Election Reform

Ulrika's departure is forcing us to recreate most of our election system. It is also an opportunity to make improvements.

As I mentioned at yesterday's RA meeting, having a faction founder as sole election administrator may have created at least the appearence of a potential conflict of interest. Let me be perfectly clear that I do not believe, nor do I have any evidence to suggest, that Ulrika manipulated the election by how she administered it. Nevertheless, posts such as her analysis of tactical voting in the Summer '05 elections at least blur the line between Ulrika as election administrator and Ulrika as SDF founder.

In building a new election system, we have an opportunity to address some of these concerns. What I report here is my impression of the RA's feel for some of these issues. I encourage you to read the transcript and decide for yourself if your impressions match mine.

As this process moves forward, input from all citizens of Neualtenburg is very much wanted. Please add your thoughts on these important issues.

There are two important questions here.

1) Given our stated desires to have a one real person-one vote system and to protect the real life identities of citizens, how much election oversight can/should we have?

This is the trcky one, as it raises all sorts of questions as to what level of 'investigation' is appropriate. Is it OK to get IP's from voters? What if they match? What does and does not constitute evidence of fraud?

It will be the job of the SC to address many of these issues if and when they arise. My sense of the RA was that there is a desire to maintain some supervision/oversight of the electoral process. If that is the case, it leads to question 2.....

2) Who should oversee elections?

In the past , some have called for election supervision/verification by a disinterested third party. I believe this will be difficult. Since Price Waterhouse doesn't yet have a Second Life office, the city would have to ....
....find a third party willing to oversee elections whom all factions would accept
...probably pay that third party
...hope that that third party neither lost interest in supervising the elections nor became so interested that he/she joined the city to be a part of it.
...repeat the entire process whenever an outside election monitor left for some reason.

The alternative is to supervise elections internally. I believe the RA sentiment was to let the SC do this directly since they would end up adjudicating any dispute that arose. However, the possibility of an independent, multipartisan election commsision (with, for example, one representative from each faction) was also discussed.

Another topic was the possible use of an open source voting system to make this portion of the process more transparent.

Now it's your turn. What changes would increase your confidence in the integrity and transparency of Neualtenburg elections?

It's very difficult to think of a technological solution to the problem of uniquely identifying citizens as RL individuals - not the least if we are at the same time to take into account people's desire for a certain degree of anonymity in SL.

Of course I would not expect any of the current residents of Neualtenburg to want to "game the system" but if one is truly serious about the need to ensure that a RL person only gets one vote then planning must proceed from the assumption of the worst case scenario of a potential evildoer plotting to take over the system by means of voting fraud.

Obviously, linking the vote to the avatar is not sufficent as people could simply have alts, which they do already. IP addresses or MAC addresses is more difficult to circumvent but nevertheless not a very reliable indicator of fraud in itself since a person determined to beat the system could simply use an internet cafe, school or work computers for the purpose of using his multiple votes.

Credit card verification may be even harder to circumvent - and this is also the path that LL have taken. However, in order for this to work the system would need to record the name of the person registered on the card and not simply be satisfied if a unique card number is entered. For example, I have three credit cards. However, I don't think people would be very happy if they had to give their credit card details simply to vote in Neualtenburg - people would naturally be concerned about the privacy of that information if it had to be stored on a private individual's server.

Another option might be to require digital signatures for individuals to vote - thus relegating the problem of identification to a third-party certificate issuer such as Verisign. However, I'm not sure if it is feasible to require the use of such advanced technology in our voting system - and presumably there would be a relatively high cost involved in having Verisign issue certificates.

I think the better route would be to ensure the highest level of transparency in the voting process - a part of which would be publishing the source code of the system and by publishing a list of citizens considered RL individuals and eligible to vote in the election. Preventative measures against fraud would be implemented on the basis of this transparency and executed in a reactive fashion operating on the assumption of good faith in citizens intentions but also allowing citizens to raise the alarm if need be.

Every citizen of Neualtenburg should be entitled to raise a demand that the identity of two or more registered voters be verified against each other to ensure that they are indeed seperate persons. The head of the SC could be the caretaker of such a process whereby the persons behind the avatars in question would be asked to submit sufficient proof of identity for example in the form of copies of personal documents, a phone number to call or it could even be a more creative solution such as meeting simultaneously with the avatars in question and asking each of them to perform tasks requiring the full cognitive faculties of one RL individual while perhaps also answering unexpected questions about their past the answers to which it would be difficult to agree upon in advance. The suffiency of the evidence would then be up to the head of the SC to decide. The head of the SC could find that the vote in a particular election should be stripped from one or more avatars/residents based on the fact that they have failed to submit sufficient evidence to prove the unique RL identities behind them.

