Wintreath Regional Community
A Link to the Past - Archives => The Registry of Things Past - Historic Archive => Constitutional Convention on the Storting => Topic started by: Arenado on March 18, 2016, 03:20:40 AM
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I think that incremental reform is necessary. If the Starting Reformation Act fails, and it looks like it will, we should start small. Starting with Closed Ballots. Now, I think closed ballots will remove some pressure from people who don't want their votes known. If you wish to announce your vote you may. But voting itself should be secret. I propose that the OH members become an election committee that will receive votes together via PM, to ensure no vote tampering. I suggest that we put it on a probationary period, if in the next election it works then we make it permanent .If you fail to share your opinion now please do not be surprised if I completely ignore you later. I will keep this open as long as I can.
Your thoughts.
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I'm taking a step back and not commenting on anything to do with legislative work until I can get my head screwed on straight again. Even though I agree with secret ballots as a matter of principle.
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I can agree with this. While I have some reservations, I'm very much more against people being hounded over the way they choose to vote...which secret ballots would abolish that.
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At the moment, I do believe Wintermoot is in charge of tabulating private votes, though if everyone else is going to vote privately then ...
I don't find any issue with private voting since that way no one can be pinpointed for the success or failure of the passing of a particular bill. Being granted anonymity is a boon, and I don't really care if someone intends to use his/her vote (by announcing it publicly) to influence others into voting with him/her. That said, what you are suggesting is compulsory private voting, while allowing people to announce their votes right?
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I also approve of closed ballots. It would prevent bandwagons in voting for as well as not voting for certain people.
I would think it'd just be easier for Wintermoot to receive all of the votes, though, as he already currently receives private votes, and it'd be more organized since all votes would go to only one rather than 4 people.
And in agreement with Sapphiron, I'd be ok with people announcing their votes as it'd just be like endorsing a candidate.
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I specifically like the provision where the Overhusen becomes responsible for the election committee. It makes sense that we would need more than one person to be accountable; not that I don't trust @Wintermoot, but it seems a bit surprising for just a single person to report a vote count, hence multiple poll workers per precinct, at least in the United States. However, because of the trust we all have for him, it wouldn't be a bad thing if he still received all of the votes, which would be the more likely option to get this to pass.
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Agreed with Sapph and Gerrick.
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I'm not sure what this applies to...people can already vote privately in elections if they want to.
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If I am reading the suggestion correctly, North intends to make private voting compulsory. At the moment, if everyone else is voting publicly and a couple vote privately, it's much easier to pinpoint those who voted privately and how they voted.
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The proposal is to make it a mandatory private ballot. (Thanks Sapphiron for beating me by twenty-three seconds!)
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I'm sorry, what? There's no real tangible benefit to this and it's rife for abuse.
If you want to vote privately you already can; forcing a private ballot simply takes away an option and makes it less obvious when voting blocs and factionalism are in play.
If anything, the ability to cast a private ballot should be taken away to force everything to be transparent.
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At the moment, I do believe Wintermoot is in charge of tabulating private votes, though if everyone else is going to vote privately then ...
I don't find any issue with private voting since that way no one can be pinpointed for the success or failure of the passing of a particular bill. Being granted anonymity is a boon, and I don't really care if someone intends to use his/her vote (by announcing it publicly) to influence others into voting with him/her. That said, what you are suggesting is compulsory private voting, while allowing people to announce their votes right?
Yes.
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Maybe I'm just not getting it, but I've read the topic a few times and I don't understand what problem this is supposed to solve. I doubt it would change the fact that popularity plays into elections, and while there's a decent chance to at least guess some of the people voting privately, I thought the real issue is that people still wouldn't know how they voted. And has anyone really been hounded over choosing to vote privately?
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I'm sorry, what? There's no real tangible benefit to this and it's rife for abuse.
If you want to vote privately you already can; forcing a private ballot simply takes away an option and makes it less obvious when voting blocs and factionalism are in play.
If anything, the ability to cast a private ballot should be taken away to force everything to be transparent.
I disagree and would like to test my hypothesis.
