Hard Questions for Bytemaster

[donkeypong]

This ALTERNATIVE gives the people a VOICE even if the government ignores it, everyone will hear it.

So a grassroots effort is appealing to people that want a VOICE, that want CHANGE, and that want the government to adopt what we have produced.

Now we can offer an alternative, "Don't vote at the polls, file a protest vote at FMV".   

I hope it works. I really do. But I see VOTE's primary utility as being a trustworthy system that is easier for people to use than traditional voting methods. And I think it will take some media spotlight to really highlight that. In the U.S., the next real opportunity would be the U.S. Presidential primaries in Spring 2016. If California is a test case, where I happen to live and work, then ballot initiatives provide another opportunity to test this out, but again that test will not come until the Fall of 2016, since every interest group in this state is waiting until then to run its next round. I think BitShares VOTE is a longer term proposition.

Your suggestion that FMV can be a protest vote instead of real voting is dangerous. Anyone who opposes us will feed that line to the media and they'll eat it up alive. Also, if you think politicians will listen to votes here, when someone has given up voting at the polls, that's an approach I cannot support. How is that different from ~70% of young people being in favor of legalizing marijuana (according to national public opinion polls in the U.S.), but few of them bothering to vote in elections that count? That's EXACTLY what the corrupt politicians who have passed all these voter ID laws want younger people to do: pack it in and stop participating. Advocating that is wrong.

Encourage people to do BOTH (vote here and there) and you'll end up with more votes here. I think will happen longer term, since VOTE will be more user friendly, and still trustworthy. And there you have a winner: this is a better system that can produce a higher turnout. THAT's what this has going for it.

As for politicians taking note of growing numbers of people making their opinions known through BitShares VOTE, we have public opinion polls for that, and they still don't care, because the half of those people who want things different don't vote anyway. I don't think that the added reliability of a blockchain is going to add that much weight in most peoples' minds to what could just as easily be surveyed (by pollsters who account for demographic variations and produce a pretty accurate snapshot).

Very few politicians have national constituencies anyway. They are looking at voters in the state/province or population-based district they represent. A candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Georgia doesn't care what I think in California, just as a member of the House of Representatives in Texas is going to listen only to the people in the few counties that are in his/her district (which, by the way, is drawn by a politically motivated crowd and probably skewed so that the politicians already knows he/she represents an extremely liberal or conservative set of constituents). They'll discount it anyway unless they know who is making the votes (down to the age, gender, party registration, and all that). If it's mostly oyunger voters, then that's a very partial snapshot. Are BitShares VOTE voters going to be demographically broken down to that point?

Listen, I want you guys to go for it. I'm rooting for success here. I have high hopes for the VOTE feature. But without understanding the thing very well (which I admit), I think the best prospects are long term and I don't see that as a primary way to get people into BitShares DAC.

As a "cornerstone" of marketing, I think those BitShares TV videos are a far better use of time.

[oco101]

I could see that plan working. Making people vote in a parallel transparent, anonymous and trustless system it is exciting. Giving back their power and trust is priceless. New Mine questions are very good and raise valid issues  but I think the FMV strategy has a very fair probability that it will work  because they not gonna fight the system they offer a alternative as an experiment. I think making people vote on FMV that's Adam power and his marketing experience will come in handy.
 
I agree with Bytemaster is  much more easy to market Voting that Bitshares  simply because everybody get it and is affected by it and they know that they have a voice, money in the other hand, everybody use it but very few understand it and people believes they have no power to change nothing.

I'm not sure  that's a good strategy to reveal the plans in advance. There  are organisation and companys that have the legal and financials resources to just crash about anything in sight very easily, the only way to beat them is to be clever. Think at how many startup are in stealth mode, because if they don't do it that way, someone more powerful and resourceful will steal the idea and run with it.

If Vote will work then transition to Bitshares will be a piece of cake. If people trust Vote they will trust Bitshares, if this plans come together this the sure  way to make Btshares whatever we all dream it up to be.

[Tuck Fheman]

Just 36.4 percent of the voting-eligible population cast ballots in 2014 which means the elected officials are operating on approval of less than 19% of the population (on average).

Yep, I blogged about this back in 2012. Obama was 18.x% if I remember correctly.

[Empirical1.1]

My concern when I first saw this, is that it could affect Voter privacy. Provided the system doesn't make it possible to determine who you voted for very easily though, it could be quite good.

Isn't the whole idea that the voting is anonymized, but you can use your private key to look up who you voted for and verify that it was counted correctly, or something like that?

This way both privacy and accuracy are assured?

