Quadratic voting always fixates my mind to imagine the mechanism of such voting predicates highly efficient computer-based way of casting and voting our wishes. However, despite the ease of voting using mobile devices or notebook computers, quadratic voting can be performed and experienced with less assistance of high-tech toolsets.
With all the advanced common tools, ballot paper voting can still have a place under the following configurations.
- ballot paper (a) acts as voting credit with imprinted watermarks on all the pieces of the distributed paper, or (b) lists non-exclusive voting options and for those options people can write the number of vote for each option.
- voters (a) put in their credits to indicate their preferences with the number of the pieces that are put into the mixture of the boxes, or (b) put in the ballot paper with the number for each option written into the box.
- counting of the votes can be done either automatically or manually to calculate the actual power of casted votes (nowadays, we do have highly sophisticated computer visions, don't we?)
Interestingly, the process of less digitalized quadratic voting will bring up some natural challenges for the steps of voting in areas such as confidentiality, verified identity, and efficiency in counting votes. It may mean nothing in this age where most people have access to mobile phones and the ease of using their interface, but may help minimize the objections of forcing people to use some new equipment for their preferences to be reflected more vividly.