Last time I looked at the regulations they had cooked up, they had
what I would describe as a pretty good physical random selection
scheme. I'm not familiar with Jon's commentary, but here's a memo of
mine from Feb. 2009 suggesting a process and pointing out that the
"ping-pong balls in a hopper" idea is the best bet:
http://josephhall.org/papers/jhall-200802-bsa-letter.pdf
Although I think I also pointed out that it needs to be designed such
that there are few selection elements that are under physical control
of the auditor at all times (it needs to be run much like a lottery,
for which there are copious laws, regulations, etc. detailing physical
security and randomness parameters). For example, I believe that in
California there was a time where (at the FFPC, maybe?) they dominant
party would have a representative choose a ball out of a container to
select something... and this party would put the particular ball in
the freezer for some hours before the selection process, so that their
representative would know which ball to choose just by feel.
best, Joe
On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 10:22 AM, Jon Roland <jon.roland@constitution.org> wrote:
On 11/08/2010 08:58 AM, JBoppjr@aol.com wrote:
It will be interesting to see how Jon's promotion of random selection works
out when the Calif redistricting comm is randomly selected. I wonder what
are the efforts leading up to that to try to manipulate the process.
I got a report, as yet unconfirmed, that the framers of that reform got the
idea from reading my stuff. Of course, if any process can be manipulated it
will be. It had better be supervised by a grand jury for execution of the
selection.
Randomly selected panels need to supervise the selection of other randomly
selected panels. It is too important not to have a lot of independent people
watching.
That still leaves the question of how computer mapping software is used in
drawing the maps. If they do it right they will not attempt to do things
like protect incumbents. Better to have little if any human input into the
drawing. Let the computer do it.
-- Jon
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