[extropy-chat] Buying votes. [Was: ... Vote Early!]

[spike]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eric Messick
> Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 11:44 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Buying votes. [Was: ... Vote Early!]
> 
> >> spike wrote:
> >> > ...  This would be cheap and easy, and
> >> > would establish actual credibility of a paperless election...
...
> 
> If the system works well enough, no vote buyer would waste their
> money.

Excellent ideas eric, thanks.

> 
> Politicians would never accept such a system... -eric

With this however I disagree as it appears overly cynical.  I can imagine
politicians realize the threat to democracy of elections like the
gubernatorial race in the state of Washington for governor a couple years
ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_gubernatorial_election,_2004

The US is having general elections in a couple weeks.  I realized we could
have a prototype system in place in time for that if we used one dollar
bills as the unique identifiers, since those are already serialized
uniquely, and they are cheap.  The voter would choose one from a barrel, a
pair of bipartisan volunteer election workers would record the serial number
on the bill as they hand out the magnetic voter card, stamp the bill with
invisible UV ink, so that the bill is still usable afterward but shows that
a particular dollar bill corresponded with a used voter card.

Better yet, use Mexican peso bills.  What are those worth, about 9 US cents?
Are there one peso bills?  Are those things serialized like American paper
money?  Anyone here know from Mexican money?  

I would donate money to buy a couple thousand pesos, and I would donate a
day to watch an election.  We could pair up people of vaguely opposite
political persuasions.  Samantha and I could watch a polling place together
for instance, for we agree on the importance of making elections fair, even
if they go against they way we vote. 

spike