Public voting?

[Sandaoguo]

I wouldn't call my proposal private key cryptography, just because there's no way to actually decrypt the "signature" into a name. Regardless of the opinion here, I'm probably going to write it anyways. :-P It'll be fun practice, and I'm sure somebody on the internet will find it useful!

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[Southern Bellz]

I honestly think public voting only is the best option, despite it not being the ideal solution.


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[tsunamy]

Here's the thing -- if there is any form of private voting, there is going to be suggestions that the election was doctored. This is whether everyone votes privately or only a select few vote privately. Period. End of story.

 

Even regarding a poll, someone might be able to see who's voting for who, but that takes much more effort than the current system. As it stands now, we know exactly who votes for GR in the last election and we know exactly for voted for HEM. And, it's not surprising that its an apparent dividing line of TSP politics at the moment.

 

Beyond me being personally affronted by being asked to change my vote, I don't think it's healthy for a unified region.

 

I can go further, but I don't want to rant. It's obvious here the vocal community is not in favor of it, so I'll withdraw the suggestion and thank the Assembly for its time.

[Sandaoguo]

Here's the thing -- if there is any form of private voting, there is going to be suggestions that the election was doctored. This is whether everyone votes privately or only a select few vote privately. Period. End of story.

 

No, it's really not the end of the story. It's only "period. end of story." if you guys rely on methods where it's possible and easy to falsify votes. It's 2014. We're in an age of technology where we don't have to rely on forum posts and PMs if we don't want to.

[tsunamy]

I'm posting this for PunkD, who is a citizen pending security clearance.

 

I’d like to take a step back for a minute.


 

In Tsunamy’s original post, he discussed the very real annoyance that results from public voting – lobbying after a vote has been cast.


 

This doesn’t annoy everyone, but it certainly annoys a good number as the posts have shown in this thread. Personally – I love to be lobbied before or after I vote. I have no qualms about it at all. I like this because I like to see how the candidate will seek to build consensus and what do they do when a person says no to them. Do they continue to lobby, try to bully, or say thank you for your consideration? How they respond is very telling in how they would approach certain situations if elected to specific offices. So for me, it’s informative to understand a person’s style.


 

Now – that’s just me and that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. I’ve read through this thread and have seen a number of people who have said that they dislike the after the fact lobbying process. There have been an equal number of people who have stated concerns with private voting in terms of manipulating votes.


 

Thus we have a situation where we have two distinct but, in my opinion, equally annoying electoral problems.


 

1.      
Lobbying after public votes have been cast.


2.      
A lack of trust in the process if we only use private votes.


 

I think I have a solution that would address both of these problems and as Hileville suggested, keeps it simple. Make all votes public and disallow any lobbying once votes have been cast.


 

The latter recommendation can be done via two different methods. The first and easiest is to disallow editing within voting threads. This means voters must be very reflective before casting their vote. Once cast, it is final. That make lobbying after voting pointless because people can’t change their votes. Issues to address – multiple posting in a voting thread & what if someone truly wants to change their vote if a ‘scandal’ or ‘new information’ comes out after they have voted?


 

The former recommendation would be punishable by candidate disqualification from the office they are seeking. One concern here would be a person votes at 10am, is lobbied by a candidate at 1pm, but the candidate was not aware the voter had voted earlier, is this an infraction or no? I say yes. Place the onus on the candidates to make sure to check the vote thread and unless the candidate reaches out to the voter within say 10 minutes of their vote being cast, I think they should be thrown out the race, no questions asked.


 

Is this harsh? Yes it is, but it will result in candidates being very careful about lobbying voters who have already voted. It changes the culture once voting has commenced.


 

Gun to my head, I’d go for not being able to edit votes once posted. In that scenario, we keep public voting without any hint of shenanigans and people do not have to be subject to the concern Tsu raised.

[Southern Bellz]

It's a good suggestion.


