Public Evidence from Secret Ballots

Elections seem simple---aren't they just counting? But they have a unique, challenging combination of security and privacy requirements. The stakes are high; the context is adversarial; the electorate needs to be convinced that the results are correct; and the secrecy of the ballot must be ensured. And they have practical constraints: time is of the essence, and voting systems need to be affordable and maintainable, and usable by voters, election officials, and pollworkers. It is thus not surprising that voting is a rich research area spanning theory, applied cryptography, practical systems analysis, usable security, and statistics. Election integrity involves two key concepts: convincing evidence that outcomes are correct and privacy, which amounts to convincing assurance that there is no evidence about how any given person voted. These are obviously in tension. We examine how current systems walk this tightrope.Comment: To appear in E-Vote-Id '1

Assessing the legality of coercive restructuring tactics in uk exchange offers

This article discusses bondholder exchange offers, a useful private debtrestructuring technique. In a typical offer, an under-performing issuer will seek to exchange its old bonds for new bonds with economically less favourable terms to bondholders, thus deleveraging the issuer without the difficulties of a formal insolvency process. Some issuers seek to incentivise their bondholders to accept these new, less favourable bonds by using coercive tactics, such as ‘exit consents’ and ‘covenant strips’. While lawful in the US, the English courts have only recently considered them for the first time in relation to English Law bonds. The Assénagon case declared an egregious coercive tactic invalid on the basis of an old company law principle, casting doubt on the validity of other coercive tactics. This principle (the’abuse principle’) originally restricted the abuse of minority shareholders by the majority, but is now also applicable to debt security voting arrangements. This article examines the abuse principle through the cases and discusses its potential application to other forms of coercive tactics in exchange offers. The article argues that where a coercive tactic is used purely to compel bondholders to exchange their bonds, this will contravene the abuse principle. The use of coercive tactics may however still be consistent with the abuse principle and Assénagon. An issuer will need to show that ‘reasonable men’ could see the tactic as beneficial for the class of bondholders, even though its use might adversely affect non-exchanging bondholders. A potential permissible example is a covenant strip that removes a restriction on asset disposals in order to facilitate a disposal pursuant to a restructuring

The Promise of State Takeover Statutes

The purpose of this article is, first, to describe the problems associated with two-tier tender offers and the closely related, and perhaps still more coercive, partial tender offer. Second, the article will address the natural question why such offers have not already been banned, suggesting a better view of what coercion means in the context of a tender offer. Third, the article will offer a management-oriented view of coercion, explaining the legitimate interests of managers (and other groups) in resisting takeovers, as well as how greenmail and poison pills, though subject to abuse, can be used quite properly to combat coercion. Fourth, the article will describe the variety of second-generation takeover statutes and consider how they attack the problem of coercion (in most cases with unacceptable costs). Fifth, the article will demonstrate how control share statutes such as the Indiana Act largely solve these problems quite efficiently and will offer a refinement of the Indiana Act which will eliminate the unnecessary bias it has for target management in its current form. And finally, the article will consider the prospects for survival of state regulation of the market for corporate control in light of mounting pressure for new federal legislation to preempt the field

An e-Voting Scheme with Improved Resistance to Bribe and Coercion

Bribe and coercion are common in conventional voting systems and usually will lead to a biased result that imparts the desired democracy. However, these problems become more difficult to solve when using e-voting schemes. Up to now, many e-voting schemes have been proposed to provide receipt-freeness and uncoercibility to solve these problems. Unfortunately, none is both secure and practical enough. In this paper, we describe an e-voting scheme that can solve or at least lessen the problems of bribe and coercion, and can be realized with current techniques. By using smart cards to randomize part content of the ballot, the voter can not construct a receipt. By using physical voting booths, bribers and coercers can not monitor the voter while he votes. Unlike conventional voting systems, the voter of the proposed scheme can choose any voting booth that is convenient and safe to him. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed schemes is optimal in that time and communication complexity for the voter is independent of the number of voting authorities

Corporate Reorganization and Strategic Behaviour: An Economic Analysis of Canadian Insolvency Law and Recent Proposals for Reform

Upon a debtor\u27s bankruptcy, creditors act opportunistically towards the disposition of the debtor\u27s assets. J.J. Quinn discusses Part III of the Canadian Bankruptcy Act and recent proposals for reform using an economic analysis of creditors\u27 behaviour

Corporate Reorganization and Strategic Behaviour: An Economic Analysis of Canadian Insolvency Law and Recent Proposals for Reform

Upon a debtor\u27s bankruptcy, creditors act opportunistically towards the disposition of the debtor\u27s assets. J.J. Quinn discusses Part III of the Canadian Bankruptcy Act and recent proposals for reform using an economic analysis of creditors\u27 behaviour