Re: [atlarge-discuss] 12 Zombi'es on this discussion group

[david@aminal.com]

On Tue, Aug 06, 2002 at 11:20:12AM -0400, James Love wrote:
> 
> A good project would be an audit of the election results, to see what 
> happened.  I believe the CIRA does something like this now.  With a few 
> hundred voters, many of them well known, this seems like a manageable task.

Yes, should be done.

> 
> Also, I think we should discuss whether or not to permit members to use an 
> alias, or to require real names.
> 
> Jamie
>

Yes, also agree.

There are two issues here. First, aliases in a discussion context, and
second, aliases in an official voting context.

I think that if we banned aliases from the discussion context, we run the
risk of losing valuable input. There may very well be people who would be
reluctant to speak freely if they had to 'out' themselves. They may feel
that to do so might damage important professional or personal relationships.
If its a choice of some discussion or your job, usually the job wins, and
folks are often *very conservative about putting their employment at risk.

The voting context is very different. Aliases do not belong there, all voters
should be traceable to a real, live, human. You do not have to 'out' yourself
to vote, the system just used demonstrates that with enough administrative
care, a voter can be kept seperate from the actual votes cast.

But even more importantly, for the forseeable future, online or electronic
voting is going to have to be held to a higher standard than even the best of
real world voting systems.

Why? It's the old devil you know vs. the devil you don't know problem.
People in general believe that they understand how real world voting works,
and how it can fail or be corrupted. This gives them a sense that they still
have control of the risks, they can identify and correct the problems as they
come up.

People in Chicago know that they have to be alert for dead people on the
voting rolls :-)

People do not have this sense about new online voting systems, they don't
know how they work, how they fail, or how they  might be scammed. Every flaw is
magnified, and viewed with a heightened sense of anxiety. So, for the forseable
future, error rates that might be acceptable in a real world vote will be too
high for online voting.  

The different requirements for the different things that members may do is why
I also have some reservations about a single, uniform member sign-up that covers
all membership functions and roles. Perhaps people will want to participate in
discussions, and even donate money, anonymously. They may or may not decide
to reveal their identity in order to vote. 
 
I think it's worth some work to see if we can maximize the numbers of ways that
members can contribute to and participate in the org.


David Schutt



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