A question to Communists:

[BasketCase]

The person who handles the box and shows it to everybody? I bribe him to rig the box beforehand. It looks empty to the crowd, but it's not. I see magicians pull this all the time.

Wanna try again? Yes, it's off-topic and the mods might get mad, but I won't tell if you won't. I'll play as long as you want.

 

[greenpeace]

The person who handles the box and shows it to everybody? I bribe him to rig the box beforehand. It looks empty to the crowd, but it's not. I see magicians pull this all the time.

Wanna try again? Yes, it's off-topic and the mods might get mad, but I won't tell if you won't. I'll play as long as you want.

If you rig the box then there will be more votes than there are people.

 

[BasketCase]

Yep. Which proves the vote is invalid and must be done again.

This won't allow me to win, but it can allow me to stop an election from being held. I just paralyzed your government.

Wanna try again?

Edit: Actually, I was thinking along the lines of a rigging that replaces the actual voting chips with others of my choice. But you get the idea.

 

[greenpeace]

Yep. Which proves the vote is invalid and must be done again.

This won't allow me to win, but it can allow me to stop an election from being held. I just paralyzed your government.

Wanna try again?

Edit: Actually, I was thinking along the lines of a rigging that replaces the actual voting chips with others of my choice. But you get the idea.

Um, if its rigged, just unrig it or get two others boxes, its not paralyzing.

 

[BasketCase]

How do you prevent the new boxes from being rigged?

In the screwed-up 2000 elections, there were something like EIGHT recounts. Actually, I don't even remember how many. There were a LOT of recounts. And accusations of election-rigging dogged every single recount. The fact that the recounts were done by HAND and that people were actually getting their devious hands on the ballots was apparently lost on everybody.

 

[BasketCase]

Actually, there's a better way. When the boxes are opened, it's very easy for the guy opening the boxes to palm a bunch of extra chips into the box--while jiggling the box to rattle the chips and disguise the "plop" of the extra chips.

 

[greenpeace]

How do you prevent the new boxes from being rigged?

In the screwed-up 2000 elections, there were something like EIGHT recounts. Actually, I don't even remember how many. There were a LOT of recounts. And accusations of election-rigging dogged every single recount. The fact that the recounts were done by HAND and that people were actually getting their devious hands on the ballots was apparently lost on everybody.

If you keep on getting rigged boxes, just construct a box in front of everyone. The most this could stop a community is on the order of hours or a day at the very most. Thats not exactly "paralyzed."

 

[BasketCase]

Bribe the box-builder to sneak a rig into the new one.

 

[BasketCase]

The most this could stop a community is on the order of hours or a day at the very most. Thats not exactly "paralyzed."

It stopped the United States for a few months in 2000. When Bush Sr. and Congress were wrestling over the Senior Bush's "No New Taxes" pledge around 1990, the U.S. government was paralyzed for SEVERAL months.

 

[greenpeace]

Bribe the box-builder to sneak a rig into the new one.

Same dilemna (sp?)

It stopped the United States for a few months in 2000. When Bush Sr. and Congress were wrestling over the Senior Bush's "No New Taxes" pledge around 1990, the U.S. government was paralyzed for SEVERAL months.

That was a completely different system using a completely different voting system, and the second part seems irrelevant.

 

[BasketCase]

That was a completely different system using a completely different voting system

Yes it was. Yet it still broke an axle on the exact same speed bump.

It's a problem the ancient Romans understood quite well: who will watch the watchers?

The watchers are inevitably the ones who will be in control. They will be the ones in authority. It is not possible to make the entire population "the ones in authority".

If you're not convinced, we could play a few more rounds of Rig The Vote.....?

 

[greenpeace]

Yes it was. Yet it still broke an axle on the exact same speed bump.

Proove to me that the votes of a few hundred to at most a thousand using the voting system I described would encounter months of waiting because of a problem of vote counting.

 

[BasketCase]

Well, I just rigged an election four times running. Obviously something must be wrong with the system if it keeps producing clearly bogus results--but nobody knows what's wrong.

You and I have a unique viewpoint--the advantage of complete information. The voters will not.

When they start recounting the chips, all I have to do now is accuse the recount people of trying to rig the recounts. That's how the 2000 election went down.

Edit: Things may not go down exactly the way the 2000 election did. My point here is that I challenged you to create an election system that can't be rigged. So far, you haven't.

 

[greenpeace]

Well, I just rigged an election four times running. Obviously something must be wrong with the system if it keeps producing clearly bogus results--but nobody knows what's wrong.

You and I have a unique viewpoint--the advantage of complete information. The voters will not.

When they start recounting the chips, all I have to do now is accuse the recount people of trying to rig the recounts. That's how the 2000 election went down.

Edit: Things may not go down exactly the way the 2000 election did. My point here is that I challenged you to create an election system that can't be rigged. So far, you haven't.

They could just do an incredibly easy thing and have a box constucted in front of their eyes to see that it isn't rigged and then use it to vote. Its not that hard. How the do you rig a friggin box anyway?

 

[BasketCase]

Magic used to be a hobby of mine. I know how things work on the parts of the stage you think you can see but can't. (A bit of advice--if you enjoy magic, DO NOT learn how it works. Spoils your enjoyment)

You don't even need to rig the box itself. A magician can roll up his sleeves, SHOW you his empty hands, show you the empty BACKS of his hands, without ever letting you see the coins he's got hidden within his fingers. I know because I can do it.

 

[greenpeace]

Magic used to be a hobby of mine. I know how things work on the parts of the stage you think you can see but can't. (A bit of advice--if you enjoy magic, DO NOT learn how it works. Spoils your enjoyment)

You don't even need to rig the box itself. A magician can roll up his sleeves, SHOW you his empty hands, show you the empty BACKS of his hands, without ever letting you see the coins he's got hidden within his fingers. I know because I can do it.

Yeah, but you can hear them and you still run into the same problem of there being too many votes for it to be possible (plus you'd have to forge it).

 

[BasketCase]

Already answered those. There are ways to prevent the voting chips from "talking" and a scammer can still gank up the system merely by making "too many" votes suddenly appear in the box. That latter part has been a standard tactic of many political factions all over the world: when you're in an election you know you're going to lose, discombobulate it. Even if you can't win, try to stall it and prevent the other side from getting the win.

 

[greenpeace]

Already answered those. There are ways to prevent the voting chips from "talking" and a scammer can still gank up the system merely by making "too many" votes suddenly appear in the box. That latter part has been a standard tactic of many political factions all over the world: when you're in an election you know you're going to lose, discombobulate it. Even if you can't win, try to stall it and prevent the other side from getting the win.

How exactly is that possible?

 

[BasketCase]

Go read up on Pakistan for some examples. There's lots of others in world current events.

Other problem with your voting system: with a large enough voter pool, it becomes impossible to count the voting chips just by looking in the box--somebody has to physically pick up the chips and count them. The minute they do, the potential for funny business arises.

Things get more complicated if there's too many voters to use only one box. Then you need multiple election overseers, people to combine the results from all the boxes to get the final tally......

On the other hand, if your community is small enough to use just one box, then you're merely a small group living in a larger host country--and you're still subject to that country's laws. Try to break those, and you'll end up in jail. Greenpeacocracy is simply not gonna happen.

 

[greenpeace]

Go read up on Pakistan for some examples. There's lots of others in world current events.

Again, not the same

Other problem with your voting system: with a large enough voter pool, it becomes impossible to count the voting chips just by looking in the box--somebody has to physically pick up the chips and count them. The minute they do, the potential for funny business arises.

If the voters see the box the entire time between the last vote and them dumping the tokens on the floor )with clear ways of making sure no one swamps tokens between piles, no problems should occur.

Things get more complicated if there's too many voters to use only one box. Then you need multiple election overseers, people to combine the results from all the boxes to get the final tally......

There would have to be way too many voters for a aingle community

On the other hand, if your community is small enough to use just one box, then you're merely a small group living in a larger host country--and you're still subject to that country's laws. Try to break those, and you'll end up in jail. Greenpeacocracy is simply not gonna happen.

Of course, its going to be in "another" country, namely a country with a relatively free media and somewhat liberal government (well it could go in the opposite but it would be alot harder), such as the US, that way were practically free from genocide (mass arrest being more likely) and even if genocide was commited it would show the populace the faulties of the government.