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[tsunamy]

 

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="tsunamy" data-cid="113960" data-time="1389715430">
<div>
Here's the thing -- if there is any form of private voting, there is going to be suggestions that the election was doctored. This is whether everyone votes privately or only a select few vote privately. Period. End of story.

 

No, it's really not the end of the story. It's only "period. end of story." if you guys rely on methods where it's possible and easy to falsify votes. It's 2014. We're in an age of technology where we don't have to rely on forum posts and PMs if we don't want to.

 

</div>
</blockquote>
 

My point was that there are always people who are going to claim vote rigging or tampering, no matter the system. I would assume the U.S. government attempts to make it impossible and/or difficult for individuals to commit voter fraud. And yet, people still make that claim.

 

But please, let's make this discussion about how people are lazy/incompetent/corrupt/etc.

[Southern Bellz]

Would having votes be final address your issue off people lobbying to change your vote tsu?


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[Punk D]

Thanks Tsu for posting! 

 

I'd like for folks to take a look at the recommendation. I do believe it addresses the problems presented in this thread.

[Sandaoguo]

My point was that there are always people who are going to claim vote rigging or tampering, no matter the system. I would assume the U.S. government attempts to make it impossible and/or difficult for individuals to commit voter fraud. And yet, people still make that claim.

 

But please, let's make this discussion about how people are lazy/incompetent/corrupt/etc.

 

There is a very easy way to make it literally impossible to alter votes without getting caught. If somebody offers to build that system, and somebody dismisses it as "complicated," then there is a level of laziness there. Do you understand the system I've proposed? If not, I can explain it in more detail.

 

Also, I outright oppose any effort at all by the Assembly to force people to make their votes public. It's simply anti-democratic. Throwing candidates out of a race for campaigning is also wrong and totally goes against our democratic nature. Sorry, PunkD, but your proposal is an affront to our entire electoral tradition.

[Drugged Monkeys]

I think PM lobbying after the voting period of an election has started is ridiculous. We have campaign threads for people to continue to lobby for voters, this is where questioning takes place for the entire region to see the candidates responses. Who knows what gets said when someone lobbies behind the scenes after voting begins. Do we allow people to campaign before the nomination period of elections? No. That is unfair to the other candidates and disrupting to the whole election system. I believe it's the same with lobbying after voting begins or after people have cast votes. It's the " leave me alone I have already decided who I want, even if they are in third place for votes. It's my decision, not yours" thought I had after being lobbied.

[Cormac]

 

There is a very easy way to make it literally impossible to alter votes without getting caught. If somebody offers to build that system, and somebody dismisses it as "complicated," then there is a level of laziness there. Do you understand the system I've proposed? If not, I can explain it in more detail.
 

Also, I outright oppose any effort at all by the Assembly to force people to make their votes public. It's simply anti-democratic. Throwing candidates out of a race for campaigning is also wrong and totally goes against our democratic nature. Sorry, PunkD, but your proposal is an affront to our entire electoral tradition.

 

 

You think it's a "very easy way." Some of us think it's an undue burden that will result in lower voter turnout. You think you're right, so naturally everyone else is just being lazy.

 

You oppose the Assembly requiring public voting. Some of us think it's the only practical way to protect the integrity of our electoral process. You think you're right, so naturally everyone else is just being anti-democratic.

 

You think lobbying throughout an election isn't a problem. Some people are uncomfortable with being lobbied after they've voted and feel it divides the region. You think you're right, so naturally everyone else is just going against our democratic nature.

 

You've proposed an option most of us don't like because we don't want complicated processes and resultant lower voter turnout. Punk D has proposed an alternative that would still allow campaigning but either make votes final once they're cast or penalize candidates for campaigning after votes are cast. You prefer your option, so naturally Punk D's proposal is an affront to our entire electoral tradition.

 

If the Assembly had a report card, I'd give you an F on "works well with others.". Demonizing your opponents and holding yourself up as the champion of democracy anytime anyone disagrees with you is incredibly divisive and is getting really old, really quickly. Learn to disagree reasonably without implying the worst about anyone who disagrees with you and suggesting they are the Emperor Palpatine to our Galactic Republic.

