Re: [ALSC-Forum] An idea and some thoughts

[Kent Crispin]

On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 06:07:42PM -0700, desertbobp wrote:
> Has anyone in this august group ever considered the process used for on-line
> voting of shares of stock?  I do this all the time and it seems to work
> well.  I don't know how secure it is, but if you consider the possiblities
> of using this mechanism to conduct a proxy war for control of a company, you
> would have to think they have at least given the security issue some serious
> thought.  Check it out.
> 
>  http://www.proxyvote.com/

Check out http://www.vortex.com/privacy/priv.09.14 (text starts partway
down the page).  There they describe a different proxy voting service,
but the point remains.

In general, voting in for profit corporations is very different than the
kind of vote we have here, and it is completely inappropriate for the
task.  In particular, votes are explicitly bought -- the more shares you
own, the more votes you get.  Not only does this change the voting
mechanics, it also drastically alters the opportunities and the
incentives for cheating.  Moreover, the reporting and secrecy 
requirements are completely different -- your ownership of shares is 
recorded, with the vote that goes along with them.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain