RE: What would Smart Ballots and Kamikaze voters mean to Democracy?
I love how this hits so close to home during this upcoming election.
John and his wife have a huge fight about whether they should vote and if so, who they should vote for. John recognizes that the only two candidates with a chance of winning are evil and agree on the important issues. John’s wife has an opinion on which one is “less evil”.
To me this boils down to Trump, Hillary, and Gary Johnson. I agree with John's wife that even if you dislike both or all three candidates, you should still decide to vote on whichever candidate you find least evil.
I understand that John wishes to cancel his wife's vote, but instead of doing this, I would have hoped he would have searched his heart to find his own least evil candidate instead of just negating his wife's vote.
If this were put on a grander scale, I feel that many people would just not vote at all and I believe this is a big problem with our current system. But at the same time, those who don't vote should not pretend to be superior for saying they didn't choose the candidate in office so they are not responsible. To me, a choice not to vote is in itself a vote (if that makes sense) It is neutral, but would have made another candidates vote +1 and instead did not.
And even if you don't feel any candidates warrant your vote, I feel it is a disservice to American soldiers who gave up their lives for this right.
I do find your smart ballot proposal to be fascinating and will have to weigh my beliefs about it. I'm initially in favor, but will need time to break it don and completely formulate my thoughts.
I hope a new system gets put in place to prevent the debacle there was in Bush vs. Gore in Florida. Does anyone really know if their vote was accurately accounted for? I'm hoping the blockchain technology will be used to cover voting for future elections once it has been completely adopted by the public as the internet is today.
Since the blockchain is immutable you could see and verify exactly how your vote was processed and could integrate smart ballots as proposed.
Thanks @dantheman for a thought-provoking article that while technical, had enough analogies and examples for everyone tp understand most if not all of it.