 

---

 

I favor Punk D's suggestion to make votes final after they're cast. It should end lobbying after votes are cast without penalizing anyone, and it doesn't present an undue burden on either voters or candidates. I also favor public voting, as already stated.

[Hileville]

I will just add that the admin team all has access to a system that can hit all citizens in one shot for PM's.  If it is desired we could send out a voting information PM to all citizens that gets a last ditch effort to win you over.  Basically a shortened version of your campaign platform that MUST be turned into the EC by the end of campaigning.  Then the EC (admin) would compile those messages and spoiler them out with the information on voting which I have sent out before.

 

I also favor no lobbying after a vote is cast and again will throw my support behind all public voting.

[LadyElysium]

In light of much of the debate here, I'll step forward and affirm that I was indeed the private vote in the MOFA election. This way we can end all of the questions about vote tampering, etc. I opted to vote privately because I was fearful of retribution/harassment by other voters who might not agree with my sentiments. I saw a lot of harsh language thrown around during the whole recall and resignation proceedings of the COA position and I didn't wish to incite any unpleasant feedback on my person based upon my vote. Perhaps this fear was unwarranted, but that is why I had chosen to cast my vote via the Vote Collector. I apologize for giving anyone cause to feel that the votes were fixed/tampered with.

 

Second: I can get behind public voting if we can avoid all of the lobbying after a vote has been cast, or any attacks on a voter for their particular vote. I'm not sure how we would do that practically. PunkD has a good idea if we can make it fit for us all.

[Unibot]

You could just bar people from changing their vote when they vote ... that would make it useless to lobby people who have already voted.

 

I however, completely disagree that we shouldn't be allowed to lobby people after they vote -- a lot of our citizens aren't available to discuss before election period, they just show up and vote. Which was the case in this last election. Likewise, its incredibly effectively because people don't have their minds made up when they vote and they often vote without a lot of information backing their vote.

 

If lobbying wasn't effective and it was just annoying everyone, I would be supportive of undermining lobbying -- but that isn't the case, lobbying is effective, people do like to hear the different side of the story even after they vote and this for the most part, angry backlash from the last election. A senior member of the region who should have won the election because of his "name", lost in the election, because lobbying was getting the message out that Glen-Rhodes was the right man for the job. Lobbying has been undermining the status quo in regions for years and that's exactly why older members often hate it and want to suppress it. 

 

The easiest way to challenge the status quo is to go up to someone and convince them otherwise. Persuasion. There are people in this region that are very scared of people challenging their old presumptions. That hypocrisy is plainly evident with traditional laisse-faire theorists like Punk Daddy lining up to the "ban lobbying" movement. 

 

You lost the election, people were convinced for a different candidate. It's a democracy. That's how things work. I also do not think lobbying contributed to the heated contest between G-R and HEM, I believe the heated contest and the generational crisis that The South Pacific produced the lobbying and the passion both sides' lobbyists had. It's just a symptom of a larger problem: we're really fucking divided. HEM ran on an extremely pro-independent platform which represented one faction of the region, Glen-Rhodes ran on an "alternative" platform with represented the region that felt alienated by HEM's "pro-independent" platform. At the heart of this election was not "evil lobbying", but a demographic conflict between an older, pro-imperialist, pro-independent faction of our region fighting at the throat with its younger, alternative crowd which is moving away from the vision of the region that some of you have had for the region. FA is the area that touches on these core issues of independentism, imperialism, neutralism and defenderism, the most. 

 

You can't just ban these issues out of the region and I don't see either demographics being silenced by one another any time soon. 

[Cormac]

Do you ever not accuse others of ulterior motives?

 

We're only "really fucking divided" because of people who are actively trying to divide the region, including but not necessarily limited to you, by suggesting that every proposal is Old Guard vs. "younger, alternative crowd" which is another way of saying your tiny but extremely vocal extremist defender minority. You are an old TSPer, Unibot, the only difference is that you take your toys and go home periodically when you don't get your way.

