Distributed Protocols at the Rescue for Trustworthy Online Voting

While online services emerge in all areas of life, the voting procedure in many democracies remains paper-based as the security of current online voting technology is highly disputed. We address the issue of trustworthy online voting protocols and recall therefore their security concepts with its trust assumptions. Inspired by the Bitcoin protocol, the prospects of distributed online voting protocols are analysed. No trusted authority is assumed to ensure ballot secrecy. Further, the integrity of the voting is enforced by all voters themselves and without a weakest link, the protocol becomes more robust. We introduce a taxonomy of notions of distribution in online voting protocols that we apply on selected online voting protocols. Accordingly, blockchain-based protocols seem to be promising for online voting due to their similarity with paper-based protocols

Direct Democracy And Tax Exporting: Theory and an Application to the First Referendum ("Consulta Popular") in Argentina

The assignment of the responsibility for different taxing powers is one of the most important problems in the theory and practice of fiscal federalism. The literature provides us with a set of general guidelines for the “tax assignment problem.” One conclusion is that “tax exporting” could create perverse signals for fiscal choice. In this paper the “tax exporting” problem is analyzed with simple models. The case of a tax passed through a referendum (Consulta Popular) in an argentinean tourist Municipality is studied. In a numerical exercise, using the fiscal data of the Municipality, the size of the public expenditures is calculated under different rules of fiscal decision. Then, an empirical analysis of the results of the voting and its determinants is carried out. The paper concludes with some comments, in order to improve the mechanisms of referendum related to fiscal decisions at the municipal level.direct democracy; tax assignment; fiscal externalities; tax exporting.

Fiscal Decentralization and Voters' Choices as Control

This paper investigates, empirically, the voters` choices as a mechanism of control of the municipal governments in Argentina. In particular, the paper explores the question of whether voters choose to support the political party in office based on its fiscal performance while in office. After a learning period, citizens vote considering the fiscal performance. The smaller the jurisdiction, the more sensitive the citizens. Voters, in evaluating fiscal performance to take voting decisions, consider the performance in the recent past. Municipal elections are not a mere rehearsal of national or provincial elections. We conclude that we can trust in fiscal decentralization and voting. Perhaps, it is a better option than fiscal centralization.fiscal decentralization; local governments; fiscal performance; voters' choices

New results at 3PN via an effective field theory of gravity

NRGR, an Effective Field Theory approach to gravity, has emerged as a powerful tool to systematically compute higher order corrections in the Post-Newtonian expansion. Here we discuss in somehow more detail the recently reported new results for the spin-spin gravitational potential at third Post-Newtonian order.Comment: 4 pages, talk at the 11th Marcel Grossmann meeting, Berlin, july 200

Spin induced multipole moments for the gravitational wave flux from binary inspirals to third Post-Newtonian order

Using effective field theory techniques we calculate the source multipole moments needed to obtain the spin contributions to the power radiated in gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binaries to third Post-Newtonian order (3PN). The multipoles depend linearly and quadratically on the spins and include both spin(1)spin(2) and spin(1)spin(1) components. The results in this paper provide the last missing ingredient required to determine the phase evolution to 3PN including all spin effects which we will report in a separate paper.Comment: 35 pages, 7 figures. Published versio