The World's Largest Coalition of Nontheists and Nontheist Communities!

Morals, athiests and online voting

Is it moral to vote out of state repeatedly in order to stack a pole to get a secular result?

Interesting discussion -

The pole isn't particularly important in the bigger scheme of things - and it would seem that repeated voting isn't illegal - the site is perhaps designed - like most things in our society - to be an honesty based system.

The organisers would perhaps organise a different way to do it - but perhaps it isn't an issue to vote repeatedly. If it was there would be some way of registration or cookies - which there doesn't seem to be.

It could be set up like big brother or other reality tv voting systems where you can vote as many times as you wish.

Why get all 'holier than thou' about it?

I think we need to use our rational thinking in this case - go through the facts of the case, before condemning others of immoral actions. What's wrong with some reasoning - rather than public shaming?

I'm for the Naturalistic attitude of compassion due to our deterministic universe.

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Secular Smith on July 12, 2011 at 9:21pm

The facts are, that if you have to lie, delete cookies, etc., you are making a decision that is not ethical, irrespective of whether you wish to accept it.

Feel free to back up that assertion.

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 10:19pm

clearly you are not reading the posts - you don't have to delete cookies to repeatedly vote on the site - nor do you have to enter an Ohio post code to be allowed to vote on the site.....

Permalink Reply by John Secular Smith on July 13, 2011 at 12:48pm

Name a place where in general, lying is not considered to be unethical.

Oh, well, if you were only talking IN GENERAL and not in this specific case you'd have a point.

And with the cookies again? I've deleted no cookies. I haven't needed to.

Name a place where altering software to subvert a goal isn't considered unethical.

Well, obviously from my point of view, the poll and software in question. Any software that is built where the most likely outcome is the violation of people's rights, I think it is ethical to "game the system." Hacking the website and changing results, not so much. You would be changing other people's votes, and violating their speech. Giving more people the right to speech where the rules aren't set up for it though? I'm fine with that.

Permalink Reply by John Secular Smith on July 12, 2011 at 12:41pm

How is my argument like a religious one in any way?

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 7:06pm

I just watched a You Tube with Richard Dawkins debating a little on the subject of embryos being used in scientific research. It's a complex issue.

He talks about a 3 day old embryo only having 150 cells - that a fly has millions more and a fully working nervous system - he also talks about the killing of adult cows who have fully developed nervous systems, which we kill for food. He says that swatting a fly could be considered way more morally unethical than stem cell research. He brings up the issues - but doesn't state his beliefs on the matter as such. He perhaps is supportive of stem cell research - for the greater good - Sam Harris also brings up a lot of these issues in his book - the moral landscape.

When we weigh up the ethics of this situation what do we find?

The pole does seem to ask for an honesty based system of voting - in that the voters are asked to put in their post code - but the site will take any set of numbers and still let you vote - so perhaps they are more interested in getting stats on who voted and from where - than they are wanting to limit the number of votes that people make from where.... they perhaps would be flattered that out of staters would be interested in their sticker vote...

Mostly conjecture I know - but I don't have much to go on - I should perhaps read the site to find out more... :)

I haven't come across any supporting evidence for your claims regarding the pole - perhaps you can post a link for that?

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 9:58pm

I think that further than condemning others for cheating or gaming - the issue is actually that this is clearly an important issue for Stephan personally - and perhaps the honour system isn't the best way to go about doing the poll - given the seriousness with which some doing the voting feel about the outcome. People, lie cheat and steal etc because they have needs - those needs are valid and need to be considered equally.....

Permalink Reply by John Secular Smith on July 12, 2011 at 12:40pm

The specific poll that brought this up says:

Visit this page daily from now through August 8 to vote for your favorite from among six new designs. Then "endorse" your sticker by sharing it with your friends through Facebook and Twitter so they too can join in the fun. The sticker that earns the popular vote will be the one distributed to Ohio voters at the polls this November 8, 2011.

Please enter the voting page below and thank you for participating!

Please enter your Ohio ZIP code to vote

Note that the poll asks you for your Ohio ZIP code. Other than that, it is LITERALLY asking to get as many of your friends and yourself to vote repeatedly. So the question of morality comes with getting people outside the state to vote.

From my moral perspective, I'm REQUIRED to try and get others to vote, from anywhere. I'm trying to stop the state from committing an unethical act (violation of the 1st amendment and bigotry against nontheists), and I do not find it reasonable to limit myself to just Ohioans when we are all harmed by Constitutional violations. It isn't a lack of ethics that brings me to this position, but a ethical stance I must support.

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 7:29pm

OK - so they are saying that they want you to vote repeatedly - but ask that the pole is only for residents of Ohio - is that correct?

Permalink Reply by John Secular Smith on July 12, 2011 at 8:07pm

They ask for an Ohio ZIP, so I'd say that implies Ohio only even though it doesn't say it outright.

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 8:25pm

You can put any number in there and it leads you to the voting page.... perhaps they are just aiming to get stats on who's voted - from where?

Perhaps they aren't that concerned about the outcome - perhaps they see it as a trivial thing and the purpose is more about getting people involved with the idea of voting so that it encourages more people to take an interest and actually vote on the day?

If they were more serious about it surely they would make it more difficult to 'game' or 'cheat' the vote?

Permalink Reply by John Secular Smith on July 12, 2011 at 9:14pm

Perhaps, but that's not really the point. Sure, online polls aren't real voting due to their very selective and insecure nature, but that is just part of the justification. Step 1, you might call it.

Permalink Reply by John Secular Smith on July 13, 2011 at 12:57pm

Way to quote mine. What was the VERY NEXT sentence from the one you referenced? Oh yeah, this one:

So the question of morality comes with getting people outside the state to vote.

So you are just lying when you say:

You ignored that you are told that as an Ohio resident...

I just voted three times, and nothing stopped me. Cookies didn't care. So your claim of:

...you may vote daily (hence the cookies which track your daily voting)...

is nonsense.

You are now simply being dishonest. I'm disappointed really. This was a moderately good discussion, even with your inability to offer an argument of "it is unethical because it breaks the rules".

I'm not bothering with following this anymore, but feel free to personally message me if you'd like, starting with apologies for dishonest quote mining and lying about what I typed. Anyone else who wants to talk to me can message me too, obviously.