Asking the Right Questions About Electronic Voting (2006) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2 Public Confidence in Elections
2 Public Confidence in Elections
Pages 29-33
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 29... ...
defines democracy as "government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives."1 Given the central importance of elections to democracy, it is axiomatic that elections are high-stakes affairs. The stakes are further increased by the majority-rule nature of most elections in the United States -- in principle, even one vote out of tens of millions cast can determine the outcome of an election, because victory depends only on a candidate winning a majority (or a plurality)
|
From page 30... ...
Perhaps most significantly, political campaigns and debates today are rancorous and bitter, a throwback to the political climate that existed in the United States over 100 years ago. This rancor sets the tone for much of the following: · Most governors and state officials are elected from the ranks of one party or another.
|
From page 31... ...
That is, a trusted election process is one that works, can be shown to have worked after the election has been held, can be shown to have not been manipulated and to have not led to a large number of mistaken or lost votes, and can be shown to reflect the intent of the voters. To the extent that there is a provable and factual basis for calling an election trusted, there is at least a chance that more people will consider the election fair, even if their side lost.
|
From page 32... ...
In an election with one vote cast, no degree of secrecy is possible. In an election with three votes cast and a 2 to 1 winning margin, the single person casting the minority vote has less privacy than a voter casting a vote for the minority side in an election in which 300 votes are cast and the winning margin is 200 to 100.
|
From page 33... ...
made sense when the number of voters participating in elections was small -- with small elections, errors could be minimized enough that recounts could be expected to result in more accurate vote counts even in very close elections. But as the number of voters in an election increases, it is inevitable that the potential for miscounts of some sort will also grow.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.