The Social Impact of Computer-Mediated Voting
Arnold B. Urken
Although much attention has been given to the problem of not distorting or subverting the voting process in an online environment, techniques such as encryption and distributed time-stamping make it practically impossible to compromise personal autonomy (Chaum, 1985) and (Haber and Stornetta, 1991). If these methods become economical and easy to use and citizens learn and feel comfortable with data-input devices, elections could be carried out via computer.
But computer-mediated voting may also change the nature of privacy in elections. For traditionally, voting has been either public (e.g. in the Swiss cantons) or private (e.g. the Australian ballot) (Barber, 1989, Urken, 1989). However, in a suitably designed online environment, voters may not be faced with a categorical choice between absolute openness or complete secrecy. For voters will be able to control the distribution of information about their voting behavior. For example, voters might automatically send a message to a selected list of friends or associates about how they cast their votes and the reasons for their allocation. This message might include complete identification (including a video and audio greeting in a multi-media environment). In contrast, if voters wanted to notify members of a political party, they might only transmit information about their district, age, and other data that would be valuable in assessing electoral trends. Many other distinctions for selective privacy are possible.
Another possibility for selective privacy involves what happens once votes have been cast. In a paper-ballot mode or in most online voting situations, the individual is forced to play a passive role once votes have been tallied. People may be concerned about maintaining the integrity of the voting process, but the only indication of breakdown they will encounter will be an incident that involves so many errors that it cannot be covered up! However, in a suitably designed environment, voters might be allowed to audit their own votes to insure that their choice was properly recorded and that their vote was actually used to produce the official tally.
In business or other non-public online environments where computer-mediated voting is an option, the prospects for introducing selective privacy are different. If past experience in corporate computer conferencing systems are any guide, access to online voting may be denied completely or limited to forms of expression that management considers appropriate (Urken, 1988). However there may be situations in which “political” rights become relevant in the operation of a non-public network. For example, if members of a corporate political action committee were polled about the size and use of their contributions, it could be argued that individuals should be afforded the same options for selective privacy discussed above.
Most political theorists and philosophers adhere (implicitly at least) to the ideal of all voters making their choices at the same time. Obviously, even if voters were located in the same room, votes would not be cast simultaneously, regardless of the mode used to communicate voting information. But for all practical purposes, the time-differential would be so small and so difficult for humans to discern that votes would seem to allocated synchronously.
There are many potential arguments for this ideal, but most of them concern the potential for manipulating the outcome if votes are cast in a sequence over time (Brams and Fishburn, 1985, Gibbard, 1973). As the time-differential increases, information about the emerging coalitions can be collected so that some individuals can control the collective outcome by swaying other voters or simply casting their own votes in a strategic manner (Nurmi, 1989).
The scenarios used to illustrate the manipulability of asynchronous voting outcomes usually involve one person, one vote voting. In this context, it is normal for competitors for office to practice asynchronous communication with each other to plan strategies for persuading voters to cast their votes in a particular way. This effort relies on surveys to ascertain trends in voter attitudes and identify the factors that lead people to cast their single vote one way or another. Combined with last-minute negative advertising, campaigns can be calibrated to engineer a victory.
But imagine what might happen if all voters had N hours or days (beginning and ending at the same time) to cast their votes asynchronously and could change their votes. Assuming that voters exercised their right to privacy in different ways, debate could go on during the voting process and voting trends could be updated frequently to prompt parties and candidates to clarify their positions. This type of pressure could force realignments and turnarounds during an election based on the arguments that emerged during the asynchronous voting process. As a consequence, pre-election campaigning might become less focused on obfuscation to preclude negative voter reaction (Schmidt, Shelley, and Burdes, 1989). And perhaps pre-election campaigning will take less time and money and the duration of the (asynchronous) election process will be extended and become the focus of informed debate. In such an environment, voters may have more of an incentive to participate because they sense that their individual voices and choices can make a difference in determining the collective outcome. And, assuming that this behavior does not undermine democratic procedures or outcomes, individuals may be better informed and exert greater control in public policymaking.
In a non-political situation, asynchronous voting is already the norm in those relatively rare applications of computer conferencing that include a facility for voting. But as described below, it may be used more frequently when it becomes appreciated as a means of augmenting human intelligence and improving organizational efficiency.
Most people do not think about “reliability” as an issue in voting, but experience with computer-mediated voting in political and non-political environments will make it a significant public concern. The problem of choosing a voting system described above involves the task of choosing a reliable mechanism for achieving an individual or group objective. Depending on the nature of the task and the preferences of the voters, the objective may be to reach a decisive choice, a plurality decision, or a majority decision. As Table 2 shows, voting rules will determine which objective is reached.
Section 2.4 elaborates some possibilities for using decision support to enable voters to obtain reliable voting results, but this aspect of the problem of reliability is likely to be less salient for citizens than the unreliable computer-mediated voting already encountered in public elections. These problems include difficulties with scanning marked ballots, reading punchcards, and the dependability of computer hardware and software (Saltman, 1988, and ECRI, 1988, and Dugger, 1988). Public awareness of these issues is growing and state and federal governments are beginning to grapple with the development of standards for computer-mediated elections. The process of developing these standards will provide a basis for expanding public awareness of the reliability of voting mechanisms as individuals encounter options for the expanded scope of computer-mediation in online voting. This awareness may lead vendors and users of computer equipment and software to recognize the need for quality assurance evaluations of election tools and election management procedures.
It may seem ironic that choosing a voting system is an unresolved dilemma. But the irony is removed when the problem is defined as the task of matching voting systems to human preferences, capabilities, and objectives. But the simple voting situation depicted in Tables 1 and 2 above indicates just how complex this task can be. For example, producing a decisive choice may be an important group objective, but would voters III and IV (who most prefer C) be content with approval voting outcomes (that both generate B) even though one person, one vote yields a weak consensus because only the plurality outcome is clear-cut?
There are two ways of handling this type of problem. One method is to compare the outcomes of different voting systems with ideal measures of what a voting system should produce. The first method is illustrated by the voting scenario shown in Table 3, which displays the same type of cardinal preference information contained in Table 1.
Go to: 3. Cardinal Preferences of Four Voters for Three Alternatives
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