Voting
by Brayton
11 October 2006
I don’t know if we’ve actually had a voting debate on the blog yet, so maybe now is the time. I just registered to vote in Oregon. The process was very simple. I downloaded the application from the state web page, filled it out and sent it in. Since I don’t have an Oregon Driver’s License I had to give them the last four digits of my SSN. If I didn’t have one of those there were a lot of other things I could have submitted, some of which, presumably, can be obtained without a SSN. Does this make voter fraud too easy?
On a different note, I just received confirmation of my registration in the mail. I’ve been informed that all voting in Oregon is done by mail, and I’ll receive my ballot sometime 14-18 days before election day. I think this is a great idea. Not only does it eliminate the need to wait in line at a polling place, but I think it makes the ambivalent much more likely to vote. So much less effort required, though since I know nothing about Oregon politics I plan on doing some research after the ballot arrives. Of course, I’ll be curious to see if there’s any mechanism built in to ensure that it’s me who is voting, while at the same time protecting my anonymity.
Oct 12, 12:27 AM
For an individual to register fraudulently is not too difficult; the SSN isn’t much protection even for things which do require it. But the penalties for getting caught in fraud are such that it’s not worthwhile for an individual to do it; and if you are an organization trying to rig an election, there are better ways than fake individual registrations (although in Chicago, they still seem to have a problem with deceased voters).
I’d be interested to hear how Oregon protects its votes with their all-mail system. My suspicion is that you just have to trust election officials to record and anonymize your ballots properly. There’s an interesting paper recently released by Ron Rivest describing a way that maybe we could do better than our existing protocols, but I’m not sure if it could be made to work with a mail-in vote system. As appealing as the idea is, I’m not sure I am comfortable with its implications.
Anyway, I think the worst problem with voting isn’t the way the ballots are cast, but how they are counted and assigned meaning. I have ranted about this before, and I think it is a bigger problem than hanging chads and rigged Diebold voting machines, though those are certainly a close second.
Oct 12, 01:16 PM
You act like making it easier for the ambivalent to vote is a good thing, Brayt. Don’t tell me (if you used your account for something other than stalking) that you’d be one of those Facebook kids who thinks they’re “making a difference” by joining the “pro gay marriage group”.
It is to the benefit of democracy that actively exercising one’s rights as a citizen is more involved than a mouse click. I certainly don’t want people who rate civic involvement unworthy of the modest effort of the voting process to chose my leaders. Come to think of it, I really don’t want them deciding my criminal trials, either.
Oct 12, 03:08 PM
Oh, I’ve got an idea. Everybody starts out with a vote with equal weight. You only get to vote in every other election (we could have them twice as often) and you have to vote every time you can. When you vote, you also vote on how well the last guy did. Based on that, the people who voted in the last election are assigned new weights based on their vote and the outcome of the assessment vote. That should converge pretty quickly…
but convergence isn’t exactly what we want.
Oct 12, 04:07 PM
Cosmo thinks it’s important that only old, retired people get to vote.
I’m pissed Michael got in there with the “Three Ballot” paper before I did. It’s an interesting idea.
For the record, Approval Vote is my favorite method.
Oct 12, 07:22 PM
Tom, you have way to many problems with your idea to even begin to address, but I’ll just highlight a few.
(1) Compulsory voting is a bad idea. If Cosmo’s worried about the lazies (who actually put in the minimal effort to register) getting to vote, imagine the outcry if we force people to vote. A bunch of totally apathetic and unwilling voters might do some interesting things to results. When that gets instituted I hope my candidate shows up first on the ballot. What do you do to people who don’t vote? Fine them?
(2) Are you asking that we punish people who voted for W in the last election because we now disapprove? Doesn’t that mean we have to keep a record of how every individual votes? If that’s the case we might as well do away with secret ballots. Also, if I’m reading you right, my vote now counts for less because the majority of voters now disagree with me. They couldn’t have two years ago because my guy won, so I’m being punished retroactively? I’m not okay with that.
Cosmo, would you prefer that when I register to vote I have the option of selecting (a) send my ballot to me in the mail or (b) I’ll show up at my local polling place? Unless we’re going to make voting day a national holiday (or at least pass legislation guarenteeing all workers ample time to vote – half a day?) then you shouldn’t be required to go to the polls.
