# Question

Jim McCollum (ed@jimbalzotti.com)
Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:46:15 -0700

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    Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:46:15 -0700

    From: Jim McCollum <ed@jimbalzotti.com>

    To: java-security@web1.javasoft.com

    Subject: Question

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Hi Sun,

In Massachusetts we run our town governments through Town Meetings where
registered voters attend and vote on virtually ever article or budget
for spending for the coming year. The problem is many of these votes are
for police and fire equipment and salaries and virtually all are taken
as either a standing count or raised hand count. Consequently, many
voters, particularly those who live near police or fire personnel or are
related to them, or simply attend church or club meetings with them, are
somewhat reluctant to openly express their true feelings with public
votes about spending in these areas with our poice and fire neighbors
nearby, voting and watching how we vote. If there could be a system
devised where each voter attending Town Meeting could be issued a
JavaRing or other such portable device where we could virtually vote
every article in a secret ballot environment, that would be a tremendous
help to us. The other issue is the time spent in counting votes when it
is too close for the moderator to declare which side wins without a
count. We spend several nights dealing with each annual budget, and
frequently have heated contests where long time friends go out of the
meeting swearing to never speak to each other again.

The only system I can imagine that could be set up to handle this kind
of demand would be prohibitively expensive, but my knowledge is
primative, associated with hard wiring every seat and placing switches
for each voter to switch, sort of like is used in many legislatures
where recorded votes are registered on a big board with red and green
lights. We don't want to identify how each voter voted, we simply want
to register all the votes FOR and then al the votes AGAINST any
particular article.

Just a pipe dream, but I would think equipment like that could easily be
shared by several towns and bring the total cost down or even rented for
each Town Meeting. If you have any state of the art ideas that someday
might address this problem, I would greatly appreciate your suggestions.
I am currently running for the position of Town Moderator in my town and
could be elected soon (maybe -- maybe NOT). I have promised to research
ways to improve the process and speed it up so we do not waste our
voters time in boring antiquated procedures.

Thanks for any help you can provide and hopefully someday soon our Dick
Tracy personal wrist radios can be programmed to do just what I want and
solve the probelm forever.

Thanks!!

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