 

People don't need to lobby throughout an election if it makes the community uncomfortable. If they want to reach voters, that's what their platforms are for; if they don't reach voters before they've cast their vote, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Voters don't need a constant barrage of harassment regarding their vote after they've already cast it.

[Kris Kringle]

Please keep this civil people. I'm getting tired of seeing every Assembly discussion turn into a debate of Unibot vs others. Can't we all just focus on the real issues instead of constantly fighting each other? It wasn't funny when it started, it isn't funny now.

 

I'm opposed to somehow forbidding people from lobbying for the candidates they favour. That is not to say I think lobbying is fine in all cases, or that people shouldn't feel uncomfortable with it. I just believe that addressing lobbying is an issue of our political culture, not something that can or should be legislated on. I don't look too fondly on ways to legally limit what people can or can't say to other people. If someone asked to not receive campaign messages and the person lobbying didn't listen to that, I do think that would be another matter.

[Sandaoguo]

In light of much of the debate here, I'll step forward and affirm that I was indeed the private vote in the MOFA election. This way we can end all of the questions about vote tampering, etc. I opted to vote privately because I was fearful of retribution/harassment by other voters who might not agree with my sentiments.

 

That's exactly the reason why we need a private voting option.

[Sandaoguo]

You think it's a "very easy way." Some of us think it's an undue burden that will result in lower voter turnout. You think you're right, so naturally everyone else is just being lazy.

 

I said there's a certain level of laziness when somebody just dismisses the idea because it's "too complicated." I say it's a little bit lazy, because to call it complicated is just silly. We require people to register for the forums, then register for citizenship. Everybody is already familiar with how that stuff works. The system I'm going to write is quite literally the same process millions of Internet users go through when they register for a website that requires email validation. It's not complicated. Maybe when I finished it and you guys are able to test it out, you'll have a better sense of how uncomplicated it is! 

[Unibot]

People don't need to lobby throughout an election if it makes the community uncomfortable. If they want to reach voters, that's what their platforms are for; if they don't reach voters before they've cast their vote, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Voters don't need a constant barrage of harassment regarding their vote after they've already cast it.
 

 

Voters apparently felt differently when they changed their minds on the candidates they had voted for originally - many of them were astonished to find out just how pro-independent HEM was when they went back and read his platform.

 

People often don't read platforms and don't think of the consequences for their actions -- in a democracy we should encourage discussion on this and approaching people individually is the best way to do that. You're against lobbying because it's rationally in your interest to promote disinformation and the status quo of apathy politics. 

[Punk D]

I'm very disappointed in many of you who have chosen to continue to attack each other versus address the issue itself. 

 

Let's try to have some focus here. 

 

One man's complicated is another man's easy. I've been in many a meeting where I saw something as easy as pie and many of the rest of the room didn't. Who's right? We all are right. Complicated is perception and perception is reality. In these same meetings, if i was trying to get buy in from others who deemed something 'too complicated' it was my job to break it down for them to see the easiness that I saw. Failing that, no buy in would be achieved. Calling their perception silly usually didn't help get them to my side of the argument.

 

Again  - I'd like for some feedback on my recommendations on the prior page. 

[Kris Kringle]

If Glen can show us how exactly his option would work, then it's something worth taking a look at. It might or might now work, but if Glen can show us how it works in reality, then why not?

 

Unibot. Honestly, cut it out already. It's already irritating to have you accusing people of having dark motives or being against the region every two posts. Some people just don't agree with you, just as you don't agree with other people. That's the nature of democracy. Keep it civil and within topic.

[Cormac]

 

People often don't read platforms and don't think of the consequences for their actions -- in a democracy we should encourage discussion on this and approaching people individually is the best way to do that. You're against lobbying because it's rationally in your interest to promote disinformation and the status quo of apathy politics.

 

 

I'm against lobbying after the vote has been cast because the person who started this thread and several others have said they were uncomfortable with being lobbied. I'm against lobbying because I'm familiar with your harassment tactics to get your way in GCRs.

