Mastodawn

Strypey Jul 20, 2023

"If you're only prepared to make popular decisions as a leader though, then what is the point of leadership? It's not really leadership is it. It's just focus-grouping. It's just polling. Instead of laying out a platform, debating its merits, and pursuing a really distinct vision, you might as well just have a smartphone app or a website, on which everyone votes for every little policy."

#JakeTame, 2023

Quoted in Midweek #MediaWatch on #RNZ:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018898749/midweek-mediawatch-too-much-information-too-soon

#NZPolitics #leadership

Midweek Mediawatch - too much information too soon?

Midweek Mediawatch - Colin Peacock talks to Mark Leishman about intense coverage of a mother accused of killing her children - and the media finally covering the crimes of Sir James Wallace. Also: Tova O’Brien returning to the media as some senior news editors depart; the media response to the PM ruling out wealth taxes - and the tabloid scoop giving the BBC a big headache.

RNZ

> a smartphone app or a website, on which everyone votes for every little policy

Sounds good to me. We could eliminate an expensive layer of besuited spokesmodels and PR spindoctors, who provide no real value to anyone but themselves. Instead, public servants could carry out whatever policies get a supermajority in a weekly of monthly batch of digital referenda.

#LiquidFeedback anyone?

Lea de Groot TZ+10 Jul 20, 2023

@strypey but that means I have to be on top of every issue all the time, or let the issue-specific lunatics overrule me in everything.
I actually thought that was what I sent an MP to parliament for, to be on top of the issues and know what their electorate wanted.
(I know in the real world, thats so funny, hahaha, but, honestly, I have a dayjob already. Why do I have to do theirs too?)

Strypey Jul 20, 2023

@leadegroot
> Why do I have to do theirs too?

If you want democracy, you have to participate. Otherwise you're relying on benevolent dictatorship as a substitute. The failure modes of that form of governance are pretty obvious, and have been playing out in anglophone countries since the neoliberal coups of the 1980s. Key, Ardern, Hipkins and Luxon are all products of this rot.

Lea de Groot TZ+10 Jul 20, 2023

@strypey
I fear that what would happen is it would be like election time all the time.
Instead of lobbyists approaching the government, it would be full on advertising to us, all the time.
#dislike

Strypey Jul 20, 2023

@leadegroot
> Instead of lobbyists approaching the government, it would be full on advertising to us, all the time

I see no downside to this. This would spread them much thinner, and make their job *much* harder.

Of course, making it work would require us to succeed in abolishing DataFarming, and decentralising all social media. But IMHO I think democracy is over anyway if we can't.

Lea de Groot TZ+10 Jul 20, 2023

@strypey
Yes, well, as every day passes I become more and more cynical if this whole mess is fixable :(
It won't stop me trying it will only kill my optimism.
(Until one day I discover myself running the guillotine and wondering how it came to this... :( )

Lea de Groot TZ+10 Jul 20, 2023

@strypey What I *would* like to see (and I realise you are in .nz and I am in .au and you have that interesting proportional system already, so its different...)
is an MP elected on the basis of "these 10K (pick a number) people voted for me" not "the most people in this electorate voted for me".
(Lots of details to be worked out. Does it need to be "you can only vote for people within (pick a number) 1000km of you"?)
but _actual_ representation!

Strypey Jul 20, 2023

@leadegroot
> I am in .au and you have that interesting proportional system already

I thought you used ranked voting for representatives in Oz?

Lea de Groot TZ+10 Jul 20, 2023

@strypey yes, we do, but, for example, given I never vote for the MP we have had in local electorate for most of 20 years - I have effectively been unrepresented in all that time.
(God knows, the potato is a very rude man, although his staff are ok)
I think this would still require ranked voting (because if my #1 choice only gets 5 votes he's obviously not going to Canberra, so the electoral commission should count my #2 vote, etc)

Lea de Groot TZ+10 Jul 20, 2023

@strypey but you might like this guy
https://dicksonreps.jigsy.com/thor-prohaska
I _believe_ he has actually written the software to do what you are describing

Thor Prohaska

Strypey Jul 20, 2023

@leadegroot
> the software to do what you are describing

A whole bunch of digital decision-making software was written over the last decade, by groups inspired by Occupy (eg Loomio, DemocracyOS). Also for use in the Pirate Party moment, such as LiquidFeedback. One cool thing about LF is that it allows you to nominate someone to proxy vote for you. Either in general, or by portfolio (your proxy on transport issues to one person, on conservation issues to someone else).

Lea de Groot TZ+10 Jul 20, 2023

@strypey
> nominate someone to proxy vote for you
ah, now that is getting more like what I was thinking of! :)

Life is Tetris Jul 20, 2023

@leadegroot @strypey
> proxy vote for portfolio of issues
There is an algorithmic alternative based on pairwise choice, which interested me.
https://allourideas.org/
Threw up interesting patterns (just a few people voted)

All Our Ideas - Bringing survey research into the digital age

All Our Ideas is a platform that enables groups to collect and prioritize ideas in a transparent, democratic, and bottom-up way. It’s a suggestion box for the digital age.

All Our Ideas

Strypey Jul 20, 2023

@tetrislife
> There is an algorithmic alternative based on pairwise choice

I'm not familiar with "pairwise choice" but I'll have a look. I like what g0v did with Pol.is for vTaiwan too. So many intriguing models out there to learn from.

