Apparently coalition forces have been setting up decoy polling stations in Iraq. This is clearly the height of idiocy... as Bruce Schneier pointed out on his blog, this will either result in everyone knowing that these places are decoys, or in everyone not knowing - in which case, it doesn't matter to the insurgents which are decoys and which are not.
Of course, there is an additional effect of this practice. It will undoubtedly weaken the confidence of the public in the electoral process. How do you know that your vote was not cast at a decoy? How many decoys were there? Were decoys placed preferentially in areas that disagree with the resistance? It's not unreasonable to ask if perhaps the whole election was indeed a decoy.
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