Constitutional Amendment to Allow a Secret Ballot

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As introduced by Senator Gabu:

Amendment to Allow a Secret Ballot

§1. The text "All elections to the Senate shall be by public post." in Article I, Section 4, Clause 6 of the constitution is hereby stricken and replaced with "All elections to the Senate shall be by either public post or secret ballot."

§2. The text "All elections to the Presidency shall be by public post." in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the constitution is hereby stricken and replaced with "All elections to the Presidency shall be by either public post or secret ballot."

I hereby open debate on this amendment

[MasterJedi]

I fully support this, we need a secret ballot to help cut down on strategic voting.

[The Dowager Mod]

How do we make sure it is fair?

[Ebowed]

Although the bill that went with this amendment allows one to vote either with a secret ballot or by public post, there are many who are urging this amendment's passage so that a mandatory secret voting system is eventually implemented.  As I trust no one but the public with my ballots, I cannot support this amendment when considering the implications.  This is, after all, first and foremost a game.  Voting needs to be easy and fun, not a complicated secret process where you have to send your ballot to various people and expect them to count it correctly.  We have enough problems counting the votes correctly with a public ballot system; let's not make it worse.

In other words, expect a Nay from me.

[MasterJedi]

How do we make sure it is fair?

I was thinking that we could amendmend it to have the SoFA, DSoFA, and one or two other people to recieve the ballots. They would be of different parties and not running for an election at the time.



And I'll say I won't support a mandatory secret ballot at all.

[The Dowager Mod]

As long as it is not mandatory i can live with it.
Perhaps sofa/dsofa and one of the justices.

[CheeseWhiz]

And I'll say I won't support a mandatory secret ballot at all.

Yes, I've dropped that idea as well.

[Emsworth]

A sidenote: The Voting System Reform Commission produced a report on secret balloting (see here).

[Peter]

Please read the Report that actually thought long and hard about how to make this work, especially noting a carefully crafted Amendment.

[Jake]

I find this legislation well-written and the best plan possible to implement a secret ballot, but I have major concerns with putting a small committee in charge of tabulating and posting ballots. What I'm interested in is whether it is possible for one of our programming whizzes to make a website where a vote can be cast by a voter, the IP is logged along with the ballot, and at the end, ballots are posted with the IP Address and votes on them. Is anything like this possible?

[Ebowed]

I know several people who are upset with even moderators being able to see IP addresses.  Having IP addresses posted along with votes won't make them happy, and if you know someone's IP address or know where they live you can track who voted for who and shame them for it if they didn't vote the way you wanted them to, which is one of the things that having a secret ballot would supposedly eliminate.

[Gabu]

Although the bill that went with this amendment allows one to vote either with a secret ballot or by public post, there are many who are urging this amendment's passage so that a mandatory secret voting system is eventually implemented.

So?  Those people have all but dropped their ideas after realizing that the public doesn't want a mandatory secret ballot.  It seems to me that voting against this amendment purely because it might lead to a mandatory secret ballot (which is not at all likely) is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I find this legislation well-written and the best plan possible to implement a secret ballot, but I have major concerns with putting a small committee in charge of tabulating and posting ballots. What I'm interested in is whether it is possible for one of our programming whizzes to make a website where a vote can be cast by a voter, the IP is logged along with the ballot, and at the end, ballots are posted with the IP Address and votes on them. Is anything like this possible?

Have you seen the bill intended to accompany this amendment in which I lay out my proposed procedure for how a secret ballot can be run (the stuff about ballot IDs)?  It's the best compromise I can think of between security and transparency.  I personally think that posting all of the voters' IP addresses would probably not be a good idea, given how uncomfortable some posters were at even the thought of simply letting the moderators see the IP addresses.

Also, using the IP address to attach a ballot with its voter would let both John Ford and Gustaf know exactly which ballot goes with which voter, which would essentially completely compromise the security of the secret ballot.

[Jake]

I couldn't care less if someone knows who voted for who. The only reason I could support a secret ballot is to remove tactical voting from the picture. If anyone is whining about people seeing their vote on an internet sim, the can go eat bees.

As I said, the ballot ID is good, but I still don't trust whoever is counting the ballots, especially since many voters vote and don't pay attention afterwards.

[Gabu]

I couldn't care less if someone knows who voted for who. The only reason I could support a secret ballot is to remove tactical voting from the picture. If anyone is whining about people seeing their vote on an internet sim, the can go eat bees.

Well, other people are concerned about that, and I took their concerns into consideration.  If you don't think that a secret ballot should protect the voters' identities, then that will be a point on which we'll have to simply disagree.

As I said, the ballot ID is good, but I still don't trust whoever is counting the ballots, especially since many voters vote and don't pay attention afterwards.

Where does trust come into play?  The SoFA has to post all of the votes in a public topic; will the voters really not have the time to take all of a minute out of their day to check to see if their vote is present?