Life is Tetris Jul 20, 2023

@strypey
> #LiquidFeedback
There was a surprisingly effective twist on this approach in a local election manifesto recently, and the candidates had mild traction in pockets on polling day.
https://www.prajaakeeya.org/UPP%20SOP%20English.pdf

1/2

Life is Tetris Jul 20, 2023

@strypey
tl;dr for the previous post
- getting elected to "parliament" comes with good pay and perks
- the electorate hopefully just wants a person who will listen to them and get work done
- the person can also do what needs to be done, and get it approved at the next meeting with the electorate

@leadegroot
The framework for larger issues hopefully can be built up on this

2/2

@strypey
The preconditions for people voting via the internet include:

1) eliminating the digital divide

2) making the internet secure, so that people's aged devices can be proved to be casting the intended votes

3) providing physical security to every person while they vote so that they are not intimidated by those with power in their environment.

We closer to having a perfect voting system now than we are to being able to have a functional internet voting system.

Strypey Jul 20, 2023

@ensslen
> We closer to having a perfect voting system now than we are to being able to have a functional internet voting system

I agree with everything you say here. But I also note that the one problem that underlies all of these is centralisation of all political power in one body. Which makes it a juicy target for adversaries. Radical devolution of most decision-making to the smallest practical scale would spread the risk considerably.

Strypey Jul 21, 2023

@ensslen
> We closer to having a perfect voting system now than we are to being able to have a functional internet voting system

Do you agree that secure digital voting is a worthy goal though? Given that the postal system is on its last legs, on a long enough timescale, it seems unavoidable for local government elections to go digital.

@strypey
OMG I categorically reject the notion that voting over the internet has even the potential to be good for democracy or our communities.

Elections over the internet result in a government controlled by hackers. That either results in control of government by organised crime or by our spies. I'm not sure which is worse.

I mean, we're so far away from being able to meet the basic preconditions. We need a sci-fi future to even build secure devices or give them to people.

Strypey Jul 22, 2023

@ensslen
> I categorically reject the notion that voting over the internet has even the potential to be good for democracy

So what's your solution for running local government elections, once the legacy postal system finally falls over? Pay courier companies to deliver voting papers? Or to run polling booths at Council service centres that everyone has to vote at? Who's going to pay for that?

I understand your concerns, but you might be making the perfect the enemy of the good.

The best solution is to run polling booths.

Suggesting internet voting because postal voting may someday cease to be an option is inventing a problem in order to propose a "solution" which we know to be unworkable.

Strypey Jul 23, 2023

@ensslen
> postal voting may someday cease to be an option is inventing a problem

It's a real and imminent problem. if you can't see that, I respectfully suggest you haven't been paying attention to the fortunes of NZ Post over the last few years.

A few of the more obvious red flags;

* dropping mail delivery to 3 days a week

* massive increases in stamp prices

* utility bills and public service mail shifting to digital delivery

Strypey Jul 23, 2023

@ensslen
> The best solution is to run polling booths

OK, so who pays for that? General elections cost a lot more to run than local body elections for a reason. Meanwhile, councils are desperately trying to cut spending and avoid ramping up rates.

Your solutions?

Also, let's not pretend that the existing local body election system is working particularly well. It's widely acknowledged that turnout is low and results seldom represent the will of local populations.

No. Secure digital voting is not a worthy goal. It will never provide for the physical security of the voter, and therefore makes a mockery of ballot secrecy.

I categorically reject the "inevitability" of all techsolutionism. We can, and should, just chose to run proper, in person elections. I'm not aware of any good reasons not to. The cost argument is anti-democratic and counter to good government not matter how you spin it.

Strypey Jul 23, 2023

@ensslen
> Secure digital voting is not a worthy goal. It will never provide for the physical security of the voter, and therefore makes a mockery of ballot secrecy

I can see why this matters a lot in electing officials. Given this only happens infrequently, the huge cost of running an in-person election may be justified.

(1/2)

Strypey Jul 23, 2023

@ensslen But what about voting in non-binding referenda, say on a weekly basis? Interested parties would have to manually intimidate a lot of people, a lot of the time, to have any significant influence on the outcome of such votes. If the results are indicative only, and non-binding, it seems unlikely anyone would consider it worth the effort. Yet the ability of decision-makers to get regular, representative snapshots of public opinion could add considerably to our democracy, a la g0v.

(2/2)

pollo Jul 22, 2023

A great paper on this from Andrew J. Appel, "Ceci n'est pas une Urne" (Available in english and french):
https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/urne.html
Italian translation:
https://noblogo.org/rresoli/questa-non-e-unurna

Ceci n'est pas une urne

Strypey Jul 23, 2023

@pollo
> A great paper on this from Andrew J. Appel

Appel's conclusion depends on a few assumptions, eg the voting software being proprietary, rather than independently-auditable Free Code. Also, see:

"With the web environment integrity API, websites will be able to request a token that attests key facts about the environment their client code is running in. For example, this API will show that a user is operating a web client on a secure Android device."

https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/blob/main/explainer.md

Web-Environment-Integrity/explainer.md at main · RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity

Contribute to RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

pollo Jul 23, 2023

@strypey
@ensslen

> Appel's conclusion depends on a few assumptions, eg the voting software being proprietary, rather than independently-auditable Free Code.

Not at all. The key point is that "Ceci n'est pas une urne". The Urne has to be transparent.

Voting procedure have to be verifiable and understandable by *everyone*, not in the hands of a few technolgy experts.