[extropy-chat] [psl at acm.org: ACTION ALERT: Blackwell purgedOhio Voter Rolls Oct 1st.- Vote Early!]

[spike]

> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] [psl at acm.org: ACTION ALERT: Blackwell
> purgedOhio Voter Rolls Oct 1st.- Vote Early!]
> 
> spike wrote:
> >
> > Voting place, barrel of unique random numbered tickets, you choose one.
...
> > If not, go to the news people with your ticket and your voting receipt.
> > Then see if all the erroneous votes are for the same guy or proposition.
> 
> An additional problem is that false-positive votes can be added to the
> system.  Messick's system permits false-negative votes, too...

After the election, the remaining tickets in the barrel would be collected
and recorded by a bipartisan committee.  The number of remaining tickets in
the barrel should agree with the number of tickets originally in the barrel
minus the number of voters that came in, each counted by a pair of person-
counters at the door.  The false positive votes would require theft of
tickets.

Better, have the tickets more like dominoes, or some device that has enough
mass so that if some are stolen before the election, the shortage can be
measured with a postal scale. 

> I'm sure this problem has been studied by cryptanalysts - I dimly recall
> hearing about some clever system involving blinded signatures.
> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          

I wonder why they are not using such systems, or something to increase the
voter confidence in elections.  Do the election people not realize that lack
of confidence in the election process is becoming an ever more serious
problem?  Is it not a damn serious threat to democracy?

spike