Besides, how is the IP address thing any different from an ID?  Both would require the voter to check and make sure that their vote is present.

[Jake]

The moderator would check the IPs in the best case scenario.

[Joe Republic]

Could I add that this particular amendment merely allows the groundwork for the secret ballot.  The actual secret ballot will follow directly after this.

[Peter]

Where does trust come into play?  The SoFA has to post all of the votes in a public topic; will the voters really not have the time to take all of a minute out of their day to check to see if their vote is present?

You, Ebowed and I most probably would, but its not voters like me that I am principally concerned about here. My principal concern is voters like Smash255 or others who rarely participate in the fantasy elections. Any smart SoFA who wanted to rig it would calculate that it is much less likely that Smash would check, and might then alter his vote to rig the election.

Of course, we already held an enquiry into this, came to exactly that conclusion, and decided that it would be best if we weren't putting so much potential for fraud into the hands of one man. Of course you were a member of that commission, so you know all about that.

[Gabu]

The moderator would check the IPs in the best case scenario.

Well, first, that sounds like an awful lot of extra work for John Ford, although I don't know whether or not he would be okay with that.

Second, I don't see how this would verify that all of the votes were valid.

Where does trust come into play?  The SoFA has to post all of the votes in a public topic; will the voters really not have the time to take all of a minute out of their day to check to see if their vote is present?

You, Ebowed and I most probably would, but its not voters like me that I am principally concerned about here. My principal concern is voters like Smash255 or others who rarely participate in the fantasy elections. Any smart SoFA who wanted to rig it would calculate that it is much less likely that Smash would check, and might then alter his vote to rig the election.

Of course, we already held an enquiry into this, came to exactly that conclusion, and decided that it would be best if we weren't putting so much potential for fraud into the hands of one man. Of course you were a member of that commission, so you know all about that.

I suppose you have a point, although it would require a lot more work for the SoFA, given that he would have to notify the other two people of everything that he needs to do (such as appending a letter to the end of an ID, etc.).  There is always a trade-off between ease of use and security.

[Ebowed]

Although the bill that went with this amendment allows one to vote either with a secret ballot or by public post, there are many who are urging this amendment's passage so that a mandatory secret voting system is eventually implemented.

So?  Those people have all but dropped their ideas after realizing that the public doesn't want a mandatory secret ballot.  It seems to me that voting against this amendment purely because it might lead to a mandatory secret ballot (which is not at all likely) is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Short-sighted decisions like this will inevitably lead to disaster.

For lack of a better analogy, when you supported the Balanced Budget Requirement in the constitution, you saw no harm in it.  Now, you're the Senator attempting to repeal it.  Similarly, there is no chance "now" of a mandatory secret ballot system being put into place.  However, as I am able to look ahead and consider possible scenarios, the make-up of the Senate could drastically change within the next months or year, at which point a mandatory secret ballot would perhaps be a feasible idea to many.  I'd rather not give them a headstart on having that oppurtunity, so I oppose the amendment simply because it would legalize a mandatory secret ballot, even if it weren't implemented immediately.

[Joe Republic]

No, a mandatory secret ballot can't become law because this amendment still gives people the right to vote publicly.

[Ebowed]

No.  The amendment merely allows the Senate to decide between three choices of voting that it can implement:

• Public ballot;
• Mandatory secret ballot;
• A combination of both, or allowing the voters to choose which.

All three systems would be legal under the amendment's wording.  It would need to be reworded to ensure that a mandatory secret ballot would not be legal, though I have been unable to write a suitable amendment to the amendment that takes care of this.

[Joe Republic]

Hmm, I see your point.  However, I can't see that fears over a mandatory secret ballot would come to fruition.  Do we know of anybody who would support such a measure?

[Ebowed]

Support for mandatory secret balloting has rapidly decreased, but there are still some proponents and I have no doubt that the support can grow at any time.  Six months ago the idea of a secret ballot at all would have been laughed out of the Senate; now, it looks set to pass.  Thus, I think it is in our best interest that the amendment is reworded so as not to allow mandatory secret voting.

[Defarge]

Please read the Report that actually thought long and hard about how to make this work, especially noting a carefully crafted Amendment.

I gotta say, Peter's amendment seems quite reasonable to me.  Given that most of this debate has already been mulled over by the commission, I urge the senate to read the report.

[Gabu]

Please read the Report that actually thought long and hard about how to make this work, especially noting a carefully crafted Amendment.

I gotta say, Peter's amendment seems quite reasonable to me.  Given that most of this debate has already been mulled over by the commission, I urge the senate to read the report.

I read it thoroughly; I just felt that having three people handling the votes would require too much work if we go with the ID thing because the SoFA would have to make sure that the other two people are up-to-date about anything that he has done (such as appending a letter to the ID).  I felt that, given that this is just fantasy, sacrificing a little security to get better ease of use would be fine.  However, if enough people disagree, I can certainly rewrite it to include that.