Maryland Tests Online Voter System

[Michael Hardner]

From Wired Magazine

Although I like this technology (it still requires voters to put in a small effort to go and vote) it seems like a foot-in-the-door to 'lazy man' voting from your sofa. The tested system only permits voters to verify that their vote was recorded correctly.

[eyeball]

From Wired Magazine

Although I like this technology (it still requires voters to put in a small effort to go and vote) it seems like a foot-in-the-door to 'lazy man' voting from your sofa. The tested system only permits voters to verify that their vote was recorded correctly.

Why do you insist on denigrating every effort being made to bring the act of voting into the 21st century by your constant references to laziness? You like the technology but not what its capable of doing.

“People who don’t want to do it or don’t care can completely ignore it,”

I'm pretty sure this would also work for people who also fear change.

[Michael Hardner]

eyeball,

You tell me - why would a non shut-in person vote from the living room but not from the voting centre down the street ?

[eyeball]

eyeball,

You tell me - why would a non shut-in person vote from the living room but not from the voting centre down the street ?

Rain, snow, the fear of being cut down by a hail of bullets or a sneeze.

This story you posted is obviously about making e-voting more verifiable. You tell me - why that's worth the effort to disparage? I think its because you've got a lot of time invested in keeping the electoral system in the dark ages and avoiding doing anything that might allow people to cast votes more often on a range of issues besides just choosing a representatve, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Michael Hardner]

This story you posted is obviously about making e-voting more verifiable. You tell me - why that's worth the effort to disparage? I think its because you've got a lot of time invested in keeping the electoral system in the dark ages and avoiding doing anything that might allow people to cast votes more often on a range of issues besides just choosing a representatve, but maybe I'm wrong.

Time invested ? Nintendo voting is just a bad idea, unless we're planning to make voting as useful as those 'flash polls' they put on the news every night. Such as "What do you think of the Stronach - McKay romance ?"

Actually, if they separated the delivery of services from politics, by making service delivery the job of a publicly accountable company, and left parliament to talking about things - better than having them actually DO anything - then I might be in favour.

[eyeball]

Time invested ? Nintendo voting is just a bad idea, unless we're planning to make voting as useful as those 'flash polls' they put on the news every night. Such as "What do you think of the Stronach - McKay romance ?"

Actually, if they separated the delivery of services from politics, by making service delivery the job of a publicly accountable company, and left parliament to talking about things - better than having them actually DO anything - then I might be in favour.

I could easily live with a technocratic approach for housekeeping stuff but the things that governments decide to do that fall out of the range of the day to day services they provide are what I'd be most intested in putting to more votes. Like going to war abroad, addressing climate change or developing policies for the Northwest Passage - things that shouldn't just be left to technocrats or politicians alone.

I certainly don't share your assumption that Canadians will either want or need to vote on every mundane thing the government does, I do think however our wishes should be front and center when it comes to deciding on the most important. Online voting allows for that kind of participation. You and many others seem to be just as afraid that people might actually DO something. Why?

[Michael Hardner]

eb

I could easily live with a technocratic approach for housekeeping stuff but the things that governments decide to do that fall out of the range of the day to day services they provide are what I'd be most intested in putting to more votes. Like going to war abroad, addressing climate change or developing policies for the Northwest Passage - things that shouldn't just be left to technocrats or politicians alone.

I certainly don't share your assumption that Canadians will either want or need to vote on every mundane thing the government does, I do think however our wishes should be front and center when it comes to deciding on the most important. Online voting allows for that kind of participation. You and many others seem to be just as afraid that people might actually DO something. Why?

I agree with the ideal of having more votes on deeper issues, generally. However the closer you look at 'more votes' the more you realize this is just another form off polling - but institutionalized polling. But with regards to voting on the bigger things - how often does Canada actually go to war, or vote on a Kyoto type accord ? Not often. The big questions are more interesting, and perhaps in a way more worthy of public input than the 'housekeeping stuff'.

Now, the unanswered question is how do you bridge the big with the mundane ? In some cases it's obvious, but in others not so much.

[Michael Hardner]

You and many others seem to be just as afraid that people might actually DO something. Why?

Missed this piece: I'm not afraid in the way you think. The changes for PR or Nintendo voting wouldn't result in some glorious new revolution as you seem to hope, but rather in stasis and gridlock - which is the opposite of what people want today.

[Riverwind]

This story you posted is obviously about making e-voting more verifiable.

The story has nothing to do with that. It is about allowing people to verify that the existing walk-in ballot systems record their votes correctly. There is nothing in this system that could address the problems related to verifying the identity of someone who votes online.

The reality is old fashioned techniques that require physical action are often the best choice for many security problems. That is why banks often require you to mail in a signed application form even if you filled it out online.

The act of going to the polls is not difficult and it does reduce or eliminate many of the security risks associated with online voting. The whining of a few lazy people is not enough to justify the taking on the additional costs/risks.

[eyeball]

eb

I agree with the ideal of having more votes on deeper issues, generally. However the closer you look at 'more votes' the more you realize this is just another form off polling - but institutionalized polling. But with regards to voting on the bigger things - how often does Canada actually go to war, or vote on a Kyoto type accord ? Not often. The big questions are more interesting, and perhaps in a way more worthy of public input than the 'housekeeping stuff'.

Now, the unanswered question is how do you bridge the big with the mundane ? In some cases it's obvious, but in others not so much.

I think you begin by spanning the easy gaps first. We'd surely glean some insights along the way about how to move forward on the bigger things. I suspect decentralizing and moving towards more localized management would be one way to make this process easier. What works well in one place may not work elsewhere, something a big centralized government often misses.