Yeah it seems that way, which is great. I haven't looked into it much. I was recalling earlier discussions about Vote selling and effects on voter privacy - https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10057.msg131114#msg131114

I just remembered that when I saw the VOTE discussion here, none of that may be particularly relevant now.

[speedy]

FMV stands for "Follow My Vote". It was a DAC concept that is being folded into BTS.

Thanks!

[donkeypong]

We do not care *if* governments accept our voting solution.   Our business model for VOTE is independent of government acceptance.

That is good to hear .. I was concerned about this and IMHO we should communicate this accordingly

If you bring it straight to the people and hold a parallel election and offer them a compelling goal:  help us achieve higher voter turnout than traditional elections and restore integrity to the process then government will have no choice but to pay attention or fight it.    Either way it brings massive media attention to the cause.

Just 36.4 percent of the voting-eligible population cast ballots in 2014 which means the elected officials are operating on approval of less than 19% of the population (on average).   If you factor in that many of their votes were really "votes against" the other guy you have a situation where only about 10% of the voting population actually supports the people in office.   

So if we can petition the government directly and call for honest voting and gain over 10% voter turnout we can start to claim that we have a mandate from the people.   

So how can we get to 10% voter turnout without government mandate to use our system?   It is a multi step process but it involves making people believe they can have a greater impact for their cause by voting in our system than by going to the polls.

Some research suggests that over 10% of the population is not confident their vote is counted correctly.   Ron Paul scored support of 10% of the republican primary and most of his supporters are very much aware of how rigged the process is. 

So we can turn this into a campaign issue.  Does your candidate support or encourage honest voting.  Every time a voting controversy pops up it is an opportunity to win converts who decide to "opt out" of the official process (reducing official voter turnout) and "opt in" to our new process.

So each person we can convince to abandon the existing system (vote against it) and join our system (vote for it) gives us 2x bang for the buck.   Suppose we can score 3% of voters who opt-out today, 3% of voters who use both systems, and 3% of voters who switch?  Voter turnout would fall to 30% and our turnout would be 9%. 

The key here is to make voting so easy and provide some alternative benefits to encourage participation and referrals that it spreads.    It is much easier to market voting than BitShares.   But once you get them hooked on voting, the conversion to BTS is much easier. 

Anyway, we have a solution that costs governments (taxpayers) nothing provides "free voting" and saves lives.   We have a very compelling pitch for voting (we haven't revealed it all yet).   So politicians can gain a lot of political capital by supporting our efforts but it will be very costly to attack a provably fair, private, and honest election process.

After all voting is 90% about expressing your opinion for everyone else to see and 10% about actually selecting a candidate.   We are selling people a "voice" where the current system leaves people powerless to express it.

Thanks for illuminating us on this strategy. I'm not convinced that getting people to vote is any easier than getting them interested in BitUSD. The latter, I think, has many more applications. But I agree that this is the right way to promote the VOTE aspect of BitShares. It's okay; don't bother giving me any credit for coming up with it (or at least predicting what you guys were developing). I'm humble! 

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10057.msg131417#msg131417

[Ander]

My concern when I first saw this, is that it could affect Voter privacy. Provided the system doesn't make it possible to determine who you voted for very easily though, it could be quite good.

Isn't the whole idea that the voting is anonymized, but you can use your private key to look up who you voted for and verify that it was counted correctly, or something like that?

This way both privacy and accuracy are assured?

[Empirical1.1]

We do not care *if* governments accept our voting solution.   Our business model for VOTE is independent of government acceptance.

That is good to hear .. I was concerned about this and IMHO we should communicate this accordingly

If you bring it straight to the people and hold a parallel election and offer them a compelling goal:  help us achieve higher voter turnout than traditional elections and restore integrity to the process then government will have no choice but to pay attention or fight it.    Either way it brings massive media attention to the cause.

Just 36.4 percent of the voting-eligible population cast ballots in 2014 which means the elected officials are operating on approval of less than 19% of the population (on average).   If you factor in that many of their votes were really "votes against" the other guy you have a situation where only about 10% of the voting population actually supports the people in office.   

So if we can petition the government directly and call for honest voting and gain over 10% voter turnout we can start to claim that we have a mandate from the people.   

So how can we get to 10% voter turnout without government mandate to use our system?   It is a multi step process but it involves making people believe they can have a greater impact for their cause by voting in our system than by going to the polls.

Some research suggests that over 10% of the population is not confident their vote is counted correctly.   Ron Paul scored support of 10% of the republican primary and most of his supporters are very much aware of how rigged the process is. 

