Open Balloting?

[Bill_in_PDX]

Should our nation move away from the current method of polling for elections, and instead use some form of open balloting?

I've been in this game since day one, and like many, have noticed that during times of close elections or heated debate in a polled issue (such as private investigation), the results have been questioned either openly or indirectly by losing side's advocates.

I open this discussion here to see what, if anything, our citizens feel should be done to maintain faith in the election system.

I see three major options, and hope others contribute more:

Current Blind Poll System

Has the advantage of being in place, easy to set up and has automatic vote counting and reporting up to the minute.

Disadvantages are that this method doesn't prevent unregistered citizens from voting, and there are few tools if any available to the moderators to detect fraud.

Totally Open System

Would involve citizens posting their ballots for elections in a forum where all can see what your votes are.

Advantages include creation of a system where fraud would be much more difficult, and the vote count could still be viewed, albeit in a more cumbersome manner.

The disadvantages are in the openess itself. There is a reason real life democratic nations use secret ballots (at least at the polling place), and that is protection from undue influence and intimidation.

Secret Ballot System

I favor serious consideration of this approach.

Rather that using polls, citizens would fill out ballots and submit to either Mods, or the three judiciary members. The counters would update daily or better, and we would have full disclosed records that are still private.

This would put more work on the citizen themselves, but I only advocate this approach for elections, and perhaps for PI's should there be another one of those down the road.

Again, this discussion is looking for ways to restore full confidence in the voting process.

 

[Phoenix]

I like the idea for the Secret Ballot System but think that instead of putting more work on the mods we could have a trusted citizen to count the votes. However the fact that nobody would know the results other than that one citizen would mean that they would have to be very trustworthy and not be able to hold any other positions in government.

 

[Shaitan]

I dislike the open ballot system except in circumstances where the voter's choice is supposed to be part of the public record or it is necessary to know the identities of the voters. Council Votes and Senatorial legislative votes fit both of those criteria. It is nobody's business what candidate a citizen votes for or what option they favor in a poll.

A secret ballot system is an option but it is indeed a good chunk of work for the pollsters. I also don't think it is really necessary. There are always going to be sour grapes in a highly contested contest. If people are willing to bandy about baseless accusations of poll stuffing they will be willing to bandy about baseless accusations about pollster negligence, prejudice, etc.

The accusations of polling improprieties have (as far as I can tell) focused on the Presidential elections and PI#6. I should say Presidential election for Term 4 and PI#6. Despite being just as charged and close a contest with an almost identical vote count, the Presidential election for Term 4 did not attract this type of stigma. I am not a conspiracy nut but there is an unmistakable pattern here. Donsig wins, there must be something going on. He loses, all is right in the world.

EDIT: Corrected an incorrect term #.

 

[Cyc]

I like the secret ballots also. This was discussed with the Duke. I would agree Bill's suggestion that the secret ballots be a buddy pm'ing to the Judicial members for verification. As they hold elected office, they would be accountable for their actions and the vote count would be verified three ways.

Good thread, Bill.

 

[chiefpaco]

I favour the current system. I can live with it's inefficiencies and flaws in favour of privacy. Especially with mods acting as citizens and maybe public officials. I am uncomfortable with them knowing too much about the game - and the security of that information.

Furthermore, as I've said on this issue in the past, I don't want to needlessly burden the mods with counting votes. Now our voting process becomes dependent on mod involvement and introduces error to counting. We have multiple mods and the co-ordination of voting may seem possible, but nowhere near as simple as we can achieve by using the poll system the forum provides.

Nice proposal, but I don't see myself agreeing.

 

[Octavian X]

Duke did propose and secret ballot pm'd to him...

I have to say that I like the current system. Sure, there will be some non-citizens or citizens who aren't even actice voting. There will always be some inaccuracy. Also, its much harder to argue that an online poll miscounted than a moderator miscounted.

 

[disorganizer]

i can live with insufficiencies of the current system...
and i oppose using elected members as trusted citizens of a secret system. or any member in any position.
i would definitely prefer someone outside the game as trusted person...

 

[GenMarshall]

I favor the current system of voting. I dislike the open ballot since it would cause a lot of arguments between the canidate and the voter. Its best to have the voting system the way it is now Its totaly secret and no one miscounts the ballots (People are not machines and most often make mistakes )

 

[Chieftess]

Elections for term 6? When were those?

I lean towards disliking the idea. Anyone can see who voted for whom (and that could indirectly affect other polls).

 

[Shaitan]

Oops. Should have been "Term 4". I'll correct it.

 

[donsig]

There seems to be alot of support for the current system. I do think the system works but I would be just as comfortable with an open ballot or the secret ballot by pm method.

I have been advocating local elections for governors (and maybe mayors). If we ever try that we could try using either an open ballot or the pm ballot. We couldn't do local elections via polls because there'd be no way to verify that the actual residents of the city or province were the only ones voting. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that local elections would be a good testing ground for these new proposals.

The one thing I don't like about the pm voting is the work involved. It is certainly too much for one person. We also need a verification system. These drawbacks could be alleviated in two ways. First, we could try the cyclical election idea. Elect leaders then when their term is half over elect governors or something like that. We could also break up the work load. Have one commisioner for each election and use the judiciary and mods for the verifiers. This could fit in with the RPG - elections commisioners would have a *real* job.

 

[BCLG100]

didnt DoM have the idea of secret balloting before but said somethinglike it would get his mailbox to full