, but we do need trust that the system is being observed and 
> > challenged. There is margin of error in every election, no 
> matter how 
> > perfect it may be designed.
> 
> 
> And from Roger:
> 
> > Democracy seldom involves equality of action, and is more about 
> > equality of opportunity.  Success of a democratic process 
> requires a 
> > *critical mass* of eyes, not a universality of them. 
> 
> 
> To pick up Roger's specific point first: yes, critical mass 
> rather than 
> universality is the practical requirement. But equality of 
> opportunity 
> is my concern regarding democractic process. As things now 
> stand, pretty 
> much anybody has the mental capacity to take part in the process, if 
> they wish to (and if they meet the legal requirements, and there's 
> enough positions and so on). Under an electronic system, equality of 
> opportunity is lost. Even if I can view the code, I cannot 
> understand it.

I'd point out the irony that it's not easy for a blind person to take
part as a scrutineer or official, but screen readers for reading out
code are widely available, so perhaps we could all convert to electronic
voting and be led by the blind?  No offence intended of course, but it
highlights the overall surreality of electronic voting as far as I'm
concerned.




More information about the Link mailing list