[governance] ICANN/USG Affirmation of Commitments

Wed Oct 14 10:51:39 EDT 2009

On 10/14/09, David Allen <David_Allen_AB63 at post.harvard.edu> wrote:
>> What the Internet has enabled is to add a layer which can combine
>> representative with participatory democracy.
>
> I believe there is very little evidence to this effect.

The intersection of the internet and democracy, specifically at the
nexus of voting and voting systems, is the core of my area of
specialization.  Although the internet can have (or not, as David
Allen suggests) a great role in increasing transparency such as by
making documents available for download and facilitating feedback
loops, the application of the internet specifically to voting is a
world class disaster if one cares about the preservation of real
democracy.  As applied to voting, for example, computerization is
inherently non-transparent because the vote counting is invisible, and
perhaps even more importantly, the DOJ election crimes division
specifies a sensible time period of SIX MONTHS to obtain eletronic
evidence and make a charging decision regarding a computerized
election crime, but the statute of limitations for challenging an
election ranges between ten days and no more than two months at the
outer limit.  For those who remember the US SUpreme Court case of Bush
v. Gore, the clock was deemed to run out of time on December 13, 2000,
just a little over a month after the election. After the statute of
limitations has run the interest in finality of elections, for good or
bad, trumps the interest in accuracy of elections.   Thus, it's not
really reasonably possible to correct any errors in a computerized
count in a timely fashion, regardless of whether it is via
computerized evidence (6 months, if evidence is even disclosed fully)
or via recount of a paper ballot (Bush v. Gore, just over 1 month).

All a voting system can do, its only job, is to give us transparency
and therefore  evidence of any problems, errors or frauds that may
occur.  It's up to humans and the legal system to act upon the errors,
and to do so in a timely manner, both of which often don't occur.
It's critical to "get it right on election night" and before newspaper
headlines declare winners, and alleged "sore losers" who are highly
disincentivized to bring a challenge, and yet since winners don't look
a gift hourse in the mouth, only the "losers" can protect the
integrity of the election, but they are under heavy pressure not to do
so.

The only solution is a transparent FIRST count -- protections for
election integrity simply cannot put all or really any significant
number of eggs in the post-election basket.  In the USA, the
post-election recount process is often stymied before completion, has
only worked in fact twice in 30 years to change a statewide election
result, and challenges that ought to be brought never are because of
political pressures, and even those that are often are not timely
brought or timely completed.  The post-election "remedies" of audits
and recounts and such are nothing to bet democracy and election
integrity on.

To move to the internet for voting specifically means the total
non-transparency and total "privatization" of the voting process.
There's no transparency in the home or wherever the ballot is voted
(granting the private ballot is entitled to be, since the only ballot
that can be messed up is one's own, and one's entitled to do that...),
no transparency in the transit of the ballot, nor in its counting or
tabulation, all of which is invisible per the nature of computers, and
claimed as a trade secret
as well to defeat transparency even in a litigated election contest.

In elections, every voter and especially every insider has a motive
and opportunity to cheat -- and even every non-voter is significantly
affected by election results and consequent government policy (such as
taxes).  There's no "safe" private place for ballots to be, and the
only "privacy" that's legitimate in elections is the privacy where one
is isolated with one's own ballot and no one else's.

Thus, even if internet voting was somehow proven safe and untamperable
(a proposition any informed computer scientist will say is literally
IMPOSSIBLE to achieve), it's very inappropriate for any democratic
society.  Governments run the very elections that determine their own
power and composition - kind of the ultimate conflict of interest, or
nearly so.  To make the vote count invisible to nearly everyone except
the government and its vendors is a recipe for disaster, since the
only thing we can know with certainty about the election result is
that there's literally no rational basis for confidence in the result.

The reason I say strongly there's "no rational basis for confidence"
in the results of nontransparent vote counts is that mere conclusory
final results are "transparently" reported as they pop out of
computerized counting processes, but in court any conclusion or final
opinion made triggers in all other interested parties the right to
examine the underlying data to confirm the result for themselves.
Thus, every expert opinion must disclose their data and analyses.
THis data, in computerized vote counts, is not available timely, its
understandable only to a few, is claimed protected from all disclosure
by trade secret laws, and literally never sees the light of day. Thus,
all we have are "magic numbers" for ballots that pop out of black
boxes.  As long as the number of ballots equals the number of voters,
the percentages can be freely made up within reason -- there's no
evidence that any count of the VOTES occurred at all -- only a count
of the ballots as a whole, not the individual races.

Elections are supposed to create confidence AFTER the election's
checks and balances have all been reviewed.  There are no meaningful
checks with internet based voting, and no evidence to support the
results.  No thinking person can have a RATIONAL basis for confidence
in the results - one can only have faith that the government has not
chosen to protect itself, and that nobody else with a few minutes of
access has chosen to change the results or insert an appropriate virus
or trojan horse.

That being said, internet voting is wonderful for pure entertainment
purposes on the internet, but even then I know lots of people who
speak of stuffing the internet ballot box even for a meaningless
unscienfific internet "poll" because they want to see their side win.
One can only imagine the risk if we up the ante just slightly from
"informal unscientific poll" to a real election for control of, say,
the world's sole military superpower via the presidency of the USA.
Gee -- think anyone might have an incentive and motivation to cheat
there???

Paul Lehto, Juris Doctor

Paul Lehto, Juris Doctor

>
> The Internet, like other electronic media, _can_ speed up the feedback
> loops, from governed to those governing, and in the reverse
> direction.  Whether that occurs and has effect on those governing
> turns, as usual, on the humans in the loops.  Are they engaged?  do
> they care?  do they respond? etc, etc.
>
> There are plenty of modern day cases, such as the miraculous turn
> around in US administrations where all the old verities still, so
> sadly, apply - polarized hard right versus hard left, etc.
>
> And the 'representatives' still make the decisions.  Just as one for
> instance, financial interests in the US still call those shots,
> through the elected 'representatives,' never mind a near-death
> experience aka almost-a-Depression.
>
>> The principle of multistakeholderism is the very concrete outcome of
>> this development.
>
> Again, I believe an accurate analysis sees the emergence of other than
> state actors onto the governance stage as part of a complicated
> evolution over quite some time.  Certainly, technologies play some
> part.  But numerous factors play a part, certainly, in cases, with
> much more impact than comms tech.
>
> Blithe propositions, elevating our favorite stuff, are tempting.  But
> somewhat more grounded analysis may well serve us more accurately.
>
> David
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-- 
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box #1
Ishpeming, MI  49849
lehto.paul at gmail.com
906-204-4026
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