Re: Secret votes HOWTO
On Wed, Apr 04, 2001 at 10:03:39AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> I also think that people putting their ballots up in separate
> places is not as open as having ones name on the final tally -- and
> openness is desirable, in my personal opinion.
But the name on the final tally is definite proof of how a person
voted. This information is different from (and more sensitive than)
a person's claim of how they voted.
One of the reasons that government elections have secret ballots is
to prevent intimidation of voters, or buying of votes. For the
prevention to work, it must not be possible for a person to vote
non-anonymously, because if the option exists then the intimidator/buyer
can require that it is used.
(I don't expect blatant forms of either practice to be a problem in this
project, but there may be subtler forms involving peer pressure or
other personal relationships.)
Richard Braakman
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