OFFICIAL Petition for the Mods re Presidential Election

notyoueither · July 18, 2002, 03:07

Proposal. The mods (MarkG) should post the list of voters in the most recent presidential election. We feel it would be helpful to see the list of Apolyton users who voted.

The list should not show votes cast. Nobody has proposed that revealing the actual votes would be helpful at this point. In fact it could undermine President Ninot and possibly make things worse.

Yes means that we wish MarkG to reveal the voter list while maintaining the secret ballot.

No means that we do not wish MarkG to reveal any information that we do not already know (no list at all should be posted).

This official poll will run 4 days (96 hours from this post).

This poll is labeled as official as it is intended to be the official will of the people of Apolytonia. Of course, what is official for us does not oblige any mod (or god) to do anything. We are merely expressing our will.

Discussion of the issues surrounding the presidential election may be found here:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=55924
and in many other places.

Important: It would be desirable for each voter to state their vote in this poll as a post in this thread as well as a selection in the check boxes. Registered citizens are not yet explicitly accorded special voting status in the constitution. However, it would be good to know who is making these decisions.

MrWhereItsAt · July 18, 2002, 03:22

nye has my support.

Publish that voter list!

kring · July 18, 2002, 03:26

One of the nice things about a democracy, at least a true one, is the secret ballot.

To request people to state their vote goes against a secret ballot concept.

Also, to release the voter list, regardless of whether or not you list how people voted also goes against a secret ballot.

I don't think your intent is to scare people from voting, but that will be the result. How many people currently don't vote due to the large number of polls? Esp. when some of them are re repeat polls?

I would much rather see effort go into posting an amendment (sorry if there is one and I missed it) to limit voting to only citizens or all members of ACS if that be the will of the masses, and having the mods ensure that noncitizen votes are deleted if the first option wins. Also, how long does a citizen have to be a citizen before they can vote in polls if the first option wins?

What would the purpose of such revealing do? I could see if the issue of the Presidency was in doubt (aside from one dissenter last time I looked) bringing this issue up.

Nubclear · July 18, 2002, 05:38

Quote:

Originally posted by kring
One of the nice things about a democracy, at least a true one, is the secret ballot.

To request people to state their vote goes against a secret ballot concept.

Also, to release the voter list, regardless of whether or not you list how people voted also goes against a secret ballot.

I don't think your intent is to scare people from voting, but that will be the result. How many people currently don't vote due to the large number of polls? Esp. when some of them are re repeat polls?

I would much rather see effort go into posting an amendment (sorry if there is one and I missed it) to limit voting to only citizens or all members of ACS if that be the will of the masses, and having the mods ensure that noncitizen votes are deleted if the first option wins. Also, how long does a citizen have to be a citizen before they can vote in polls if the first option wins?

What would the purpose of such revealing do? I could see if the issue of the Presidency was in doubt (aside from one dissenter last time I looked) bringing this issue up.

Although initially I supported this, I have to agree with kring. What purpose would come of it?

Vlad Antlerkov · July 18, 2002, 06:48

I support NYE. We cannot afford for this election to have been tainted by nonmembers. If we don't do this, we may see some damage come to the office of the presidency.

I don't doubt that Ninot will be a great president, but I do have a sliver of doubt that he is a legitimate president. We need to put this election beyond all reasonable doubt.

(BTW-- can the admins really do that?)

DAVOUT · July 18, 2002, 07:15

Quote:

Originally posted by kring

Also, to release the voter list, regardless of whether or not you list how people voted also goes against a secret ballot.

I am afraid this is not true ; I know at least one democracy where the list of all voters, indicating whether they have voted or no, can be consulted by anybody after the vote. This is required for further controls by any individual or political party interested.

theViking · July 18, 2002, 07:51

Go ahead. Show the list of voters. (BTW In Australia voting is Compulsory).

disorganizer · July 18, 2002, 08:08

once again, the abstain is missing ;-)

Torkkeli · July 18, 2002, 09:16

I have nothing against it... I'm sure you see me voting

GodKing · July 18, 2002, 09:26

I don't care at this point. I don't think it will do us any good to know, as a public.

The only thing I would suggest is to give Ninot the list of the names of persons who are not registered, so that he may PM them and ask them to join.

I myself would be happy to tell who I voted for, but I strongly disagree with forcing anybody to do so.

Spiffor · July 18, 2002, 09:30

I hesitated at this one.
On the one hand, we hurt secret ballot (we won't only know who voted, but who people voted for), and we reopen the presidential Pandora Box we had so many problems to close.

But on the other hand, I was convinced by Vlad : we must get rid of all doubts.

Jon Shafer · July 18, 2002, 09:33

Why not.

We could find out how many people really were citizens, and the extent of the problem.

The only thing revealed would be who voted, not what they voted. So why not?

Ninot · July 18, 2002, 09:45

What would happen if the new and improved vote results went Trips way? Would he take his job back?

What if he didnt want to come back if it should come to that? Am I to be impeached?

I voted no, but only because i figure there has been enough official controversy to this election already.

Spiffor · July 18, 2002, 09:50

Quote:

Originally posted by MarkG
out of 127 voters, 10 registered after the start of the poll. from that, no traces of DL were found, except from one account linked to one candidate but we currently think it's a friend or something like that. no IP match was found

what should be more disturbing is that only 95 of the voters have signed-up on official join thread

eitherway, there are no signs of someone fixing the vote. i'm now looking into a system connecting the democracy games registration process with voting

If we are to know how many unregistered people voted, we already know that. I thought you wanted to ask Markos who people voted for. It's dirty, but it's the only way to get rid of all doubts.

