Alex Macfie 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 28 May, 2014 @ 03:12pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I am not sure. It is not possible to be 100% sure that any attack on our democratic rule-of-law system is not happening. But this applies to anything. You don't need to be 100% sure: just sure enough that the system works better than any other system might. The scope for fraud in a well-run secret ballot system is much less than in a non-secret system. And that is what matters. If 100% certainty that a system is working is the requirement, then all systems fail. What matters is that the system works better than any other.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 28 May, 2014 @ 03:08pm

    Re: Re: Nope

    One can't provide evidence of something that a system is preventing if the preventive measure is successful.
    What is most important in democracy is that each person's vote is based on their own choice, which means that it should not be possible for anyone else to influence it, whcih means it needs to be cast in secret. You have an agenda against the secret ballot, and are using "freedom of expression" as a canard to pretend that somehow preventing improper influence of people's voting is an attack on democracy, when you are the one who wants to attack democracy by enabling vote buying and other electoral fraud.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 28 May, 2014 @ 03:04pm

    Re: Re: Nope

    The whole point of the secret ballot is to PREVENT unfair manipulation. Your suggestion would make the system open to it.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 28 May, 2014 @ 03:01pm

    End of story

    No, it is intended to mean any information that provides proof about how SOMEONE voted. It doesn't matter who that person is. And yes, it is OK just to just verbally communicate how someone (might have) voted, because this IS NOT INFORMATION ABOUT HOW SOMEONE VOTED.
    Look there is no point in carrying on this discussion. You, for whatever reason, are against the secret ballot, perhaps because you want to be able to influence other people's votes. You are therefore using sophistry to defend your position. I'm not interested in debating thsi with you, Mr Anonymous Coward. End of story.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 28 May, 2014 @ 02:54pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    Cash transactions cannot be tracked. But again that is not the point. The purpose of the secret ballot system is to PREVENT electoral fraud. To talk about the need for evidence of vote buying before preventing it is to miss the point. Preventing a crime means there it doesn't happen, and there is therefore no evidence for it.
    Do you lock your door before you leave your house? I suspect so. But by your logic it's OK to leave your front door wide open because there's no evidence of any burglaries in your area.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 03:24pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    So sloganeering are we? We secret ballot supporters want to manipulate voting by, er, making sure that is impossible to find out how anyone voted, so there cannot be consequences for anyone voting the "wrong" way.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 03:19pm

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    It's also not hard to prevent and stamp out improper influence over who gets access.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 03:18pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Verifiable vote is not allowed

    The boxes are sealed and transported to the counting venue. The people carrying the boxes do not have access to them. They can only be opened at the count.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 03:06pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Verifiable vote is not allowed

    Stop being a snide sneery moron. You know perfectly well what I meant. And I don't support legislation to "protect people's feelings".

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 03:03pm

    Verifiable vote is not allowed

    If you follow opinion polls and keep your ear on the ground for local political opinion then you probably have a good idea of where the wind is blowing and how many voters need to be bought/blackmailed and who they might be.
    And remember also that people like big employers, landlords and ethnic community leaders may well be able to control large numbers of voters anyway, without spending much money.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 02:55pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Verifiable vote is not allowed

    I used Gore/Bush as an example of how a small number of votes, and how they were interpreted, ultimately decided the election. I did not intend to suggest that there was any corruption involved in that case. My point was that if someone does want to manipulate an election result, they may only need to influence a small number of votes to do so successfully.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 02:49pm

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    In the UK, anyone can apply to attend a count. There are limits to how many people can be admitted (principally due to space) and it's ticket-only but it's open to any member of the public.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 02:46pm

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    Are you really this thick or are you being deliberately obtuse? The secret ballot is itself a law, and of course laws are needed to make sure it works properly. It's the same as with any other statutory measure.

    But who will protect the law from the lawyers and politicians?