 

The only person promoting disinformation here is you, Unibot. If only you spent half as much time positively contributing to building defender regions as you do subverting regions that don't want to be defender.

[Sandaoguo]

@PunkD: I don't really care one way or another if TSP adopts a script I write. I'm going to write it anyways as practice, because it's an idea that's been floating in my mind for months. I just think it's absurd to call it complicated when the process for getting citizenship here is by definition twice as complicated.

 

I think we have addressed the issue, though, PunkD. With all due respect, I really don't like your idea. There's something antidemocratic with forcing people to say who they voted for. It's a tactic that's used all the time to coerce people into voting for the "right" person. It's been used in pseudo-democratic countries for decades. Businesses use it as a tactic to prevent the establishment of labor unions. It's just the wrong thing to do. If somebody feels, for any reason, that they'll be harassed and intimidated because of whom they vote for, they should be able to cast that ballot in private. That's a fundamental principle of democracy, and we like to say we're a very democratic region.

 

I think kicking a candidate off the ballot for hitting the same person twice in a campaign is also a very bad idea. First of all, it assumes that campaigns are being coordinated by candidates. I didn't even know people were campaigning for me, for example. Second, campaigning is also part of the democratic process and I think there's something wrong with banning it. There is a long tradition in NS in general when it comes to lobbying for votes. I also think people should be able to change their minds once they cast a vote. That's not how it works in the real world, but that's how it's worked for a very long time in NationStates. I've never voted in any NS region where I wasn't allowed to change my vote.

 

I largely see this entire thread as a solution in search of a problem. We shouldn't be restricting our elections just because some people were slightly annoyed during one special elections about a few telegrams.

[Sandaoguo]

If Glen can show us how exactly his option would work, then it's something worth taking a look at. It might or might now work, but if Glen can show us how it works in reality, then why not?

 

Here's a step-by-step for how it would work.

1. I register for citizenship through the normal application.
   
2. Upon accepting my citizenship application, the admin would send me an activation code for my ballot access. (The admin would get the code simply by typing in the nation's name and hitting "Get code")
   
3. I would click a tab on the forum called "Voter registration" or whatever, which would take me to a page with a box asking me to put in my activation code.
   
4. After submitting my activation code, I would get a box asking me to create a phrase or a password that I'll use every time I vote.
   
5. Each time there's an election, I would go to the "Vote" tab and fill out my ballot. I would put in my phrase/password when I submit my ballot, and get a verification code.
   
6. When the votes are tallied, I would be able to see that my vote was counted by looking for my verification code. Because the ballots are only identified with a verification code, they can be made public without revealing whose ballot is whose.
   

The technical, behind the scenes stuff:

1. The activation code is a one-time-use thing. There's no way to connect an activation code to a voter once they've registered their phrase/password.
   
2. The phrase/password would be hashed, and that hash would be the verification code given to the user.
   
3. It would be very difficult to tamper with the votes, because people could independently verify that their vote was counted, and that their vote was not changed after the fact. It's difficult because, in order to tamper with an election, you need to make it so that people can't tell their vote was changed. Additionally, you'd need the number of total voters to be secret or otherwise not independently verifiable, so that you can "stuff the ballot box."
   
4. Even if somebody has access to the database, there's no way they can change votes or add votes without red flags going off. If they change somebody's vote, that person can tell. If they "stuff the ballot box," the region could tell because each ballot is publicly accessible. If there are 20 extra votes, but only 15 ballots, then obviously somebody tried to doctor the results.
   

It's not completely secure, admittedly. A very dedicated person could still commit fraud, but that type of system would make it inconvenient to do so. You'd have to register a ton of fake citizens, get them all through voter registration, and then vote with all them to "stuff the ballot box." Because of how our citizenship registration works, with the various security checks, the only people who feasibly could do this are the admins themselves who are both ECs _and_ handle citizenship, or some collusion among admins.