Voting System Reform Commission

[Peter]

It appears that the majority of the nation does not want a secret ballot, and I don't even know if a majority of the commission does.

We are not here to count heads, we are here to report feasibility. Even so, whilst apparently a majority have said that they will not use a secret ballot, this does not mean to say that some of them do not support it. I personally will not use the secret ballot - I have said this before and I will say it as many times as I am asked, yet I do support the underlying concept if it can be shown to be practical.

[ilikeverin]

It appears that the majority of the nation does not want a secret ballot, and I don't even know if a majority of the commission does.

We are not here to count heads, we are here to report feasibility. Even so, whilst apparently a majority have said that they will not use a secret ballot, this does not mean to say that some of them do not support it. I personally will not use the secret ballot - I have said this before and I will say it as many times as I am asked, yet I do support the underlying concept if it can be shown to be practical.

^^^

Except I support it if it isn't practical (just kidding, of course )

[KEmperor]

It appears that the majority of the nation does not want a secret ballot, and I don't even know if a majority of the commission does.

We are not here to count heads, we are here to report feasibility. Even so, whilst apparently a majority have said that they will not use a secret ballot, this does not mean to say that some of them do not support it. I personally will not use the secret ballot - I have said this before and I will say it as many times as I am asked, yet I do support the underlying concept if it can be shown to be practical.

Fair enough.  Although considering all the discussion concerning constitutional amendments and the difficulty in finding impartial committees, I wouldn't say it's very practical at all.

[Peter]

Verification of the Votes themselves and publication

When should verification take place? (i.e. when should the Committee meet to verify the votes)

Should votes be published at all? If so, when?

If votes are published, should they be published with the voters name attached?

Should a list of those who vote secretly be publicly disclosed?

Should official advice be published to aid the Committee by the Forum Affairs dept?

What happens if one of the Committee members for whatever reason becomes absent?


Counting the Votes

Should the job of effectively tallying and certifying the entire election result be devolved to the Committee away from the SoFA? Or if a list of votes is published (named or not), should the job remain with the SoFA?

If a voter votes both publically and secretly, should both their votes be discounted even if these votes are identical?

If a voter votes twice secretly, should this be treated as in public voting as a disqualified voter?

If votes are not published what checks will be put in place to ensure that there is a uniform standard applied to all ballots
I'm including these two sections together because they are pretty much inseparable.

In my vision of the system, the Committee will meet and verify the content of the ballots, and without doing any actual counting, will then publish the list of votes (without the name of the voter and excepting only those who voted twice) after the election has ended. The SoFA will then do the counting. The names of the secret voters will then also be published (for asterisking purposes) in a randomised order by the committee.

I think the votes should be published and counted publically because it means that ultimately if a mistake is made, it can be picked up by others - Its not that I don't trust the committee to be honest, but we all make mistakes and the more of us counting the same ballots, the better. Also, it allows candidates to review themselves any "dubious" ballots that do get counted so that if they wish to pursue a litigative path, they can do so fully aware of what they are challenging.

[Emsworth]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I would say as soon as possible after the election.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, as soon as possible after the election.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I don't think so; then, it seems rather pointless, I think, to have a secret ballot in the first place.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I believe that voters should sign a register indicating that a secret ballot was cast; the committee need only correct errors in the register.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I presume that a quorum would still be allowed to meet. I don't see much else that we can do.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Once the list is published, we can let the SoFA count.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Absolutely.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This could be resolved if each ballot is published without the voter's name attached.

One other issue we must consider is the possibility of a Committee member disclosing the ballots to another voter in order to help him vote tactically.

[Peter]

bump.

I know that Colin has a big enough sample on the results of that survey, so if he could just publish them here, that will be fine.

[Ebowed]

Colin is away.

[Colin]

bump.

I know that Colin has a big enough sample on the results of that survey, so if he could just publish them here, that will be fine.

I thought I sent the information to all people via PM. If you did not recieve it just tell me and I will send it to you.

[Peter]

bump.

I know that Colin has a big enough sample on the results of that survey, so if he could just publish them here, that will be fine.

I thought I sent the information to all people via PM. If you did not recieve it just tell me and I will send it to you.

This isn't  a secret society. The results will form part of our official report. I had wondered whether those results were final, assuming they are, here they are:

These are the results after 50 people have been polled:

1) Are you currently an Atlasian officeholder?

Yes, I am a federal officeholder 30.0% 15
Yes, I am a regional officeholder 14.0% 7
No, I do not hold office in Atlasia 57.1% 28

2) Do you intend to run for federal office in the near future?

Yes 50.0% 25
No 50.0% 25

3) Would you be willing to serve on an election committee if secret balloting is implemented?