Epistax · July 18, 2002, 09:56

I voted yes, because it would set a precedent in the future for checking a hotly debated election. This particular election is over. Even if it turned out 50 of Ninot's votes were from random people (I am sure this is not true), we wouldn't change anything.

This does nothing to infringe of secret ballots- we won't know who you voted for. Most of the regulars state quite plainly when they voted, and now some of them don't want people to know? So why not?

It cannot change this election, it might save a future election, and no privacy is being lost.

trickey · July 18, 2002, 10:12

I voted no. People have a right to secrecy (sp?). That should be enough siad. Although i would like to see the resultes of the poll with only the votes of members counting, i feel that this isnt the way to go about it.

I also think the list of voters should not be made public because people did not know about this before they voted. I fell that the list should be made public next election, but it muts be made clear before the vote, that the list will be made public.

Jon Shafer · July 18, 2002, 10:15

Or maybe we could just ask Markos to see how many of the voters were members and give us the # instead?

trickey · July 18, 2002, 10:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Trip
Or maybe we could just ask Markos to see how many of the voters were members and give us the # instead?

much better idea.

Spiffor · July 18, 2002, 10:19

Trip : read the quote in 2 posts above yours. Markos already answered. The only thing we don't know is for whom people voted.

Jon Shafer · July 18, 2002, 10:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Spiffor
Trip : read the quote in 2 posts above yours. Markos already answered. The only thing we don't know is for whom people voted.

I know, but he hasn't done it now that it's over. I'm sure the # of illigitimate voters has increased a lot. Maybe up over 40 or so now.

Papa Chubby · July 18, 2002, 10:36

What is wrong with getting a list of the people that voted. Such lists are maintained in most democratic countries, there would be members of different political parties noting down who votes. We are not talking about making public what each voter voted, but what users voted, thats not so bad. Another controversial issue is whether we should do a recount with only the members of the democracy game counting. Yet there is nothing in our code of laws that suggests that you have to be a member of the democracy game to vote, there are other talking about double voting tainting the election. This might be true, and is certainly immoral, but there is nothing that prohibits such actions taking place. Not at least from the standpoint of our code of laws.

sabrewolf · July 18, 2002, 10:48

you're only allowed to publish the list if the people know in ADVANCE that it's public.

however, to check validity, someone NEUTRAL (neither ministers, nor oppositionists) could check that list and evaluate, e.g.
trip vs. ninot
settlers/cheftains: 20 vs. 2
warlords/princes: 10 vs. 10
kings/deities: 15 vs. 20
that could mean, there's some cheating going on.

but i think, votes should be under disclosure otherwise...

Kuciwalker · July 18, 2002, 10:49

YES

Sirotnikov · July 18, 2002, 11:24

Quote:

Yes means that we wish MarkG to reveal the voter list while maintaining the secret ballot.

to this i vote Yea

The Dark Lord · July 18, 2002, 12:30

Yes. Although it does not matter regarding the Presidential issue, it will help us know if it was legitimate or not... wait...that doesn't even make sense...

It will also work as a nice member census, but that is besides the point.

And if it doesn't show our vote, it doesn't matter if the list is published. This does not violate the rules of a secret ballot...IMNSHO.

Schee · July 18, 2002, 12:45

No. Only persons who are already registered to the Democracy game should be allowed to vote, but even if I voted I don't want the list to be revealed, its a principle of the Democracy.
And I disagree with sabrewolf, it could be a good system but everybody must be equal in front of the law.

kring · July 18, 2002, 13:39

Quote:

Originally posted by trickey
I voted no. People have a right to secrecy (sp?). That should be enough siad. Although i would like to see the resultes of the poll with only the votes of members counting, i feel that this isnt the way to go about it.

I also think the list of voters should not be made public because people did not know about this before they voted. I fell that the list should be made public next election, but it muts be made clear before the vote, that the list will be made public.

I would agree with this one; if we did have the risk of voting becoming known, regardless of whether or not the actual vote itself was revealed, it would hurt us more than help us.

Trip's suggestion about just giving the numbers, I would also support. The problem there is the Constitution does not state citizens only can vote. I usually vote (til now, may change that to not voting and cancelling citizenship) but I rarely advertise that I voted. Sometimes I post and vote later. Sometimes, I vote and post. Sometimes I vote, but no post; sometimes post, but don't vote (the latter is usually due to too many polls in too many places).

Timeline · July 18, 2002, 13:43

If the list is released, yet secret ballot is maintained, it will not allow us to see who voted for who, correct?

Then it will be impossible to see which way the election would've went without the unregistered voters.

It will only tell us how many unregistered people voted, and we already know that. Also, many of them have since signed up, so it will be even more work to figure out who was a member at the time of the start of the poll and who was not.

In my opinion, this list will be useless. But then again, it can't really cause any harm either.

I vote no, but do not strongly oppose the idea.

Kuciwalker · July 18, 2002, 13:48

There's no reason to vote no.

kring · July 18, 2002, 13:48

It can cause harm, it will discourage some people from voting. I don't usually say when I vote because I see no point in it. If a person is required to state how s/he has voted (ESP. how s/he voted as has been suggested), or be on a list where anyone (outside of a duly appointed/elected election commission), then the numbers of active voters will go down.

Another harm will be once the Pandora's box is open, how soon before it opens all the way?