So we can turn this into a campaign issue.  Does your candidate support or encourage honest voting.  Every time a voting controversy pops up it is an opportunity to win converts who decide to "opt out" of the official process (reducing official voter turnout) and "opt in" to our new process.

So each person we can convince to abandon the existing system (vote against it) and join our system (vote for it) gives us 2x bang for the buck.   Suppose we can score 3% of voters who opt-out today, 3% of voters who use both systems, and 3% of voters who switch?  Voter turnout would fall to 30% and our turnout would be 9%. 

The key here is to make voting so easy and provide some alternative benefits to encourage participation and referrals that it spreads.    It is much easier to market voting than BitShares.   But once you get them hooked on voting, the conversion to BTS is much easier. 

Anyway, we have a solution that costs governments (taxpayers) nothing provides "free voting" and saves lives.   We have a very compelling pitch for voting (we haven't revealed it all yet).   So politicians can gain a lot of political capital by supporting our efforts but it will be very costly to attack a provably fair, private, and honest election process.

After all voting is 90% about expressing your opinion for everyone else to see and 10% about actually selecting a candidate.   We are selling people a "voice" where the current system leaves people powerless to express it.

So this is the secret VOTE trick! I guess its a decent idea, and I imagine it could give results. However I would be much happier if it was Adam coming here and filing questions on this and explaining the strategy. It's frustrating that him and Brian are the ones being complained about and asked for transparency, yet the responsibility of defending them falls on you and other developers who have much more important stuff to do.

My concern when I first saw this, is that it could affect Voter privacy. Provided the system doesn't make it possible to determine who you voted for very easily though, it could be quite good.

Otherwise it may be a non-starter. Only X% of voters want their vote publicly disclosed. To see how this issue effects results, we only have to look at the recent Scottish referendum. There was 85% voter turnout, which is pretty incredible! You hardly ever see that these days and so we know, bar any major rigging the outcome really reflects the will of the people.

In the referendum, you could either vote YES for an independent Scotland or NO to keep a united Britain. Few NO voters wanted to publicly disclose their vote as they would be seen as anti-Scottish, some admitted to putting up YES posters in their windows etc. due to neighbourhood peer pressure. If you went by the people that were publicly willing to have their vote known, it would have shown the YES had a huge majority.

Yet the NO Camp, referred to as the silent majority, who wished to maintain their privacy, was the voice of the people. While vote rigging was possible, the NO Campaign won by a clear margin, 55-45%. Any system that took privacy away from voters would have created a very different result that was not a reflection of the will of the people at all.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-11/scottish-independence-opponents-pin-hopes-on-silent-no-.html

  If all visitors had to go on were flags and posters in windows, they’d assume Scotland is on the point of voting overwhelmingly for independence. Blue signs saying simply “Yes” far outnumber the “No, thanks” of opponents. 

... attributed the gap between the polls and the posters to the “silent No vote” -- people he said are intimidated by nationalists.
“I canvassed a woman today out in west Edinburgh,” Carmichael, 49, said in an interview in his office in the Scottish capital yesterday. “She whispered to me: ‘I’m voting No.’ She was that concerned that somebody might hear her say. There’s an extent to which our support is solid and determined, but does feel hindered from expressing it publicly.”   

Edit: FMV looks like it will be fairly private, great

(I thought I remembered earlier discussions where it would be less so.)

So a grassroots effort is appealing to people that want a VOICE, that want CHANGE, and that want the government to adopt what we have produced.

You claim voters will not take it seriously and I agree that many voters will not, but you better believe that "non-voters" will take it more seriously.   After all I don't VOTE because the system is rigged.  I don't take polls or trust polls because they are easy to ballot stuff with fake IDs.   I don't sign petitions because I care about my privacy.   But I would use FMV because I can maintain my privacy while signing petitions and expressing my opinion on political candidates or other issues.   

[onceuponatime]

Sorry for noob questions, but what does FMV stand for, and how does voting benefit from a blockchain ?

FMV stands for "Follow My Vote". It was a DAC concept that is being folded into BTS.

[Stan]

...AND think of the places where we can drop bait to direct search engines to us!  Every single controversy of the day, every political action committee, every special interest group will have those who are interested in better ways for their voices to be heard.  Every election has its close-calls where the losing side is convinced there was foul play.  Every one of those is a chance for a headline:  "This wouldn't have happened to us if the system wasn't corrupt!"

Everyone with a grievance (who isn't) will be given a chance to express it in relevant ways with our technologies.  Just sign up and make your voice heard!  Real petitions with certified signatures!  Auditable tracking polls!  Parallel elections!