The affected residents would then be able to appeal the decision to an election commission. This commission would be made up of one representative of each of the factions and perhaps one willing outside observer, who is not a citizen of Neualtenburg.

The commission should then review the evidence at the basis of the SC's decision and could decide to overturn it based on a simple majority. In case of a tie, the vote of the external member would be decisive.

What do you think of this scheme?

In addition, using IP addresses runs the risk of false positives, where unique people nevertheless share an IP address -- what comes to mind is big ISPs such as AOL, who route all HTTP traffic through mandatory proxies, so all web requests from AOL customers come from a limited pool of proxies' IP addresses. To a lesser extent, this might also affect customers of ISPs which assign IP addresses dynamically on connection; if two users use the same ISP consecutively, they might be assigned the same IP address.


Another possibility would be LL's other verification possibility -- sending an SMS to a mobile phone with a password which the person has to enter.

This method does not require anyone to reveal a real name; however, users could well have (access to) multiple mobile phones.

Some of you may know my position relatively to anonymity issues in SL — it's a mixed blessing, but I don't think it's always "a solution". The problem so far, after all, is not having many people using alts to vote: they know it's illegal under the N'burg Constitution, and in case someone finds out about the truth, there is only one outcome: a fair trial and eventual exile

I also don't think that there are "valid" technical solutions to deal with it. Diderot suggested Verisign as an alternative as a third-party, external solution, which is expensive. I personally use Thawte for personal email certificates — they are free. However, Thawte does not really "certificate" uniqueness — just that people have a valid email address. I tend to sign my "important" emails with Thawte, although I know that is not saying much about myself.

The irkyness people feel about "Internet anonymity" is sadly a result of a certain culture that was raised in certain Internet circles, in its early stages. We won't be able to "shake" off that culture easily. However, in real life terms, we're not really "anonymous" — we are "pseudonymous", which is a different thing, even regulated to an extent under international Intellectual Property rights, as well on athletic competitions: under the current established international legislation, artists and athletes are able to use one pseudonym, and even sign contracts and terms under that pseudonym, and most western countries will recognize those pseudonyms as legitimate as your own usual name. Thus, "Marilyn Monroe" or "Stephen King" are universally-known pseudonyms who have a legal status, perfectly identify a single person, and have IP rights attributed to them which are as protected as if they used their ID card names.

This is something that the Internet sadly never recognizes. The ability to get a nickname and an avatar gives the illusion that there is a certain "right of anonymity" that you magically get when you're online. That's simply not true; any legal agency working in your country has a way to find out who you are and what you're doing — and using technical "hacks" to unlawfully using your "anonymity" to break laws will be seen as infractions of the law. It works both ways; "Gwyneth Llewelyn" has the same rights to legal protection as my own name, even if it's just a pseudonym that I use; this is constitutionally guaranteed. I'm not "less a person" just because I've picked up a name which is not on my ID card (yet!).

What this means in terms of Neualtenburg is that we have established that people (not avatars) have a right to one vote per person. Now, under the current international legislation, you're only entitled to one single pseudonym. This was introduced to avoid something happening often in the music industry or in the sports competitions, where one person would sign up with different companies "exclusive rights" under different pseudonyms. The way things are done these days, you can only register one legally valid pseudonym, and if you have several around, you have to decide which one you should pick. I think that the same applies to Neualtenburg: you may use any of your alts ("pseudonyms" to buy land, but only the one you specify as being your legal pseudonym will have any rights — you forfeit the right to use a different alt to buy more land in Neualtenburg (and thus the vote).

Now there is the issue of enforcement of this legal status. In real life, the same thing happens — remember why the musician Prince changed his pseudonym, in order to sign with other labels while his legal issue was resolved. This is the very stuff of judicial matters. In real life, what happens is rather simple. People are assumed to know the law and abide by it; in the case (which is supposed to be an exception) where someone breaks the law by using a second pseudonym to sign a contract, if someone suspects it, they are able to file a suit, and the pseudonym owner has to prove or disprove the claims.

I think that the same should apply to Neualtenburg as well. The rule is simple: one person, one vote — and you're able to use any pseudonym (but just one) to sign the deed and get a vote. But as soon as there are suspicions of someone using two pseudonyms to buy land plots and get a second vote, the matter is reviewed under Neualtenburg law — in this case, the SC would open an enquiry, and both "suspects" would have to present valid claims that they are not the same person, either through witnesses (which can be, in turn, further verified...), or by presenting real data, as their option. It would be up to the SC to examine the evidence and decide to accept it or not as valid; in the case that further evidence is needed, or presented later, the case can always be re-trialled. The assumption, however, is that people are innocent and abide by the law.

