Re: [Membership] [Comment-Mac] Re: Secret ballots

[Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz>]

At 00:10 18/05/1999 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote:

> 
>Re Joop's point about electoral fraud coming from the top: That is
>not an argument for secret ballots.  Indeed.  That is precisely the
>problem *with* secret ballots -- they nourish all kinds of fraud at
>the top.  In particular, the danger of a dishonest election process 
>is very much lessened by roll call voting.
>
I hear no argument here, just an unsupported statement.

Vote buying is done by having a means of verification of the vote and the
voter.
In third-world countries, that involves a carbon copy of the ballot handed
over to the paymaster.
Do you  want to reduce the procedure to plain data matching?
Intimidation and harassment are also a lot easier when you know whom to
target.  In a digital world, you are talking nightmare.
I am astonished that you can advocate against the secrecy of the ballot. 
Do you know nothing of open-vote abuse under dictatorial regimes? 


>Re Diane's point: I would be interested to know why she thinks the
>individual members privacy is so important, while the Board members
>privacy is not.  All the potential abuses that secret ballots
>presumably guard against are present in spades at the director level
>-- vote buying and coercion are likely to be most effective when
>applied to directors.  Why don't the demands for openness and
>transparency come down to the individual member level? What,
>precisely, is the value of being able to conceal your vote, and why
>is it valuable at the individual level, but not at the director
>level?
>
Diane can speak for herself. 
>From me just this: ICANN directors are servants of those who elect them to
public office. They may forget that after the elections.
You are not even aware of it *before*.



--Joop Teernstra LL.M.--
the Cyberspace Association,
the constituency for Individual Domain Name Owners
http://www.democracy.org.nz/idno/