Florida and Michigan: use surveys

[ciphergoth]

Florida are talking about spending $10-$13 million on rather flawed June primaries to replace the discounted early primaries that the DNC have disqualified for being against the rules.

Why don't they just hold a survey? Choose 1000 registered Democrats in each state in some way that can be seen to be random in a fair way, ask them, and choose delegates that way? There's no reason not to expect the same result as a proper primary, except that they can do a much better job of it for far less money.

They won't of course, but that's because of an emotional attachment to everyone getting their ballot than because it will actually make a difference.

Comments

[zotz]

The same logic, of course, applies to elections in general, as has been pointed out many times.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

That's true, but we rightly hold general elections to a higher standard of fairness, and it would be hard work to prove that the sampling was fair. Crypto could play a role here.

[nikolasco.livejournal.com]

My favorite suggestion so far is to let people vote as usual and then use sampling to check results for evidence of fishiness. This beats the snot out of "full recounts" while preserving the "every vote counts" ideology and existing frameworks for fairness.