And while your at it, "Did you know you can earn 5% or more on your checking and savings?"

[speedy]

Sorry for noob questions, but what does FMV stand for, and how does voting benefit from a blockchain ?

[bytemaster]

The political ignorance and naivety is quite alarming. Did you read anything about how a voting system is implemented?  There are laws and procedures. Read them, abide by them, and maybe voters will take you seriously. To get there is a path that you are not equipped to travel at this point. Don't take my words as trash talk or nay saying, take them and analyze what realistic steps need to be taken and implement them beyond a bar stool and high fives about what a cool idea you all had.

The sooner you realize that you have to work within he laws of the land were you wish to succeed, the sooner the dreams will come to fruition. I am sick of the constant pie in the sky view of a lot of people here who think the are going to somehow circumvent the government. It would be ignorant to think that your back door idea will somehow prevail. See any political Party not Republican or Democrat and look at where they are.

Look at the laws. Please. A grassroots campaign will blossom within about 1/1000% of the people you wish to reach and die a slow death.

NewMine we know EXACTLY how the voting system is implemented in CA and had someone THERE during the November election with the the registrars and given a step by step inside view on HOW it is done today.   We know the entire existing process inside and out (for CA).   We are talking to the people responsible for buying voting systems and hearing EXACTLY what they want and need.  To say that we are ignoring the laws and procedures is very far fetched.

We happen to KNOW that the Laws and Procedures are hopelessly broken.  IE: you cannot have a honest voting system while fully complying with the letter of the law.   The laws will have to change. 

But thats OK we are not trying to FORCE our system on anyone because that is 100% against what BTS is about.    We are creating an ALTERNATIVE approach and demonstrating that it is cost effective and viable.   This ALTERNATIVE will give people the ability to actually know in real time what their fellow citizens think without having to rely on the media.  This ALTERNATIVE gives the people a VOICE even if the government ignores it, everyone will hear it.

So a grassroots effort is appealing to people that want a VOICE, that want CHANGE, and that want the government to adopt what we have produced.

You claim voters will not take it seriously and I agree that many voters will not, but you better believe that "non-voters" will take it more seriously.   After all I don't VOTE because the system is rigged.  I don't take polls or trust polls because they are easy to ballot stuff with fake IDs.   I don't sign petitions because I care about my privacy.   But I would use FMV because I can maintain my privacy while signing petitions and expressing my opinion on political candidates or other issues.   

Every election LewRockwell.com has article after article asking people to send a message by "not voting" and remove legitimacy from the voting process.   Now we can offer an alternative, "Don't vote at the polls, file a protest vote at FMV".   

[NewMine]

The political ignorance and naivety is quite alarming. Did you read anything about how a voting system is implemented?  There are laws and procedures. Read them, abide by them, and maybe voters will take you seriously. To get there is a path that you are not equipped to travel at this point. Don't take my words as trash talk or nay saying, take them and analyze what realistic steps need to be taken and implement them beyond a bar stool and high fives about what a cool idea you all had.

The sooner you realize that you have to work within he laws of the land were you wish to succeed, the sooner the dreams will come to fruition. I am sick of the constant pie in the sky view of a lot of people here who think the are going to somehow circumvent the government. It would be ignorant to think that your back door idea will somehow prevail. See any political Party not Republican or Democrat and look at where they are.

Look at the laws. Please. A grassroots campaign will blossom within about 1/1000% of the people you wish to reach and die a slow death. 

[donkeypong]

There are tons of other potential strategies that could work just like this.
Find a large group of people who care passionately about something, anything.
Talk to them about their passions.
Show how what we have can benefit what they care about.

Then, oh, by the way, you can earn 5% or more on your savings and checking account...

Well said. Here's another way to imagine it. Everyone is watching his/her own TV station. Instead of doing what they're all doing, turning up the volume and trying to get others interested in their TV station, you can try a different approach. Rather than talking about your TV station, tune in to theirs first. Relate to them, see where they're coming from and what their needs/interests are, and THEN slowly give them some new content to add to their station. And it becomes their idea, so they help promote it as well. That's much more effective than simply turning up your own volume.

[gamey]

Complaining about transparency at this point seems fairly pointless unless people believe that the large majority of the funds have not in fact been spent.

Also telling the community what is expected out of everyone just gives people a ton of reasons to complain when things aren't done.  This doesn't seem productive in general.  It may appeal to someone's selfish need to know everything, but I don't think it would be an overall positive for the community.