    Now that's going completely off onto a tangent, as it could apply to practically any law.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 02:42pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Verifiable vote is not allowed

    FFS. The counting process itself is obervable. In that sense it is transparent (any irregularity is evident). But the votes themselves cannot be traced to any individual, so individually they are secret. But collectively, they are verifiable.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 12:32pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Verifiable vote is not allowed

    The vote counting process is not opaque (when done using pencil&paper and counted manually). Anyone can watch what is happening, and see the votes piled up with the marks in the right places.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 12:31pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Verifiable vote is not allowed

    And that one whistle blower might then be fired from his job, and find himself unemployable as a result of his activity. So it may not be possible even to find ONE. And anyway by the time the company is exposed a few elections may have gone by, and their results may or may not have been altered by the corporate voter buying activity. so the horse has bolted. How do you put right a wronged election? Re-run it, maybe, at huge expense, but the political circumstances will have changed. Ask people what they intended to vote in such-and-such an election? Would they even remember? Most people who are not politically aware don't remember how they voted last time around. Harsh punishment of voter fraud is all very well, but there is no effective way of putting right what has been done wrong. That is why PREVENTION of electoral fraud is important.

    And no, voter fraud does not need to involve "hundreds of thousands or millions of people". It almost certainly needs many fewer, depending on the closeness of the contest. It may need only a few dozen. It's not all the votes across the entire election that matter, only the few swing votes that make a difference between one candidate and another winning. Consider the 'hanging chad' controversy. I recall there were only a few hundred votes in contention there, but this tiny fraction of the total vote made the difference between Gore and Bush winning.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 12:21pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Verifiable vote is not allowed

    All of these things can happen, but actually they are quite easy to detect and prosecute. For instance, if a box is lost in transit, and cannot be found, then the election is void, and it is known who was supposed to have handled them and they can be questioned. Unsealing and resealing can be detected as well. So can bribery of election officials. All these things leave evidence behind, and all can be prosecuted. In the counting process, we know where things like ballot papers and boxes are supposed to be, and who is supposed to be handling them, and if they are not there, and not being handled by the people who should be handling them, then we know that something has gone wrong and it can be investigated by the relevant authorities.
    Fraud involving individual voters (vote buying, coercion) outside designated voting areas is not so easy to detect or prosecute, simply because it can occur anywhere, and there may be no evidence for it (e.g. a verbal nudge-nudge, wink-wink fraud). We can't police all households to ensure that no householders are coercing other members of their household to vote in a particular way, for instance. Therefore, it is much more effective to police the whole process in whcih voting is done, to ensure that it happens in secret and is counted transparently.

    As for electronic counting, well of course you're right about that, but in the UK we don't have electronic counting and I absolutely oppose it. I support pen(cil)&paper voting and manual counting because the process is observable and the votes are collectively (but not individually, by intention) verifiable. The secret ballot was invented in the 19th century to PREVENT voter intimidation and bribery. The idea that it was intended to prevent "verification" is utter nonsense.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 12:07pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Verifiable vote is not allowed

    You probably don't have to buy off millions of voters to steal an election. You only need to buy off enough to tilt the balance, and that depends on the closeness of the result. It could be thousands, or it could be less than 100.
    Paying off the candidates' counting agents and other independent observers is certainly possible, but I think it is much easier to detect and expose than bribing or blackmailing voters. The latter tends to take place outside the gaze of anyone involved in policing elections, and it may also be informal, meaning there is little or no proof that any fraud has actually taken place. If it has been merely suggested verbally to someone that they might consider voting for X otherwise there would be consequences, what evidence is there of wrongdoing? Bribery of election officials, on the other hand, is very straightforward to detect and prosecute.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 11:29am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nope

    No, you are interperting it based on your OWN assumption that abrogation of voting secrecy only matters when it is against the voter's wishes. This is WRONG. It is the PURPOSE of electoral law to ensure that it is NEVER possible to prove how someone has voted, even with the voter's consent.

  • On the post: Proud Voters Tweeting In The UK Could Receive Jail Time And A Fine

    Alex Macfie ( profile ), 27 May, 2014 @ 11:25am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Voting is a societal act, not an individual one

    I mean the crime of disseminating proof of your vote.

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