Could E-Voting Cure Voter Apathy? 646
Bendebecker notes that The Register
is saying that "A major trial is about to kick off in the UK that could help decide whether e-voting is merely a gimmick or whether it can genuinely help cure voter apathy." Voter Apathy or Flash Poll Elections? What is the lesser of 2 evils?
In a word, no! (Score:5, Insightful)
Voter Apathy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a gimmick (Score:3, Insightful)
The cure is more democracy. Abolish the electoral college. Make elections publicly funded, and ban private funding. Implement proportional representation to break the "two-party" system.
. . . and as long as I'm in fantasyland, let's build a time-travel device, and create a perpetual motion machine.
No way (Score:5, Insightful)
Schneier makes an attempt at this but it's pretty convoluted, I'm not even sure I understand it all and I at least know a little about this kind of stuff.
We may have to consider publishing who a person votes for. I know it goes against the grain of a longstanding tradition, but to make the protocol simple enough for the average person to understand while keeping it free of fraud may require nothing less.
E-elections would be great (but they aren't) (Score:2, Insightful)
skewed samples (Score:2, Insightful)
Online voting will allow the lazy of ass to participate, and thus skew the results more towards the technologically aware individuals. Again, the politicians will be aware of this, and would start taking technological issues more seriously, to pander to us!
Re:In a word, no! (Score:3, Insightful)
The cause of voter apathy is the centralization of power away from town councils and county seats to Washington DC.
Debating the city councilman who is also ones neighbor and with whom one knows they may have an impact on issues that affect ones day to day life is meaningful and engaging.
The ultimate in voter impotence is complete and total micromanagment of day to day issues from an all-powerful central government. It dilutes the importance of ones vote to the point where there no longer is any benefit to playing the game. Individual voter impact is zero.
That's where we are today and why no one votes.
Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
If voting were simpler, those people disillusioned with the two bipartisan condidates might be more willing to cast their vote for a third-party candidate.
Also, eVoting would perhaps lessen the value of the poor voter. While lazy upper/middle-class voters with home computers and Internet connections could easily vote, those without them are still unlikely to vote.
Should help (Score:4, Insightful)
Voter participation should likewise increase through the use of varied voting methods, including one that can be easily done from home.
Voter apathy is not a problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
(2) If people are apathetic because they do not like any of the choices available then making it easier to vote will have no effect (let's see - would you like to eat broken glass or dog-food? Would delivery to your door-step make the choice easier?).
(3) If people are apathetic because they would be equally happy with either party then again making it easier to vote will not make a difference.
Re:About Time! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure you can, as long as the system dissassociates who you are with who you voted for, basically authenticate you a valid voter, and only allow you one vote, but stick your vote in a pile in the DB instead of associating with the person who voted, so they can keep track of who voted, but not who they voted for, and still have a set of results.
Why cure it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a gimmick (Score:3, Insightful)
Apathy is a self-imposed weighting scheme (Score:5, Insightful)
I think apathy actually works as a weighting mechanism in our current form of voting. People who care little about politics get a smaller vote because they didn't take the opportunity they were given. People who care greatly about politics, or at least a specific issue, are willing to wait in lines and do whatever is necessary. They tend to get weighted a bit more heavily in our society. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. The public gets to decide on the weighting based on their own actions. If the government were selecting a weighting, then we'd really have a problem. But I don't see exactly why we need to go to great lengths to solve the voter apathy "problem".
GMD
How to cure voter apathy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In a word, no! (Score:1, Insightful)
Hell No! (Score:2, Insightful)
Increase of voting misuse (Score:4, Insightful)
You will have a lot of representatives from the DNC visiting nursing homes to help people that don't get to the polls to vote for the "right" candidate.
Not that this doesn't happen with absentee voting already, but the abuse will increase, and the weak minded will have loads of help in casting their votes.
Re:No way (Score:3, Insightful)
Doing away with the anonymous ballot would allow people to feel pressured to cast a 'popular' vote on unpopular issues rather than their true feeling, as well. I'm all for the legalization of marijuana, but I wouldn't want people at work knowing I vote for it every chance I get because they would assume I smoke it (I don't, it's a moral/philosophical issue I have with legalization).
