Voting system and difficulties with democracy.

[stan.distortion]

Continued from this discussion:
https://dashtalk.org/threads/development-update-june-2-2015.5070/page-3#post-55764

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This may be a little off topic but one more thing that has been on my mind is vote bribery.



Should votes be anonymous to prevent MNOs from selling their votes to third-parties (lobbyists)? I believe James D'Angelo from World Bitcoin Network(WBN) calls this "The Cardboard Box Reform". Here is a great video from WBN's YouTube channel discussing the matter:

Another of his relevant to that:

I'd guess that depends on the level of anonymity achievable with masternodes on the one hand (good imho) and the acceptability of selling votes on the other. Personally I'd have nothing against folks openly selling votes because there's nothing we can do about it so its going to happen regardless, its better out in the open than hidden away.

I'd also imagine scale is an issue there, with 2600 masternodes it wouldn't take a whole lot to buy a vote but a system for group participation in masternodes, a savings bank type arrangement built into clients, would get much higher numbers involved and make buying votes much harder. Imho something like that's a really important feature in the future but for now I'd guess there will be more than enough issues to iron out with a few thousand.

 

[fulltimegeek]

Continued from this discussion:
https://dashtalk.org/threads/development-update-june-2-2015.5070/page-3#post-55764

Last post:


Another of his relevant to that:

I'd guess that depends on the level of anonymity achievable with masternodes on the one hand (good imho) and the acceptability of selling votes on the other. Personally I'd have nothing against folks openly selling votes because there's nothing we can do about it so its going to happen regardless, its better out in the open than hidden away.

I'd also imagine scale is an issue there, with 2600 masternodes it wouldn't take a whole lot to buy a vote but a system for group participation in masternodes, a savings bank type arrangement built into clients, would get much higher numbers involved and make buying votes much harder. Imho something like that's a really important feature in the future but for now I'd guess there will be more than enough issues to iron out with a few thousand.

Another outstanding video by James that I had not seen. He articulates the problem of open voting quite well and I believe the entire Dash community needs to be aware of this problem.

I'm not sure how much anonymization can be done to obscure the votes but if Dash can anonymize money I'm sure there is a way to anonymize a vote. I think the sooner we start tackling this problem the better and not let it linger.

From my current understanding of the Dash government, there seems to be two major issues:

1. MOB RULE --- The proposal with the most YES can obtain 100% of the proposal budget. (To be confirmed. Waiting on Evan to reiterate/explain proposal election)
2. OPEN VOTING -- Votes are public which has always attracted bribery.

 

[stan.distortion]

Another outstanding video by James that I had not seen. He articulates the problem of open voting quite well and I believe the entire Dash community needs to be aware of this problem.

I'm not sure how much anonymization can be done to obscure the votes but if Dash can anonymize money I'm sure there is a way to anonymize a vote. I think the sooner we start tackling this problem the better and not let it linger.

From my current understanding of the Dash government, there seems to be two major issues:

1. MOB RULE --- The proposal with the most YES can obtain 100% of the proposal budget. (To be confirmed. Waiting on Evan to reiterate/explain proposal election)
2. OPEN VOTING -- Votes are public which has always attracted bribery.

Quoting the one you posted again, well worth a look and I distracted from it with that other:

About 36 min in, just wanted to note a few things:
Lots of other things where happening between the 40s and 70s that would effect that curve, its a good argument but imho there wasn't one single cause.
Darkvote!! It can be done
Mobile phone cameras would allow it to creep in again, if it really was such a powerful problem then I'd have thought there would be at least rumours of it happening by now considering the sort of money thrown at lobbying, maybe it is and its certainly one to watch out for.
Darkvote!!
...

I can think of a few ways hidden voting could work but tbh, I'd rather not suggest any. I'm sure its something Evan has considered and if not I've no doubt that the devs will come up with something impressive. Just getting the thing up and running would matter most imho, those sort of points are a fundemental of the electoral functions but they're fine tuning in terms of platform functions, there will be a lot of issues simply with building a scalable platform and I doubt anyone has an issue with corrections being made as problems show up.

EDIT: Sorry, just realised that sounds like a brushoff of the subject. Its not, I'm not up to date with how dashs voting systems is being implemented and can't really get a grip on how they'd fit in until I either do a heap of reading or get to poke at something and see how it works.