Yes 52.0% 26
No 48.0% 24

4) If secret balloting is implemented on an optional basis would you use it in Atlasian federal elections?

Yes 40.0% 20
No 60.0% 30

That is the data. The margin of error is +or- 11% or +or- 5.5 votes.

If you have the original data still, could you please extrapolate how many non-federal office holders, who will not run for federal office in the near future would be willing to serve on the committee?

[Colin]

bump.

I know that Colin has a big enough sample on the results of that survey, so if he could just publish them here, that will be fine.

I thought I sent the information to all people via PM. If you did not recieve it just tell me and I will send it to you.

This isn't  a secret society. The results will form part of our official report. I had wondered whether those results were final, assuming they are, here they are:

These are the results after 50 people have been polled:

1) Are you currently an Atlasian officeholder?

Yes, I am a federal officeholder 30.0% 15
Yes, I am a regional officeholder 14.0% 7
No, I do not hold office in Atlasia 57.1% 28

2) Do you intend to run for federal office in the near future?

Yes 50.0% 25
No 50.0% 25

3) Would you be willing to serve on an election committee if secret balloting is implemented?

Yes 52.0% 26
No 48.0% 24

4) If secret balloting is implemented on an optional basis would you use it in Atlasian federal elections?

Yes 40.0% 20
No 60.0% 30

That is the data. The margin of error is +or- 11% or +or- 5.5 votes.

If you have the original data still, could you please extrapolate how many non-federal office holders, who will not run for federal office in the near future would be willing to serve on the committee?

Yes those are final and yes we are a secret society.

[Peter]

Given a pretty high degree of non-participation to this point, I will summarise where we are at now, bolding points which I feel are still in need of being addressed.

The Committee that will receive and verify votes

The Commission seems to have consensus that the Committee will have three members, though there is some dispute over who these members should be. Sam Spade has suggested using the GM, the SoFA and an ordinary citizen, and obviously we have the original proposal put forward of the VP, PPT and SoFA, followed by a list of office holders. True Indep. suggests the use of party nominated persons to be on the committee.

All seem to agree that the use of ordinary citizens is acceptable, though whether they should be confirmed in some way by the Senate has received little discussion. There is general agreement that the Supreme Court Justices should not serve on the Committee.

Voting secretly

There is apparent consensus that voting should be by PM. There is support for a register being used that voters must sign to indicate that they have voted secretly. There is no consensus on whether failure to sign should disqualify votes cast. Official advice should be published by the DoFA for the voters to aid them.

Verification of the Votes themselves and publication

The Committee should meet as soon after the closing of voting as possible. The votes themselves should be published, but without the names of the voters attached and in a randomised order so that the voter cannot be matched up with his ballot. A list of secret voters should be disclosed, whether by the signed register or by the Committee.

If a Committee member becomes absent, the remaining two members may meet as a quorum to verify the votes

Counting the Votes

Once the list of votes is published, the SoFA should conduct the full count. The Committee should thus only verify votes, not count them.

Voting twice secretly should disqualify both votes. There has been no discussion of voting twice, once publicly and once secretly.

Other issues for consideration

We are yet to consider measures that we would put in place to minimise corruption on the part of the committee members.

[Emsworth]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I would support Sam Spade's proposal. The third member should be a nominee of the President; if either of the other two are unable to serve, then they should also be replaced by any two others appointed by the President.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is indeed something I am unsure about.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I would say yes. Signing the register is meant to prevent fraud; the signature should be absolutely mandatory.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The problem of voting once publicly and once secretly should be resolved if all voters have to sign a register. But if the voter still votes twice, both ballots should be discounted.

[Colin]

Given a pretty high degree of non-participation to this point, I will summarise where we are at now, bolding points which I feel are still in need of being addressed.

The Committee that will receive and verify votes

The Commission seems to have consensus that the Committee will have three members, though there is some dispute over who these members should be. Sam Spade has suggested using the GM, the SoFA and an ordinary citizen, and obviously we have the original proposal put forward of the VP, PPT and SoFA, followed by a list of office holders. True Indep. suggests the use of party nominated persons to be on the committee.

All seem to agree that the use of ordinary citizens is acceptable, though whether they should be confirmed in some way by the Senate has received little discussion. There is general agreement that the Supreme Court Justices should not serve on the Committee.