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Maybe I'm just not getting it, but I've read the topic a few times and I don't understand what problem this is supposed to solve. I doubt it would change the fact that popularity plays into elections, and while there's a decent chance to at least guess some of the people voting privately, I thought the real issue is that people still wouldn't know how they voted. And has anyone really been hounded over choosing to vote privately?
It's a small step. I want to see how voting is effected, I believe that there would be a change.
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What is the basis of your belief?
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I specifically like the provision where the Overhusen becomes responsible for the election committee. It makes sense that we would need more than one person to be accountable; not that I don't trust @Wintermoot, but it seems a bit surprising for just a single person to report a vote count, hence multiple poll workers per precinct, at least in the United States. However, because of the trust we all have for him, it wouldn't be a bad thing if he still received all of the votes, which would be the more likely option to get this to pass.
I just don't want to pepper Moot with work.
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I have, in fact, been hounded about who I've voted for in the past when I chose to vote privately.
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What is the basis of your belief?
The recent special election. Pengu was leading until a string of votes came in to secure Laurentus victory. I'm not saying that is bad, I just believe that if votes are secret and we don't know how other people actually voted the results might be different. I can't specifically prove this without a test case.
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We have seen how voting publicly can influence other things like Citizen of the Month.
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It's not a pleasant experience to go against the herd, and compulsory private voting allows one to do so without suffering the backlash of being recognized for doing so.
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I have, in fact, been hounded about who I've voted for in the past when I chose to vote privately.
Who has hounded you over this? I would genuinely like to know the details.
What if people started discussing their votes, or a prominent member decides to discuss their vote and why they voted that way, as some have done in the past? In the absence of public votes from others, wouldn't those people have an outsized influence over how others voted, assuming that people are voting based on popularity or by how others are voting?
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One would think the problems of the past couple of hours displays it clearly enough that people are afraid to speak up and vote in the way they'd actually prefer to.
If you're not publicly being put on the spot, you can apply your own thoughts, instead of being fearful of going against the herd. It's been proven that people are much more willing to rely on themselves when voting in private.
Even when someone who speaks with natural authority does speak and try to influence something in a certain way, he can't do so on charm (or boorishness) alone when he doesn't know who's voting in any specific way.
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I have, in fact, been hounded about who I've voted for in the past when I chose to vote privately.
I've never voted publicly in an election, and no one's even so much asked me who I voted for, so I'm not sure where the backlash is on that. In fact, I prefer to do so because that way I don't improperly influence people, even though I could easily command some clout around here.
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I have no doubt it's a problem not everyone will face. It's something I have faced though, and something that has pushed me to be more in favour of voting in public, even though I'd prefer to do it in private, if only to spare people's feelings.
We are not completely rational beings, and the sparing of feelings is something that should enter into our equations (even if it doesn't always), since we can't wish our feelings away either.
Sure, we can develop thicker skins and be less concerned about how our actions influence others, but that leads to apathy over time.
In the end so much drama just isn't worth it, even for the sake of transparency. I do believe people are smart enough to realise when something they're doing just doesn't resonate with voters if they see the statistical results of secret ballot voting consistently not aligning with them.
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I've never voted publicly in an election, and no one's even so much asked me who I voted for
That's the point, isn't it? If everyone is voting privately, there wouldn't be as much hounding.
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Does anyone else have an opinion? So far Barnes, Saphh, Moot and Laurentus have commented more than once. Am I to assume that the rest are indifferent?
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It has only been 3 hours, give it some time. :P
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Not enough time has actually gone by to get a sense of where we're at. Josh is a man of few words too, so even if he only says something once, he'll likely opt not to repeat himself when he feels he's made his point.
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I have, in fact, been hounded about who I've voted for in the past when I chose to vote privately.
Who has hounded you over this? I would genuinely like to know the details.
What if people started discussing their votes, or a prominent member decides to discuss their vote and why they voted that way, as some have done in the past? In the absence of public votes from others, wouldn't those people have an outsized influence over how others voted, assuming that people are voting based on popularity or by how others are voting?
Safe to say I agree with what Wintermoot is hinting at here; thought I'll expand it a little further, this at least when votes can be public if someone see's a lot of votes then that is actual popularity, if it is all 100% private it turns the "well everyone else is doing this" peer pressure argument into a "he said, she said situation" until numbers are released. Especially as some people would doubtless still post who/what they are voting for in the discussions.