 

[fulltimegeek]

Quoting the one you posted again, well worth a look and I distracted from it with that other:

About 36 min in, just wanted to note a few things:
Lots of other things where happening between the 40s and 70s that would effect that curve, its a good argument but imho there wasn't one single cause.
Darkvote!! It can be done
Mobile phone cameras would allow it to creep in again, if it really was such a powerful problem then I'd have thought there would be at least rumours of it happening by now considering the sort of money thrown at lobbying, maybe it is and its certainly one to watch out for.
Darkvote!!
...

I can think of a few ways hidden voting could work but tbh, I'd rather not suggest any. I'm sure its something Evan has considered and if not I've no doubt that the devs will come up with something impressive. Just getting the thing up and running would matter most imho, those sort of points are a fundemental of the electoral functions but they're fine tuning in terms of platform functions, there will be a lot of issues simply with building a scalable platform and I doubt anyone has an issue with corrections being made as problems show up.

Darkvote™

haha. I like the sound of that.

I do agree with your point that there are other contributing factors to our government's detriment. The root problem is human nature -- greed. Open voting just optimized it. This is why we need to create a system that works out every angle so we don't put ourselves in a corner.

 

[stan.distortion]

Darkvote™

haha. I like the sound of that.

I do agree with your point that there are other contributing factors to our government's detriment. The root problem is human nature -- greed. Open voting just optimized it. This is why we need to create a system that works out every angle so we don't put ourselves in a corner.

True, after finishing watching that I'd consider making tools available is the real issue rather than trying to define rules on what procedures should be used. The main reason for that is he's not distinguishing between issues of scale and even contradicts himself at one point, he both argues the merits of purely representative democracy and highlights the vulnerabilities of putting a large amount of power in a small number of hands, the ease of buying a small number over a far greater number and the overwhelmingly large amount of issues that small number have to deal with requiring them to seek outside opinion. Why not let the greater decide who's best to represent them on different issues? Imho the kind of representative democracy we use is at least a century out of date and should have changed dramatically with every innovation in communications since the telegraph, its very foundations are based on inefficiency of communications and we're long past the point when a few representatives can claim understanding of all the issues they're likely to face. (If) the lobbyists are the problem so we should be choosing the lobbyists, choosing who's point of view we support on the issues being lobbied.

That's just my humble opinion though, having the tools to throw out a vote on it, to say who can vote on it, the percentages needed, open or closed, to let someone else cast mine with theirs, for someone to pick that lot up and create their version of it with a few tweaks... really that's a lot bigger thing than just a voting platform, its a discussion platform, identity system, an entire network of stuff that could evolve into god only know what.

 

[AnarchicCluster]

Has anybody here read "The Myth of Rational Voter" by Bryan Caplan. It was on NYT bestseller list for a long time. I think it is pretty accurate and well researched book on why democracy doesn't work. You can google his talks on this topic or find a pdf online. It is wroth giving it a read.

 

[stan.distortion]

Has anybody here read "The Myth of Rational Voter" by Bryan Caplan. It was on NYT bestseller list for a long time. I think it is pretty accurate and well researched book on why democracy doesn't work. You can google his talks on this topic or find a pdf online. It is wroth giving it a read.

So much to read and so little time :/ Thanks Only on the first chapter but well worth a look so far, makes me think of things like Sarkozy getting elected in France by lining middle class pockets and Cameron in the UK by... well, a borked voting system mainly but sucking up to the UKs bloated and unruly financial industry certainly helped, elections won through self-interest over national interest. It'll likely have some interesting insights, cheers
---

Trying to get my head around how the voting system has been implemented at the mo, hadn't really been keeping up and I'd assumed a "vote with your wallet" type setup would be used, let masternodes have control of the of (total/MN count) of the funds to forward to whatever of the approved project addresses they please. That would allow hidden voting via darksend but would need extra layers to handle the proposals, discussion etc.

Seems its being handled as a layer of its own though:
https://dashtalk.org/threads/vote-s...vernance-by-blockchain.4825/page-4#post-53665
I'd guess that works out far simpler in the long run but would something like vote mixing be possible? Any more info on how its being implemented and if not can someone point me towards the relevant sections in the code? Those points raised by fulltimegeek are good ones and I'm a bit worried they could be in the fundementals of the system.