This is a "weak enforcement" of a simple rule that protects pseudonymity, but deals with complex issues like multiple avatars. This should rather be the exception and not the rule; ie. instead of forcing everyone to produce real data, by going to a RL notary or otherwise, which some may view as too bothersome. And it will still be prone to abuse; I could, for instance, register my parents' names and addresses to get a new avatar, provide full RL data of my parents to prove they're not the same person as myself, but use their logins and passwords to buy land in Neualtenburg and use additional votes; there is no legal way to disprove those claims, unless there is a RL trial on my jurisdiction as well. This is perfectly impossible to do with the limited resources of Neualtenburg.

I also think that it's too paranoid IRL, there are always voting frauds and abuse; there are ways to deal with some of those, but not all. Democracy is not "perfect" — we do only hope and expect that a vast majority will focus more on a legitimate use of it, and just a tiny minority will abuse it — and these will be dealt with harshness and an adamant hearing.

So, the only suggestion I can make at this point is to equate "avatar nicknames" with "legal pseudonyms, subject to international law regulating them", and vote on a bill that, in case of suspected fraud, the SC is required to investigate possible abuse. Under this system, revealing RL data would not be mandatory; it would be up to the defendants to provide enough proof to convince a jury. It might be a phone call, an SMS message, or a copy of a RL notarized document, at the defendant's option. If the jury is convinced, their claims will be accepted, until further evidence to the contrary is produced on a subsequent trial.

- Gwyn

Yay, this is my post #1000! How appropriate!

I'll contribute further after I collect some of my thoughts on this, however one thing I'd like to bring up immediately. I don't think anyone who has access to election information should comment in anyway during the election. They shouldn't say it's interesting, they shouldn't comment on people's voting tactics, and they probably shouldn't even keep a running talley of votes. Our election officals in the past have also served the role of Fox News, and it was always icky.

I've heard about the "one real-life person, one vote" stipulation, but I only found out about that tangentially, and not from reading the documents.

I've heard that the Constitution I read is out-dated, and that several things have changed (e.g. the provision on having to have current residents refer a new candidate) -- has something been added about "no alts to vote"? I don't find anything in the copy at http://aliasi.us/nburgwiki/tiki-index.php?page=NburgConstitution, at any rate, to imply that. (In fact, I originally assumed that the policy was "one citizen, one vote", where "citizen" = "avatar".)

What other modifications to the Constitution should I be aware of? (One amendment was passed on to me when I received my deed, for example, on how much notice to give.)

I guess I have to throw this particular monkey wrench again,

....but I do not feel that it's appropriate to talk about the "RL people behind the avatars" when we are talking about a virtual government. A person or citizen in a virtual world *is* an avatar. It should be one avatar one vote, not one person one vote as persons do not actually exist.

One of the things that always bothered me about Ulrika's concept and one of it's biggest flaws to my mind was this idea that we had to get at the "real people" behind the avatars all the time. It's a peculiar obsession that to me, runs contrary to the entire project of a "virtual government" or of government of a virtual world. It puts the lie to the whole idea, in that one has to resort to some other dimension of reality to back up the laws and rules of this one. As long as we have to refer to the real world we are just a subset of the real world and not really a world of our own at all.

A lot of people won't get the distinction, and perhaps we are not all involved in the project for the same reasons, but to me this is the entire point of the matter. We are not talking about merely modeling RL governments in a virtual environment (as interesting as that can be ), we are talking about creating a real working government for virtual people in a virtual world (at least that is my understanding and my interest in the project). That is what is "historical" about virtual governments, or what *could* be if we can indeed make it work.

The fact that we continue to talk about the "real" people behind the avatars is also an unfix-able flaw. As Gwyn points out:There is quite literally no way around this problem short of investigating the person in the "real world." The most minimal solution in this regard requires us to go to Linden Labs and ask them for verification of identity or to do such investigation ourselves. Even if LL would do this (and I don't see why they would), or even if we had the resources for this kind of real world judicial or extra-judicial investigation, does this not instantly hobble our "virtual government?" Does it not turn the whole project into a joke by means of the fact that we are only a government a the behest of a real life small company in California or the courts of the United States?