I am more in favour of Sam's idea than Senator True Independents or the orginal proposal. However I believe that the ordinary citizen should not be a pick of the President. This would give the President a political appointment on any committee and may lead to that person being biased in their counting and striking of secret ballots. It should either be a random selection from a list of candidates or it should be given on a first come first served basis so that neither the Senate nor the President have any political leeway over the committee.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

PM is the only way it can be done, their is no other good way to do it. I believe that voters must sign a secret balloting register and if they do not sign it and try to vote then their secret ballot must not be counted. They can then be told by the SoFA or any other official who recieves the ballot that they are still allowed to vote in the Public Voting Booth and that they are not penalized for trying to vote secretly without filling out the register. If we do not have a system like this in place then their is no reason to have a register in the first place. Why have a register if it's optional?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

When will these ballots be published? At the end of an election? During the election? The only way I would support a secret ballot would be if the ballots are published during the election and that new ballots are added as they come in since this would not end the fun of watching the results come in and getting accurate up to the minute results from the various Atlasian news sources. I think this would also dissaude tactical voting since the ballots could not be submitted in real time and thus their would be a delay between when a secret ballot is cast and when it is put up on a public thread. This could mean that at the end of an election their could be 2 or 3 secret ballots which would tip the election in favour of someone else but you still tactically vote as if those 2 or 3 votes had not happened due to the delay in publishing the ballots. All else seems fine.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well I believe this ties in with the register. If the person signs the register and votes both privately and publically I believe his secret ballot should count. If he does not sign the register and votes twice, once secretly once publically, his public one will be counted. If the two ballots are different the one that will be counted is the one that he is on the register for.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well I believe that this needs to be discussed much further than it has been. This is one of the main obsticals to secret balloting especially if all three people are cabinet officials or are selected by the President they may feel some sort of loyalty to the party or the President and thus throw the election using corrupt means. We need to investigate this further before this commission delivers a final report.

[Sam Spade]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I would say as soon as possible after the election.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, as soon as possible after the election.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I don't think so; then, it seems rather pointless, I think, to have a secret ballot in the first place.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I believe that voters should sign a register indicating that a secret ballot was cast; the committee need only correct errors in the register.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I presume that a quorum would still be allowed to meet. I don't see much else that we can do.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Once the list is published, we can let the SoFA count.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Absolutely.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This could be resolved if each ballot is published without the voter's name attached.

One other issue we must consider is the possibility of a Committee member disclosing the ballots to another voter in order to help him vote tactically.

I would like to basically second Emsworth's comments on these question.

[Sam Spade]

Given a pretty high degree of non-participation to this point, I will summarise where we are at now, bolding points which I feel are still in need of being addressed.

The Committee that will receive and verify votes

The Commission seems to have consensus that the Committee will have three members, though there is some dispute over who these members should be. Sam Spade has suggested using the GM, the SoFA and an ordinary citizen, and obviously we have the original proposal put forward of the VP, PPT and SoFA, followed by a list of office holders. True Indep. suggests the use of party nominated persons to be on the committee.

All seem to agree that the use of ordinary citizens is acceptable, though whether they should be confirmed in some way by the Senate has received little discussion. There is general agreement that the Supreme Court Justices should not serve on the Committee.

Obviously, I support my own plan for how to handle the staffing of the committee.  I also have no problem with ordinary citizens being confirmed by the Senate.  I think it would be mandatory if the President were to make the picks as to who serves on the commission, but should also be done if party organizations choose to pick who's involved.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I will put my two cents in here and say that I think failure to sign should disqualify.  If people are not required to sign in order for their vote to count, I think it would well increase the possibility of fraud, as anyone could send a secret ballot in without having to sign whether they were a registered voter or not.  Even if the ballots are secret, it is imperative that the committee knows who has voted and who has not voted.  Otherwise, we get ballot-stuffing.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Considering as this type of quorum appears to be the best way to deal with this matter, I support it, even though it isn't the best.

Now that I think about it, maybe we can appoint an alternate Committee member who is only involved if one of the members doesn't show up.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is the reason why the requirement of the register is so important.  Obviously, voting twice should be an automatic disqualifier of one's vote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I honestly don't really have any plans in mind to deal with this problem in advance.  The only way it's really come into my thinking so far is in the belief that 2 out of the 3 members of the committee should be the SoFA and GM, the two most non-partisan positions in Atlasia.

[Emsworth]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I honestly don't really have any plans in mind to deal with this problem in advance.  The only way it's really come into my thinking so far is in the belief that 2 out of the 3 members of the committee should be the SoFA and GM, the two most non-partisan positions in Atlasia.

One point I am especially concerned about is the exclusive ability of committee members to vote tactically, whereas this is denied to other voters. A committee member may not only cast a tactical ballot of his own, but also may reveal the totals to some other citizen who would then be able to vote tactically.

