CS Professor Announces Run For VT State Senate On a Platform of Internet Polling

Cynic writes "Having read pretty heavily on the topic, weighed the pros and cons, and seen a few relevant slashdot articles, I wondered why an elected representative couldn't use online and in-person polling of constituents to decide the way he or she votes. Though we are living in the 'information age' and have rich communications media and opportunities for deep and accessible deliberation, we are getting by (poorly) with horse-and-buggy-era representation. In the spirit of science and because I think it's legitimately a better way of doing things, I recently announced my candidacy for Vermont's State Senate in Washington County." How do you think such polling could be best accomplished? Do you think it's worth trying? Whether or not you buy into it, it's something that's only been made feasible in recent times with modern technology.

Comments

It's Possible

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd have to set up the system so people can't vote multiple times. Otherwise they could have a bunch of bots automatically do thousands of votes to sway things however they wanted.

Re:It's Possible

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd also run into vocal minorities, which would be especially heavy as time wore on. John Q. Public doesn't really want to vote on every single bill or issue that arises, that's why he's happier with a republic than a direct democracy. Of course, if John is a heavy advocate of a fringe idea, he'll make sure to log on and vote at 6:00 AM sharp when that issue is up on this representative's poll page.

Over time, as people forget that they elected this guy, fewer and fewer people will bother voting, leading to decreasing accuracy. I don't think it would be the worst situation for the voters (certainly it would be harder for single entities to lobby), but it would come with its own set of political issues.

Re:It's Possible

[rtfa-troll]

You'd have to set up the system so people can't vote multiple times.....

There are so many other possibilities.

• people who aren't supposed to vote, manage to vote
• people who are supposed to vote get stopped voting through tricks (like in Canada)
• the right people vote, but a trojan changes their online vote to a different thing from the one they wanted
• a computer manufacturer or OS vendor uses their control to modify votes, just like the trojan
• a minority of people has time to vote, the rest of the people have to work to keep their families together
• a "special" minority of people go round people's houses and make sure they vote the "right" way.

Election security is difficult and makes voting processes slow and difficult. This is why democracies moved from direct voting to "representative democracy" in the first place.

Computers just make it much easier to get a wrong system into place. They don't actually make it easier to make a good system. Maybe in the long long term, once everybody has access to a properly vetted secure device from a trustworthy manufacturer then we might be able to start thinking about online voting. Until we have that, such ideas are just asking for disaster.

Re:It's Possible

[icebike]

Election security is difficult and makes voting processes slow and difficult. This is why democracies moved from direct voting to "representative democracy" in the first place.

The state of public/private key technology today suggests to me that the system could be reasonably safe from each of the points you list, other than the purely social ones, (people with interest and time). You can't expect a polling system to solve social issues, such as disinterested voters, or organized vote buying. But duplicate or authorized users should be able to be controlled by a system of public/private key pairs.

Other than state actors, I believe an Open Source on-line polling system where registration was still handled (or at least vetted) by election authorities, would be at least as safe as any system currently in place.

Remember that the professor is looking for feedback from his constituents as to how he should vote, he is not looking to replace the ballot box.
Perhaps this is where your worry about direct voting went off the rails. That is NOT what he is proposing.

Direct democracy provides the people with a direct, unfiltered voice in that government. Stopping somewhat short of that, Hansen proposes a system of direct democracy in combination with our current system of representative democracy. He suggests that, “A representative should be elected who would work strictly as an advisor and make all policy and voting decisions based on the will of his or her constituents, regardless of personal opinion.

So the bar is much lower than replacing the voting system. He is perfectly capable under current law to do exactly as he proposes, simply by setting up a web site and collecting opinions, and then voting that way.

And in this regard such a system (if done right, or even approximately right) is probably better than the current method of lobbyists and letter writers, and campaign contribution fueled decision making. It at least has the potential of being more open, and more transparent.

The risk is more from "anonymous" denial of service attackers taking down the system during polling periods when ever an issue they didn't like was under discussion. Even this could be somewhat mitigated by making so many targets (ip addresses) available that anonymous would run out of bot-power. But that solution is probably beyond the capabilities of any given representative and would have to be run at the state or at least county level.

slashdot polls

[anonymousNR]

Need I say more

Not a better way

[Anonymous Coward]

"I wondered why an elected representative couldn't use...polling of constituents to decide the way he or she votes."

Because the electorate are stupid and ignorant, and malware will be developed to submit votes.

"In the spirit of science and because I think it's legitimately a better way of doing things'

If you really believe these things, then you should absolutely never hold any public office whatsoever.

Ignoring your constituency is very bad; doing exactly what they say is worse.

Like Henry Ford said...

[bigredradio]

Leaving all the decisions up to popular vote makes for poor decision making because the general public (usually) are not as informed as the lawmakers. Like Henry Ford said, "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse."

Re:Like Henry Ford said...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, TFS seems to imply that representative democracy was some kind of compromise based on logistics rather than a conscious choice. Even ignoring the lack of knowledge and understanding the average person has of complex issues, the tyranny of the majority is very real and something that all democracies need to keep a careful eye on. To use the most obvious of historical examples, in 1860 more than 50% of those eligible to vote supported slavery. That didn't make them right. And even looking past that, the practicalities of direct democracy go far past the logistics of collecting votes. Everyone will gladly vote for every tax break and most spending initiatives, then stand around wondering what happened when the city/state/country goes broke. Managing a national government is a full time job, best left to people able to work on it full time.

*Disclaimer: I have zero faith in the current US Government and the way it operates. I just don't think direct democracy is anything resembling the solution since the only thing I have less faith in than the US Government is the US general voting population.

Bad Idea

[nuckfuts]

Even if one disregards the technical hurdles, the very idea of government run strictly by polling is ill advised. Firstly, poll results are heavily influenced by the wording of the questions. This would essentially be handing over a great deal of influence to whoever gets to phrase the questions. Secondly, it is likely to encourage demagogy.

Re:Security

[Hentes]

Still better than the richest corporation.

Re:A fantastic idea

[magarity]

This is exactly why even if this sounds like a good idea, it is not. The point of representative government is that one picks a representative, not a pass-through object. Representative candidate A takes certain positions on certain issues, representative candidate B take an alternative set of positions. Whoever is elected is supposed to do the dirty work of finding out that the proposed Sunshine For Kittens Act has nothing to do with neither sunshine nor kittens and vote for or against based on its actual provisions based on their platform. If you have an internet poll for "Should I vote for or against the Sunshine for Kitten Act (see link for details)" you're going to end up voting for it, even though the actual provisions are to spend billions on a combination tunnel/bridge across the Bering Sea. You can talk all you want about how voters are SUPPOSED to be informed, but if your experience in reality hasn't taught you the value of that truism yet, you'll never learn it.

He doesn't understand the job he is applying for

[rgbrenner]

This guy clearly doesn't understand the job he's applying for. We live in a REPUBLIC.. which means we elect people to vote on our behalf for/against proposed laws.

Our founders knew that people did not have the time to read, understand, and vote on each and every issue.

Do you really think technology changes that? In the 2009-2010 congress, there were: 9239 proposed bills, 998 acted on by the congress, 26 failed, and 366 enacted = 10629 bills.

Each one hundreds or even thousands of pages long.

So seriously ask yourself: do you have time to read a several hundred page law, filled with legalese and references to other laws, 29 times per day every day of the year?

There's a reason why our REPRESENTATIVES have dozens of staff.