In summary, if no electronic system can make both the *actual vote* anonymous, but the *act of having voted* strictly audited, then paper ballots are still the way to go.
Voting for idiots or idiots voting? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever been in a political discussion where you wonder how the other person can even begin to believe his or her arguments are sound? Remember what AOL joining the Internet did to newsgroups, etc?
Smaller Electorial College (Score:3, Insightful)
Afaik the members of the EC don't do anything other than cast their presidential votes, which are _suppposed_ to be representative, so just cut out the actual people and do the voting on a county level.
Re:It's a gimmick (Score:3, Insightful)
One step towards this, in the US, would be to change how income taxes are paid. Have the states collect it, and then forward a reasonable amount up to the feds. This could have the effect of taking the interstate funding out of the hands of the feds, which has been used countless times as a strong-arm measure to prevent states from asserting their currently-slim rights.
"Accidental" Candidates... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you get your ass up, get dressed, go down the street and stand in line so you can present ID to vote, you probably have at least some idea who you're going to vote for.
If you can do it naked, from your bed while eating Doritos, you may not have the same commitment.
Make election day a National Holiday. (Score:2, Insightful)
To further get people voting, give them a tax right-off if they have a receipt proving that they voted.
web campaigns only (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course the only way to make this happen in the US would be with a constitutional amendment. But if we were able to ban and then un ban alcohol this way, surely we could do this.
Lesser of two evils==Duverger's Law (Score:5, Insightful)
Rob Lanphier
p.s. Visit Electorama! [electorama.com] for more on this subject
Re:In a word, yes! (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem now is that many factors combine and create a huge obstacle to voting. These factors include 'the choices suck', 'the government is run by corporations', and 'voting inconvenience'. If you remove any one of those factors, you make that decision to blow off voting much more difficult. The easiest one to solve first is clearly 'voting inconvenience'.
Anything that gets the ball rolling the in the right direction will help. More people voting is a good thing.
Re:Voting for idiots or idiots voting? (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you ever been in a political discussion where you wonder how the other person can even begin to believe his or her arguments are sound? Remember what AOL joining the Internet did to newsgroups, etc?
True, but one must observe that the AOL users slowly but surely have become much more educated and dare I say better netizins since the merge.
I suspect that we may find the same thing with internet voting. If voters start voting online, I belive they will have a greater tendancy to find information online.
Voters are already voting on soundbites. Any exposure to more communicative media should be encouraged.
Electronic voting is illegal here (Score:5, Insightful)
"What's good enough for Granddad, is good enough for me. The way it was, that's the way it's got to be."
An awful lot of "squelch the masses" replies... (Score:5, Insightful)
But that is what democracy is all about! It's not about "power to the rich" or "power to the intellectuals"...which often wind up being synonymous.
If you stand against online voting because it would "dilute the vote", then you're essentially arguing the same position that the South argued before the American Civil War, that "all people should count for tax purposes, but they don't get a vote". You can argue against it for many other reasons (lack of security, infrastructure, etc)...but *please* don't pick that one.
Unconstitutional in many states (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason for this restriction, as others have stated, is to prevent election fraud. If you can't prove how you voted, there's no point in buying votes or attempting to coerce voters.
The other manifestation of the same restriction is that you must vote in private. Nobody can join you in the voting booth, etc. After all, external proof of how you voted is irrelevant if some 300 lb guy with a lead pipe is in the booth with you.
Ironically, this is provided by voting in public. Since others are around, nobody can force themselves into your voting booth.
But e-voting systems fail miserably at this. If I can vote from the convenience of my home:
- a battered woman can be forced to vote "the right way" by her abusive husband. (or use "spouse" all around, since there are some battered husbands)
- an employee can be forced to vote in his boss's office.
- a church group can get together to pray and then "Witness" each other voting the right way.
and so forth. All highly illegal, but difficult to prove and expensive to buck since you're still beaten up, fired, excommunicated, whatever.
Re:Voter Apathy (Score:2, Insightful)
In nearly all cases I can find a candidate that I can support. It's rarely one of the two major party candidates, though.