[Sam Spade]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I honestly don't really have any plans in mind to deal with this problem in advance.  The only way it's really come into my thinking so far is in the belief that 2 out of the 3 members of the committee should be the SoFA and GM, the two most non-partisan positions in Atlasia.

One point I am especially concerned about is the exclusive ability of committee members to vote tactically, whereas this is denied to other voters. A committee member may not only cast a tactical ballot of his own, but also may reveal the totals to some other citizen who would then be able to vote tactically.

This is also a very reasonable concern, but honestly I don't know what we can do about that, other than have them match the votes with the names on the register after the voting is over with.

[Peter]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I honestly don't really have any plans in mind to deal with this problem in advance.  The only way it's really come into my thinking so far is in the belief that 2 out of the 3 members of the committee should be the SoFA and GM, the two most non-partisan positions in Atlasia.

One point I am especially concerned about is the exclusive ability of committee members to vote tactically, whereas this is denied to other voters. A committee member may not only cast a tactical ballot of his own, but also may reveal the totals to some other citizen who would then be able to vote tactically.

I have thought about this, and there is no means that I can see to absolutely overcome it. However, I believe that if we simply ask Committee members to vote publicly and within the first 24 hours of polling, then this problem would be eliminated. Obivously we cannot force them, but I'm sure we can appeal to their sense of decency and fair play to get them to comply.

[Peter]

It should either be a random selection from a list of candidates or it should be given on a first come first served basis so that neither the Senate nor the President have any political leeway over the committee.

First come, first served is somewhat risky - you could end up with literally anybody. Ultimately leaving it to the Forum Affairs Dept to choose the third member from a list of volunteers is my preferred method.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

So essentially if you vote secretly without signing the register, if you cast a public vote it will still count?

This raises another related question in my mind: If we have a compulsory register (which seems to have support), and then you sign it, but fail to actually secretly vote, and then vote publicly, what happens?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I envision them being published as soon after verification as possible, which would obviously be at the end of an election.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I doubt it: There were about 5 hours between the last 5 votes in the last election and the votes before it: I would probably have had all the votes cast to that point at my disposal, and thus my tactical advantage would have been identical.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, I should have been more specific and noted that it will be. I am simply trying to fill in the gaps of what should have been discussed by now, but due to low participation has not been.

[Colin]

It should either be a random selection from a list of candidates or it should be given on a first come first served basis so that neither the Senate nor the President have any political leeway over the committee.

First come, first served is somewhat risky - you could end up with literally anybody. Ultimately leaving it to the Forum Affairs Dept to choose the third member from a list of volunteers is my preferred method.

Yes that was my thinking as well even while I was writing it. You're idea sounds decent and wouldn't be as political as a Presidential appointment. A random selection could also work as long as all the candidates were well informed and active Atlasians.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well how else can we do it? Can we penelize someone for trying to vote in secret? I, personally, think we shouldn't but I would be open to any arguement that you would like to make saying how that would not work. To answer your next question I personally really don't know the public vote should be counted since it is an official ballot with no errors post in the correct manner.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Thought as much.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes I know my idea would not completely get rid of tactical voting but I believe that it is the only way to keep the fun of elections going while still having a secret ballot. Otherwise it's three days of sitting on your ass wondering who will win itstead of three days of results, discussion and interest in the election.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I understand. We also need to discuss further this ability for committee members to use tactical voting themselves since several people who have been known for tactical voting, like yourself, could very well be on the committee. I do not believe their is anything wrong with tactical voting but if a few people can use it while others can't doesn't that just screw up the entire argument for secret ballot anyway?

[Peter]

Now that the election is over, hopefully I can refocus the attention of committee members onto this issue.

[Colin]

Well I'm here, as always.

[Sam Spade]

Same here.  If there are any other issues up for discussion, I'd gladly give my opinion, though response #91 conveys my concerns to the present questions in as best a manner as possible.

[Peter]

Given that there is not much discussion on previous topics, we shall move onto what should be our final topic:

Prevention of Fraud

What specific offences on the part of the electoral committee should we criminalise?

Beyond criminalisation, are there any particular safeguards we can put in place to stop fraud?

After this, we will recover partially covered areas and then draft a final report.

[Emsworth]

Given that there is not much discussion on previous topics, we shall move onto what should be our final topic:

Prevention of Fraud

What specific offences on the part of the electoral committee should we criminalise?

Beyond criminalisation, are there any particular safeguards we can put in place to stop fraud?

The following, at the very least, ought to be criminalized:
- Revealing or publicly discussing vote totals, results, or individual votes before the election ends
- Revealing a voter's identity without his consent
- Fraudulently counting the results
- Gross negligence in conducting the election

As to specific measures to combat fraud, I fear that I cannot think of any.