Can the EOS ecosystem prevent vote buying?

Vote buying

User Enrique says the following: “Might be wrong as I said. An arbitration process requires at least hearing both parties; but also you can propose the practice of means of proof. Proving things in a process like this can be done through documents, technical reports and witnesses. In this particular case of vote buying, I think witnesses might be good means of proof. Witnesses to prove vote buying. Am I completely wrong?”. User Tanish says that the claim of vote buying won’t even reach the forums as, if stated in the constitution, it won’t be detected. There are many ways to buy votes – use Monero, Zcash, shower coin, if not crypto use hawala. User Enrique says that it might be detected if some of the voters that sold their votes want to tell the truth at some point.

User Michael Yeates asks what happens if the witnesses lie. User Enrique replies by saying that he was thinking in witnesses willing to declare the truth. When you buy votes, you have to get involved with voters, and you might need to get in touch with many voters. In this cases, it should not be difficult to find some of them willing to tell the truth at some point, says user Enrique.

User Thomas Cox says that if one side of the deal was offered immunity, and had the smoking gun info, that could make a difference. Proof of collusion or corruption is known to be hard to prove under any circumstances — but hard is not impossible. User Paul Atreides replies and says that it’d be great if instead of expending this energy on an ongoing, ad-hoc basis, we had the coordination mechanism be resistant to the effects of vote buying. This seems unlikely without a major revamp, concludes Paul Atreides. User Thomas Cox replies as follows: “Please suggest the revamp. And there will always be one-off enforcement of any rule set, if rules are enforced at all.” User Jetse says that politics are all about knowing the difference between the desirable and the realistic. User Jetse asks Paul Atreides the following: “given the current EOS ecosystem, how realistic would you estimate an agreement/constitution that forbids vote buying to be voted in?”

User Tanish says that there are two issues. Firstly, voters don’t care much or are acting against the bps who are buying votes. Secondly, the rule only helps the bad actors. User Tanish wonders what the community should do. Perhaps an open market for vote buying that is audited? User Enrique says that enforceability of rules cannot rely exclusively on voters. He continues as follows: “In the model I defend here, the rule is there, and you can enforce through arbitration. The problem is in the next level because it is really difficult to prove in the arbitral proceeding the conduct of the one who bought the votes. But that does not mean that arbitration is not a part of the solution of the problem; unless you think that the difficulty of proving is really the impossibility to do so and that due to that impossibility the rule is unnecessary. In this case, once again the problem is not arbitration but the rule itself. So I keep on my conclusion, if the rule is there, then arbitration is the best way to deal with this problem.”

User Enrique continues and says the following: “From my point of view, voting is the expression of the free will of voters. If you put a reward in the equation, then you admit an interference of the ones with the most economic power (that can offer the reward). And it is reasonable to think that the ones that buy the votes are going to do so aiming to their own interest and not in the interest of the Community. So it is also reasonable to conclude that such a Community might end up serving the interests of the wealthiest.” User Michael Yeates says that he assumes that making a rule can stop this from happening. User Enrique says that this is not the case, as he only assumes that this is the first step.