The main thing we want to protect is opinions, if someone is indifferent as is influenced by popularity that isn't too much of a loss, but if someone is critical and doesn't voice their views then that's an issue. And that affects the debates not the votes, the way I see this is it would allow a less objective and easier to control debate and I would prefer a more open and free discussion.
One would think the problems of the past couple of hours displays it clearly enough that people are afraid to speak up and vote in the way they'd actually prefer to.
If you're not publicly being put on the spot, you can apply your own thoughts, instead of being fearful of going against the herd. It's been proven that people are much more willing to rely on themselves when voting in private.
Even when someone who speaks with natural authority does speak and try to influence something in a certain way, he can't do so on charm (or boorishness) alone when he doesn't know who's voting in any specific way.
This goes paragraph for paragraph by the way, so you aren't confused which part I am talking about :-\ )
Actually the thing about the recent debate is I believe it were a closed voting process it wouldn't have happened at all, it was the show of solidarity of seeing the negative votes that convinced me to speak out, I don't know about others, but it could quite well be something similar.
But the thing is; you can vote privately, and I haven't really seen that many people be interrogated about private votes, (me included when I have voted privately). So if people can already vote in private I don't see why this would be so different.
I think you are underestimating people's abilities to be charming and boorish; I have been involved in quite a few IRL elections, (obviously with entirely secret ballots) and people still managed to talk to others as if they were assured victory and that it was only a matter of time, and there was no way to confirm if that was true or not, until numbers are released.
Does anyone else have an opinion? So far Barnes, Saphh, Moot and Laurentus have commented more than once. Am I to assume that the rest are indifferent?
I do apologize but all this was going on very early morning for me, and while I know it's rare I actually do sleep sometimes. :))
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Does anyone else have an opinion? So far Barnes, Saphh, Moot and Laurentus have commented more than once. Am I to assume that the rest are indifferent?
Well most of North America was asleep, including myself... :P
I think that while it isn't really necessary, there are other ways to anonymously publicly vote, like in polls that allow you to choose X number of candidates or less and don't show people who everyone votes for. There wouldn't be any voter fraud, either, because we could make it so only citizen accounts can vote, and there can't be multiple citizen accounts per IP address...
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Can we vote for multiple people in polls?
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Can we vote for multiple people in polls?
I believe it is possible to allow multiple choices in polls.
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I have thoughts, but I will have to post them later. I am at school and it will be a few hours before I am home.
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Can we vote for multiple people in polls?
Dont we already?
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No, I mean as in when there's a list of 10 candidates, can we vote for 5 of them?
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Honestly I have to agree with HannahB, Wintermoot, and Axis/Joshua. Further this won't fix anything, and would only exacerbate the issue. The issue with the band-wagoning isn't with voting, but it is the issue with debates. Further people would still reveal their public votes...so it doesn't change anything.
Further, using this vote as an example, the only change would have been more abstains because many people wouldn't have seen that people actually would vote nay, except me. Hell if anything it would be more of a blindside should it fail with this system, because you wouldn't know who, or why, it failed. At least now you can talk to those that vote nay and understand why they are doing so, and why they haven't brought it up.
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Honestly I have to agree with HannahB, Wintermoot, and Axis/Joshua. Further this won't fix anything, and would only exacerbate the issue. The issue with the band-wagoning isn't with voting, but it is the issue with debates. Further people would still reveal their public votes...so it doesn't change anything.
Further, using this vote as an example, the only change would have been more abstains because many people wouldn't have seen that people actually would vote nay, except me. Hell if anything it would be more of a blindside should it fail with this system, because you wouldn't know who, or why, it failed. At least now you can talk to those that vote nay and understand why they are doing so, and why they haven't brought it up.
Why are you using this vote as an example? I dont want to make voting for things like UH and OH votes secret, just votes for Candidates in Elections.
This is a back up in case the OA reform fails. Something like this would never work in an Open Assembly.
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Oh, then I still see no reasons for this anyway, and I feel the others have said things better than I can at this time (I will probably respond or edit this later when I am not as tired)