Re:In a word, no! (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, capping them at three sounds like a really bad idea. That sounds exploitable - for example, fielding horribly objectionable candidates the first two rounds and then putting out a slightly-less-objectionable but still horrible one (eg, Bush or Gore) for the last, when the people can't reject them. This is the problem with this sort of cyclic voting.
The anti-voting proposed in another post sounds good (instead of voting for candidates, you vote against them). Ranking systems also seem to work well, or at least, give third parties a chance.
Maybe not as bad as people think (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe it wouldn't turn out that way, though.
Here in the states, the last few times I've seen some big-wig try to push e-voting, the equal-opportunity folks get their undies all bunched up over it, claiming that it discriminates against the lower-class (who don't own as many PC's as the rich people do).
So, you need to kinda ask yourself what there is more of:
A: Apathetic slackers who are too apathetic to go down to their traditional polling place, yet still motivated enough to own a PC or to trek over to visit a friend who does (or to an internet cafe), or...
B: Busy professionals who have plenty of access to PC's, but who are arguably too busy to swing by their polling place.
Personally, I fall into the second category.
Lastly, when I think about it, I'd have to venture that someone who has a PC has got to be, at least marginally, more informed than someone who doesn't. I mean... what kind of hole do you have to be living in to not have (or have access to) a PC?
So, something like this isn't necessarily the end of the world. We'll have to see.
I can't believe these reponses! (Score:3, Insightful)
In college, we successfully used an online voting system where the GREAT majority of votes were taken online. Not only had the percentage of votes been much higher than in years without online voting, but there was plenty of supplemental material to educate yourself on the votes beforehand.
It seems like many of you are worried about stupid people making stupid votes - I disagree. I still think that the lazy voter who doesn't care won't even bother to do an online vote. I think that many people who either can't make it, are too busy, or just intimidated by the process of our current voting scheme are perfect candidates.
So few in the US vote, it's rather sickening. I'm inclined to believe that if the percentage of eligible voters raised to even 60%, we would most likely never see a conservative in office again.
Re:In a word, no! (Score:4, Insightful)
IMHO, politics in the USA is focused way too much at the federal level. If the local newspapers, TV news and such would cover LOCAL politics more, and local politicians had far more influence over our lives, the average citizen would feel their vote counted a whole lot more. As it is now, you constantly here how the feds are doling out money for this and that, and local & state governments line up to get their hand out. I don't think the framers of our nation intended for the Fed to be anywhere near as powerful as it is.
I'll stop rambling now.
- Jasen.
Re:In a word, no! (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, this is not entirely true. Take me for example. I didn't vote in 2000, but would probably have voted for Gore. Would this have made a difference? No. Because Gore already won my state (Washington) and already got the electoral votes for it.
My voting for Gore would not have gotten him any closer to winning the election. Neither would another 1000 people in my state voting for Gore have made a difference. It just would have meant that his margin of victory for my state's electoral votes would have been higher than it was.
Personally, an on-line voting system might make me more likely to vote, but getting rid of the electoral college system (and going with a popular vote instead) would be more likely to get me to vote. (btw, Gore received more total votes than Bush, if one is to believe the CNN Election 2000 archive [cnn.com])
Re:Voter Apathy (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in Maryland, during the last gubernatorial election, the Libertarian party needed 2% of the vote to be recognized as an official party and get campaign funding. Alas, they didn't get 2%, so as a result, we have fewer options. But think about this exciting thought! Voter turnout was about 55%. So suppose that that 45% went out and voted for a random 3rd party. That's enough votes for 45% / 2% = 22 parties in this state! So there is plenty of room for the non-voting public to make a monstrous difference!
Suppose another example: If those 45% all went out and voted for the Libertarians, they would have won! This state would have had the first non-democrat/non-republical governor. Wow!
Personally, this tells me that 45% of the people around me are shooting themselves in the foot by not voting. They say they can't make a difference, but the numbers show that it only takes a few percent of them to make a serious difference.
Re:In many cases (Score:2, Insightful)
How brilliant - the last thing we need is people who spend an entire minute on figuring out who to give the nuclear launch keys to.
Voting -- like jury duty -- should be harder to do, not easier. Otherwise we end up with people who put as much thought into who should run the country as the OJ jury did into their statement that "we didn't understand that DNA stuff".