My guess is that ballot security will be something like this. I mark a ballot. Put it inside an envelope on which I write my voter number and sign across the seal. Stick that envelope inside another one and send it to the elections officials. That way as long as the middle envelope is destroyed my privacy is protected. Seems easy enough.
Oct 12, 08:37 PM
I agree that compulsory voting is a bad idea, because I also agree with Cosmo’s apparent view that an ill-informed and lazy voter is probably more dangerous to our society than somebody who simply stays home from the polls.
I do not think increasing voter turnout is a valuable goal in itself. If we accept that the virtue of representative government is in giving everyone who has an opinion the opportunity to express it in a way that influences policy, then those who have no convictions deep enough to merit the basic effort of casting a ballot have nothing to contribute.
On the other hand, I have no real quarrel with permitting voters to vote by mail, except insofar as I am not convinced a mail-only balloting system is secure against serious counting and receipts fraud.
Oct 12, 09:52 PM
Australia has compulsory voting.
Oct 12, 10:00 PM
I think they fine people something less than $50(AUS) for not voting. I think they also have instant run-off. Not that the two are related. But maybe they do one better/one worse.
Oct 13, 06:10 PM
Yes, Australia uses the Hare variant of IRV or “single transferrable vote,” in which the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated at the end of each round in which a decision is not made. IRV is not bad, although it does violate monotonicity under certain circumstances; but it is less rewarding of strategic voting than, say, the systems using the Borda count, and it does not end up in a null election the way an Approval system can.
That said, however, I agree with Jon that Approval voting is an excellent system.
Oct 16, 12:29 PM
This morning a 60-something hippie-lady with a blazer AND a bandana on (??) accosted me as I filled my tank at a general store in southern Vermont which will remain unnamed. She accused me (brandishing a scraggly finger and some serious halitosis) of not registering to vote. How DARE I not register?! What kind of Vermonter was I, afterall!? It took some sweet guy covered in flammable carhartts to tell her that he was pretty sure I was a New Yorker, from the looks of my licence plate.
Let that stand as my vote of agreement with Michael that perhaps increasing voter turnout shouldn’t be a goal in itself.
Oct 16, 05:21 PM
Perhaps I wasn’t clear before: Those of you who think voting should be kind of hard to do are dead wrong.
The current voting system, which requires a significant investment of time, disadvantages people for whom time is valuable (people with jobs, people who make a lot of money, people who are busy, people who are important), and advantages people for whom time is not valuable (old people, unemployed people).
In what way is that desirable?
Or do you just think you have more in common with the retired/unemployed demographic, and so you want a sort of poll tax on people with jobs so that they’re less likely to vote?
Oct 16, 08:42 PM
Emily, I don’t think Putney has any general stores with gas stations at the moment, so my hometown may be off the hook. That said, I can only picture the (type of) woman you speak of all too well. If it had been a 70-something I would suspect my grandmother, but she’s not really the blazer/bandana/hippie type and would have recognized your New York plates. Still, she probably would have made sure you were registered and planning on voting. I’m dying to know where you were.
Oct 16, 09:25 PM
Jon wrote: ”[D]o … you want a sort of poll tax on people with jobs so that they’re less likely to vote?”
No, that’s not at all something I would support. Indeed, I’m not suggesting we should make it harder to vote. However, the reason working people are at a disadvantage (to use your wording) is not because of the effort it takes to cast a ballot, but the effort it takes to become sufficiently informed to make doing so worthwhile.
I do not believe for a second that the mechanical problem of going to a polling station and waiting in line for a couple of hours is a major problem for most working folks. Even when I had a real (that is, non-academic) job, I never had any trouble making time for it. But learning enough to cast an informed ballot, well, that’s still a problem.
Oct 18, 10:07 AM
You guys, I’m really really sorry to post this here, but since I have not yet passed The Test to become “an author” on this site (and for real, you guys need to get a more egalitarian test than: stretch your balls up over the top of your pants and walk down main street. Christ.) I have to post this HILARIOUS thing somewhere as a comment.
This is an excerpt from an email I just got from a high school friend. Please tell me you pick up the reference.
“So where are you and what have you been up to? And did my mom ever
tell you that 3 years ago when i hiked the AT, and I was in Hanover, I
ran into that weird guy we used to row with, the crazy cross country
skier guy? And I also saw him when I left Hanover, and I was in the
Whites in bad weather and I was getting warm in a hut. I can’t
believe that you went to Dartmouth with him!”
Yours in loving all that TT is and ever will be,
Copes