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Using the Internet To Subvert Democracy
david_adams writes "All the recent talk about various polls and elections being pranked or hijacked, serious and silly alike, prompted me to write an article about the technical realities behind online polling, and the political fallout of ever becoming subject to online voting for serious elections. Even if we were to be able to limit voting to legitimate, legal voters, the realities of social networking and the rise of Internet-based movements would dramatically alter the political landscape if online voting were to become commonplace."
Stupid article - a transparent attempt to get his friend a new bicycle. I strongly urge everyone to go to the Kona website and vote for the Tanuki (if you don't understand why, RTFA).
Oh, and TFA states: That's why no country practices direct democracy. Wrong
My pics.
Changing democratic preferences is not a subversion of democracy. Many would argue it would make for a more robust democracy.
Until computers are granted suffrage they ought not be trusted to count votes.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Democracy is the force of the majority over the minority. It doesn't matter if you have elections or not.. that's just a formality.
How we know is more important than what we know.
True story: When I was an undergrad I saw a table setup at the quad with a large sign that said "End Woman's Suffrage" I went up to talk to the guys and they literally had an entire clipboard of signatures, primarily from women thinking that "suffrage" was some bad thing akin to suffering. They were sponsored by the psychology department, I don't know what they were trying to prove, but I learned that day how stupid most people are.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Computers have no practical place in elections unless there is a paper trail to verify the count.
To the point: Computers' place in elections should be solely to produce a clean, unambiguously marked, human readable, machine countable paper ballot, and the subsequent counting thereof.
I program computers for a living. They are an excellent tool for a lot of things. Totally electronic voting (whether at a polling place or over the Internet) is not a good use for that tool.
Here is a user interface. Push some buttons on it. It is going to send some data somewhere. Did it send the data you thought it would? Did it send it at all? If so, was it properly received at the other end? How would you know? Even if the UI tells you so, it could be saying so incorrectly, by either accident or malice.
Here is a piece of paper with readable language on it. Are the dots in the columns where you wanted your votes to be cast? You can answer that.
Here is a data file with a million entries in it. 35% of those entries are for value A. Change that to 60% with little to no evidence anything was changed. A well-designed script can do that in a blink.
Here are one million pieces of paper, 35% of which are (marked in ink or with punches) for value A. Change that to 60% with little to no evidence any changes were made. Now you've got a laborious and intensive process ahead of you, that aside from the fact that the papers are watched and you are very likely to leave evidence of tampering.
Recognizing a technology's legitimate limitations does not a Luddite make. The Internet is great for informal polls. It is not a good tool for serious ones such as an election where the results must be accurate and verifiable.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Describing this for the UK but it can be adapted for anywhere.
After the election which took place as normal. Every member of parliament gets a vote that is proportionate to the number of constituents that are eligible to vote.
Everyone who is eligible to vote can change who represents them to any of the sitting MPs, once every 3 moths or so. This takes a vote away from their MP and gives it to the MP they want to have it. (Suggest that libraries are used for this purpose).
This process has the following effects.
1. It does not disenfranchise those who don't want to do more than they already do.
2. It maintains an element of local representation.
3. It makes MPs do what they say they will do, because if they don't people will stop supporting them a lot more quickly.
4. It allows for a far greater degree of representation. Out of the several hundred sitting MPs it is likely that at least one will closely represent your views.
Federalist #10 explores how true democracy would be susceptible to faction: http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm. The "founding fathers" were very concerned about how easily swayed the common people are; in fact "mob" comes from "mobile vulgaris," the movable herd. I think Nietzsche's considerations on class resentment apply here too. Think about the true but disturbing populist movements like the French Revolution, the Stalinist and Maoist revolutions and so on. They're nasty things. Populism can become ugly quickly.