Re:wealth gap, at least in the US (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In a word, no! (Score:2, Insightful)
This isn't to say that it wouldn't be useful for some. It would. But it won't cure Voter Apathy. That's really Voter Laziness and Irresponsibility. The only thing that might cure that is if people were suffering so badly that they decided that they'd take the one chance they have to change things, the vote, and actually use it.
This also isn't to say that I like politicians. But their misbehavior isn't the cause of voter apathy. It's just a handy excuse for laziness and irresponsibility.
Jumping through hoops helps (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd go as far as to say we shouldn't let everyone vote, but only those who feel sufficiently strong about the issue being voted upon. Unfortunately, there is no good way to measure how strongly you feel, so you can't implement such restriction, but it would be nice (however utopian) to have this work.
I have noticed something really cool in the opensoruce development. In short you can summarize it as "Jumping through hoops helps". It goes like that:
If you want to affect any sufficiently mature open-source project, you have to jump through hoops. However inefficient that may be, it shows your interest. First, you have to post something useful to the mailing lists to get past moderators. If you have a patch, it has to be valuable AND follow THEIR coding style, not your own. The burder of getting YOUR change into the project is on YOU, and is YOUR responsibility. It is also YOUR problem if you didn't RTFM and asked stupid questions till people stopped answering you.
My point is that if you feel strongly about something, you will just through soome hoops to make yourself heard. You have the capability to change whatever it is you are trying to change, but you have to show some knowledge about the subject and respect to other people first. And will learn something valuable in the process.
Also, when I say 'I worked on such and such, and some of my code is running in your kernel (or app, or whatever) right now', I can be proud of that, because there is work and appreciation involved. Do I feel proud when I say 'I voted for Bush'? No. Why? Because it was so easy, and because 10 other people just checked the box at random. I wish I could be proud of that. But you've got to raise the bar first! (like that's ever going to happen...
Exit Polling? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you vote from home, then there's no exit polling. How is Peter Jennings going to tell California, Alaska, and Hawaii how to vote if he doesn't have the numbers from Maine, Florida, and New York in time??
Whiners (Score:2, Insightful)
Another good example: a recent school bond referendum fell through by a measily 200 or so votes in a county of thousands of registered voters. If only 200 more people had formed an opinion about the referendum and actually voted, the outcome could have been completely different. Remember, the outcomes of elections are decided by the majority of voters, not citizens.
Re:Voting for idiots or idiots voting? (Score:4, Insightful)
If voters start voting online, I believe they will have a greater tendency to have their systems hijacked by "voteware" - the electoral equivalent to spyware - and won't have a frickin' clue who they voted for, or why.
Imagine downloading a EULA that says "By installing this software, you agree to install VoteGator on your system! VoteGator keeps you informed of $PARTY's hot new offers! Use VoteGator for all your voting needs!"
(And just think of the "fun" an enemy agent could have with a .VBS worm :)
Call me a Luddite, but I think I'll pass on e-voting.
Maintain the Status Quo (Score:2, Insightful)
As for the lesser of two evils... We have system that lends itself to two partys fighting for the top; However, they system also allows for other canidates to arise. If you don't like the two evils on the ballot WRITE IN YOUR OWN FRICKEN CANIDATE there is nothing stopping you.
While unrelated, people in the USA need to stop and realize they live in democratic federal republic. Once they realize how our representitvles get elected, how the federal system is supposed to work, and why their state governments should have more control, I think everthing else will fall into place.
It's true, I don't spell check
Re:In a word, no! (Score:3, Insightful)
IMHO, politics in the USA is focused way too much at the federal level.
Absolutely. The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written to retain personal and states rights and to limit the power of the federal government. Since the signing, it's been a continual power grab by the federal government. It is not what the founders intended.
High tech regime's fanatsy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Online voting won't change voter apathy (Score:3, Insightful)
EVoting (Score:2, Insightful)
The main stumbling block with electronic voting is trust. Even if the system is perfectly trust worthy, people must be able to believe that it's trust worthy to trust it. People must be able to see why it is trust worthy. Electronic voting would be too obscure for most people to be able to understand.