RE: [board] Voting in secret; Off topic

["Pete Klammer" <pklammer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sure, if you don't care who knows how you vote or what they can deduce from
your contributions, it is YOUR right to let that information be known; you
can post a billboard on your house or car, "I VOTED FOR xxxx" for all we
care.  But it is my, every citizen's right, to cast a secret ballot; I can
either not donate recorded amounts, or donate to both, or even donate one
way and vote the other (yeah, yeah, which do we think has more effect;
anyway.) Your acquiescense to methods and procedures that facilitate voter
analysis and vote selling, does not make it right or legal.

A cast ballot is not completely secret unless it is completely anonymous.
If there is a serial number, barcoded or whatever, it should be separated,
like a tear-off stub, before the ballot is cast or counted (or scanned)  I
might even accept scanning with the barcode masked, as long as it is
ultimately detached before any possible point of association between the
barcode value and the vote selections (but just use Occam's (Ockham's?)
Razor: cut off the number before it leaves the voter's hands.

And if you still don't understand the concept of a secret ballot, why aren't
you living in American instead of the Third World?

--
Pete Klammer, P.E. / ACM(1970), IEEE, ICCP(CCP), NSPE(PE), NACSE(NSNE)
   3200 Routt Street / Wheat Ridge, Colorado 80033-5452
 (303)233-9485 / Fax:(303)274-6182 / Mailto:PKlammer@xxxxxxx
   "Either Be Good, or Else Be Careful, but Do Have Fun! "

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Woods [mailto:greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 8:47 AM
To: ralphs@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: Mary Eberle; paul.tiger@xxxxxxxxxxxx; Mcgrath, Bob___PI_Mkt; 'LPBC
Chairman'; AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx; Citizens for Verifiable Voting; Carol
Mehesy; Donna Plutschuck; Monty Lambie; Pete Klammer; Peter Raich; Tracy
Abell; Tom Halicki; Nancy Jo Wurl; board@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;
chair@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; chair@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [board] Voting in secret; Off topic

On Mon, 2004-08-09 at 18:24, Ralph Shnelvar wrote:

> In this nation and in Colorado there are the wretched Fair Campaign
> Practices Act (FCPA) laws that have been enacted.
> 
> If you want to know how someone may have voted, just go to the Secretary
of
> States website and check to see who made what contributions. 

I couldn't agree more. As Treasurer of a minor county-level political
party, the FCPA has made my job *much* harder. I have to figure out how
to fill out these damned forms, and the FCPA reporting is about five
times as much work as just keeping the books for our bank account. And
all that work is for nothing, because it doesn't give anyone any useful
information either. Everyone who contributed to us is already a
registered Libertarian. Whoopee ding, what a surprise; Libertarians
contribute to the Libertarian Party of Boulder County. Although not as
much as they used to since we now have to report them to Big Brother
when they do.

On the flip side, the major parties have armies of paid accountants and
lawyers who are trained in how to fill out the forms and are paid to do
so. While I have no doubt that the major parties do follow the letter of
the law, I also have no doubt that their accountants and lawyers can
find ways to get around the rules so that they can still get all the
same contributions they always did. The FCPA accomplishes nothing except
to burden all of us with more paperwork.

-- 
Greg Woods <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>