The whole point of trying to run a virtual world government is IMO to take into consideration the *differences* between a virtual world and the real world, one of those being that avatars are sometimes multiple. Instead of thinking of the "real people" behind the avatars, I think we should be thinking of the citizens of our world as sometimes being able to share each others brains and opinions. Kind of like the multiple entities or hive minds of science-fiction. So what, if someone can create two (or even twenty avatars), and thus be a whole army to themselves? This is just a base reality of our environment and the challenge is to design a government that works for creatures such as these (if we can), not to deny their existence.

On a practical level I think this can work by merely saying "one citizen/avatar one vote" and by controlling what counts, legally, in our system as a "citizen" of Neualtenburg. If some RL person has the time for instance to play two separate avatars, who both own two separate plots of land and both are online for some minimal amount of time and both are different "personalities" with their own businesses and groups of friends etc. then why *shouldn't* they both get a vote?

It seems to me that some formula can be figured out that would disallow the "casual" signing on of alts to fill the ballot boxes at election time and an alt that is in fact a personality unto itself, probably should be allowed to vote in that it is not any less of a citizen than some other avatar.

This system has the added advantage of making most election "irregularities" (identical IP's for example) disappear entirely and eliminates the "Stazi-like" aspects of the SC in terms of constantly having to investigate the personal details of all of the citizens of Neualtenburg.

I like Gwyneth's rather practical solutions/suggestions the most, but I also think its best to just back away from this whole knotty problem of trying to prove something we ultimately cannot ever prove. We shall not ever be able to see into that misty other dimension known as the "real world," I suggest we stop trying.

Firstly, my apologies for having such a dated version up. To be fair, it was the last version on the official neualtenburg.org site; Ulrika hadn't updated for awhile, and the point of the Wiki was to allow easy updates. I haven't bothered yet since we're planning a major overhaul, and having something was better than nothing, I felt.

The main revisions have been to change the notice length, remove most of the nonsensical provisions under the current situation, and some minor clarification regarding the AC, IIRC. (removing the "weight votes by size of workshop" provision).

I understand your context, Dianne, and normally I would agree. Not for democratic voting though.

If some individual has five alts is his opinion worth five times the opinion of the guy with one avatar? Is the individual with more alts more likely to be right? How do you personally feel if your share of decisionmaking say declines when a newcomer increases his share of the decisionmaking say by using multiple voting alts? You really are losing something of value.



Everything you say in that paragraph rings true except when you come to the crunch of an actual democratic vote. Dianne, if you can design a variant of democracy with multiple avatars acceptable as independent decisionmakers -- possibly because they are being animated as different characters by creative participants -- then more power to you. I'd find that system very interesting.



Certainly it's impractical to detect alt voting now. That might not always be the case. Someone might design a truely non-intrusive system of verification -- who knows? But we can decouple the principle and the ease of implementation.

Just my opinion of course, having looked at this issue in the context of the SL feature voting system. I think ppl are getting tired of my posting here, but I'm trying to get in one last comment, because the principle of one decisionmaker/one vote seems crucial to the democratic process.

Oh, I thought we had settled this issue long ago.

Anything different from what was discussed on that forum should be re-submitted to the RA for approval. So, until that is done, the principle in Neualtenburg stands: "one human being, one citizen, one vote". The way this is enforced is another, different issue. Actually, this principle should be taken up by the RA on the upcoming constitutional revision — and either reject it (Heavens forbid!) or include it in the preamble of the constitution.

Actually, I just found out now that I'm repeating myself with the same arguments of 7 months ago

Traxx, your insights are always welcome here So, when are you going to join Neualtenburg? The Guild is always pleased to get top-notch SL architects

In my country it's allowed (or even expected) to officially count the votes at set times and post the abstention rate for all to see. Comments on "voting tactics" or any others are, of course, strictly forbidden.

We have no real procedures on that subject in Neualtenburg, but I tend to follow Satchmo's suggestion: any comments on the voting should be made after the voting, not during the procedure. Well, it's up to the RA to set that in stone

This probably also depends on how long the voting period lasts -- I have heard, for example, that interim partial results in the United States can lead to citizens in West Coast states (who vote last -- three hours later than those on the East Coast, for example) not voting because they can already tell that party X will be elected/defeated regardless of their vote (even if the entire state votes differently).

Something similar could happen here: if, for example, voting takes place over the space of two days, and after 40 hours I haven't voted yet but I see that 80% of Neualtenburg citizens already have and they all voted for faction Y, I could feel that my vote is pointless. If everyone votes "at the same time", announcing interim results is less of an issue.

Not a problem; my comment wasn't meant to be an attack or to insinuate that the version on the site was a deliberate choice, and I hope it wasn't taken that way.


*nods*


I see; thanks.