“I’m saying that technology that allows someone to prove how they voted enables the sort of vote surveillance that you seem to be okay with. I think we should use technologies that don’t enable or facilitate this sort of vote surveillance. And for some reason you pooh-pooh my concerns.”

Technology that allows someone to prove how they voted does not enable vote surveillance. I apologise, I should have made it clear in my first post on this subject: The personal ID information attached to the ballot is encrypted using an asymetrical algorithm (IOW: it is VERY hard to crack such a code) and only the voter knows his own personal key.

Could a voter choose to prove to a third party how he voted using this process? Well, yes, that’s the whole point of it . . . to create a single blind instead of a double blind system that allows a voter, and only that voter, to treat his vote as a transaction. If a voter finds it necessary to challenge how his vote is tabulated, then of course that voter would have to reveal his key, but using a different key for each election is a sure-fire way to make sure that a voter’s voting history can’t then be tracked after the fact.

Laws already exist that provide reasonably heavy punishments for people who attempt to coerce a vote, or make voting a particular way a requirement for, well, anything.

If some one chooses to reveal their vote, then that is their personal choice, right?

I’m still not sure I understand your point. All I can say is this: in every engineering decision, there are tradeoffs. To get better vote tabulation, you must sacrifice something else. Minimizing the costs, while maximizing the benefits, is what a good engineer does. I believe that asymetrical encryption of personal ID information using a unique, voter-private key gives a very high return, for very low cost.

Am I correct in assuming you believe that the cost of being unable to correctly tabulate a vote is lower than the cost of allowing a voter to track his ballot?

Thanks for the input,
John S.

“Tracking your vote to tabulation is often seen as a liability, not a positive, because it allows people to prove who they voted for.”

I’m not sure I understand your point here.

The ability to prove who you voted for is fundamental to the security and correctness of the voting process, unless you are comfortable with the inherent risks associated with the act of ambiguating a vote (double blind voting).

The most obvious of the inherent risks: ballot replacement. Second most obvious, ballot box stuffing.

Note that I agree that attaching asymetrically encrypted personal ID information to a ballot can indeed be used to prove who you voted for, but that is precisely the reason that it would attached . . . in case of a challenge, you could prove that a given ballot was and is yours, while with double blind voting (double blind: you don’t know that your ballot was counted, the counters don’t know whether or not you voted), you can’t.

Obviously, the choice to let some one else know how you voted is yours, and yours alone. I would expect that existing voter protection laws would be applied to protect some one from being forced to reveal their vote, and if necessary, that theses laws would be strengthened or expanded appropriately.

Did I understand your position?

He’s not a nazi. He’s just an unwilling ex-member of the Hitler youth.

“Again, you refuse to condemn the overseer. ”

Of course I do. I’m trying to defend people.

“Ironically, your insistence on old-fashioned paper ballots means more dead trees, as well as the interpretation of chads. ”

This isn’t a choice between electronic votes and paper ballots. This is a choice between systems that allow voters to prove who they voted for and systems that don’t. That could happen with paper or electric.

To rehash your pathetic & clueless insinuation that Pope-is-a-Nazi. His father, like a few others paid the price for resisting the Nazis, meanwhile many (weak) took the easier and broader path and embraced the party in return for political/economic rewards. But in the end…

Again, you refuse to condemn the overseer. If you were truly concerned for the weak, you’d have long advocated laws and whistle-blower methods for the weak to shake off the massah. Instead, you rail against the tools rather than the abuser.

Ironically, your insistence on old-fashioned paper ballots means more dead trees, as well as the interpretation of chads. I would have thot that the progressives were all for saving trees and ensuring that every vote gets counted. Not to mention saving valuable time from waiting in lines and precious oil from having to drive to the polls by voting online from home.

Or is it that the donks have figured out how to game the current system and resist any change, since it would mean learning a new set of skills to game the digital system, eh?

Not really in the situation I described, is the problem. Not really in the situation that some would like that would make it easier for someone to be able to prove how they voted. Their weakness counts against you.

Live people, on the other hand, can vote any way they choose.

The problem is that we are all hurt by the fact that one person is being forced to vote a certain way. If you need a selfish justification.

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” –Thomas Paine

I’m sorry. I think the weak are precisely the ones we should care about. They are the weakest link in our democracy.

“The only way the vote could be surveilled is for that voter to give the tracking number to his massah.”

Which in my view would be easier than bringing the overseer into the voting booth. Of course the voter can say no. And of course whatever retaliation occurs will occur. And they’re just a weakling for that. Please.

As noted way back, provisional votes and absentee ballots have long been attached to the identity of the voter until right before it is counted.

The digital voter concept is based on the voter and only the voter has the key to his ballot in the form of Ballot ID # and can track it thru the tally process. On the other end of the transaction, there is no linkage to “trace” the ballot #. The only way the vote could be surveilled is for that voter to give the tracking number to his massah.

This type of one-way annonymous transaction happens all the time in other business models. A good example would be the lotto ticket.

I’m saying that technology that allows someone to prove how they voted enables the sort of vote surveillance that you seem to be okay with. I think we should use technologies that don’t enable or facilitate this sort of vote surveillance. And for some reason you pooh-pooh my concerns.

Make up your mind. Either either you condemn the party people for following voters into the booth at their request. Or you don’t. Paper or computer technology are both neutral vote tally enablers. Either can be abused when people don’t stand for their rights. Blaming the technology instead of the abusers is akin to blaming knives for stabbing victims.

Ever since comment #102, you just get more incoherent. Why don’t you quit while you’re down.

What? are you serious? What are rights then?

“In effect their vote is meaningless in the sense, they voted to please their massah and not for what they really think.”

Right. Thats what we try to prevent when we have secret ballots. You do understand why we have secret ballots don’t you?

Anyhoo. You missed the thrust of my point, if they won’t stand for their rights, they may as well give it away and save themselves the time and effort to even show up at the polls. In effect their vote is meaningless in the sense, they voted to please their massah and not for what they really think.

Sorry. Thats wrong. A right to vote is a right. Not something that someone has to bargain for.