I find it incongruous in the extreme how so many people can equate direct democracy with mob rule yet hold a near solemn regard for the wisdom of that same mob at general election time. We can celebrate the more important act of deciding who our deciders will be but not any actual decisions. There's somthing inversely perverse about that don't you think?

[eyeball]

The story has nothing to do with that. It is about allowing people to verify that the existing walk-in ballot systems record their votes correctly. There is nothing in this system that could address the problems related to verifying the identity of someone who votes online.

The reality is old fashioned techniques that require physical action are often the best choice for many security problems. That is why banks often require you to mail in a signed application form even if you filled it out online.

The act of going to the polls is not difficult and it does reduce or eliminate many of the security risks associated with online voting. The whining of a few lazy people is not enough to justify the taking on the additional costs/risks.

There is nothing stopping us from voting on a range of issues using walk-in ballot systems. It would be a fairly simple matter to utilize things like postal stations, or a variety of other government agent offices to start with.

Like Michael's "voting center just down the street" we should have these anywhere you go in Canada, just like post offices.

Edited November 6, 2009 by eyeball

[eyeball]

Screw, by the way, the lazy people.

My thoughts on this issue have never been about them, I've always been talking about the go-getters who want to be more involved in the decisions the government makes.

[Michael Hardner]

eb,

I think you begin by spanning the easy gaps first. We'd surely glean some insights along the way about how to move forward on the bigger things. I suspect decentralizing and moving towards more localized management would be one way to make this process easier. What works well in one place may not work elsewhere, something a big centralized government often misses.

I find it incongruous in the extreme how so many people can equate direct democracy with mob rule yet hold a near solemn regard for the wisdom of that same mob at general election time. We can celebrate the more important act of deciding who our deciders will be but not any actual decisions. There's somthing inversely perverse about that don't you think?

Decentralizing sometimes works - but localized management doesn't necessarily mean better management. The example you often cite of west coast fisheries, is to me an example of the community (i.e. your community) responding to a poor communication process. There was, from what I remember, no proof of your suspicions of misdeeds at the Federal level.

Mob rule isn't the right description. Crowdsourcing is the latest way it's described, and it's an advantage when used properly. Groups of people behave differently under different circumstances and it's up to us to frame our forums of debate to optimize our collective decision making.

Edited November 6, 2009 by Michael Hardner

[Michael Hardner]

eb

My thoughts on this issue have never been about them, I've always been talking about the go-getters who want to be more involved in the decisions the government makes.

Absolutely. Like the MLW people. And to my mind, early democracy depended on the 18th century equivalent - the town hall - to make decision making work. We're just a short time away from achieving this, now. I've been writing about it for almost 10 years and now I can see that the technology is helping us reach upwards to the clouds of power at the same time it's bringing them down to us.

[eyeball]

eb,

Decentralizing somethings works - but localized management doesn't necessarily mean better management. The example you often cite of west coast fisheries, is to me an example of the community (i.e. your community) responding to a poor communication process. There was, from what I remember, no proof of your suspicions of misdeeds at the Federal level.

Tainted tuna comes to mind.

Mob rule isn't the right description. Crowdsourcing is the latest way it's described, and it's an advantage when used properly. Groups of people behave differently under different circumstances and it's up to us to frame our forums of debate to optimize our collective decision making.

That's the role I imagine citizen's assemblies in concert with the technocrats would play. They would work on putting together the best possible solutions that the rest of us would vote on. The real goal in my mind is to take as much of the party politics out of decision making as possible.

Edited November 6, 2009 by eyeball

[Riverwind]

There is nothing stopping us from voting on a range of issues using walk-in ballot systems.

Would such polling be binding or not? Non-binding referenda are no more useful than polling. Binding referenda can and will be abused by special interest groups who are able to get small minorities to vote on a issue.

[Oleg Bach]

Part of the reason we almost went belly up finacially on a global scale was due to the fact that computers spread the panic and destroyed confidence in our monitary system...we almost did not survive this machine enduced economic pandemic. Electronic communication is the perfect passage way for corruption and diguised evil - electronic voting is uncontrolable..no one will be able to detect manipulation of the system. Voting is so important that it is like a REAL buisness meeting - pressing of the flesh and eye to eye - human on human - If left to a machine - the crooks will further tighten their grip on power - we have enough trouble containing evil as is - I say no to this artifical marking of the box.

[eyeball]

Would such polling be binding or not? Non-binding referenda are no more useful than polling.

I'd make them binding, like you say there'd be little point otherwise. I'd still retain a senate or council of elders or something to provide the 2nd sober look and of course the Supreme Court would be expected to keep our decisions within the legal bounds of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Binding referenda can and will be abused by special interest groups who are able to get small minorities to vote on a issue.

I think the only cure for this is to make voting mandatory. Perhaps another option is to pick a random representative slice of the voting population to ensure it isn't stacked one way or the other. This is why citizen's assemplies should also be randomly picked, like juries.

I really think mandatory voting is the way to go. I guess I have faith in the idea that the appropriate choice will usually emerge, like order emerging from chaos. I was talking about this very thing to a religous fellow I know and he described what I'm saying this way; God's will would be expressed through the act of our collectively voting in the same sense that some people believe it was God's hand that wrote the Bible through the many human hands that actually penned the words. I dont know if that really captures the sense of what I'm saying - I'm an atheist and would normally eschew using a religous analogy but something about this way of looking at it really resonated with me.