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Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

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Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#31

Post by dexterdog »

debracleaver wrote: post #17
swalsh wrote: post #9

I've always thought that online voting could be made MORE secure than traditional systems. If you combine cryptography with more traditional layers. It can also be anonymous. Take an existing online registration, allow a user to login, and "create a password". Take the password, hash it with the users registration id, and a salt, and that becomes the id for a ballot. Now a user can always login, and view their existi…

my general take on this is that we are ready to go with online voting when it is as secure as paper based voting. honestly, we're not there yet, but it is something i expect to see in the relatively near future.

How is this not more secure? This actually has a chance at being an accurate vote count while we know that the current system can never be accurate.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#32

Post by wl »

yurisagalov wrote: post #27
swalsh wrote: post #9

I've always thought that online voting could be made MORE secure than traditional systems. If you combine cryptography with more traditional layers. It can also be anonymous. Take an existing online registration, allow a user to login, and "create a password". Take the password, hash it with the users registration id, and a salt, and that becomes the id for a ballot. Now a user can always login, and view their existi…

Online voting (the kind you could do in the comfort of your own home) suffers from manipulation in the more traditional form: I sit at your house with a baseball bat and make sure you vote for my candidate of choice. Voting at a voting booth prevents that. I'm generally in favor of overhauling the voting system with technology (especially open source technology that can be publicly validated), but I think there are s…

Vote by mail suffers from the baseball bat problem, yet it's not uncommon in the US.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#33

Post by koenigdavidmj »

rhino369 wrote: post #14
estrabd wrote: post #5

Any idea about what the political ideologies of the full 100% looks like? It's bound to be vastly different that the low percentage that turns out.

I have no idea myself, but I think we can guess based on the fact that democrats generally want more turnout and republicans generally want less turn out. That suggests that democrats and republicans generally agree that the 100% would benefit democrats.

That doesn't explain Washington State, where the Democrats didn't use their state-provided primary at all (all of their primary delegates were allocated by a caucus you had to attend) and the Republicans did (though only one candidate is running now, so it doesn't really matter).

The Democrats made you physically get up on a Saturday and go, unless you had a valid excuse. Elections in Washington are by mail, so to vote in the Republican primary, you only had to walk to your mailbox.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#34

Post by robbiemitchell »

redthrowaway wrote: post #12

Not to sound elitist, but is that really a good thing? What sorts of people are going to be simultaneously not motivated to vote, and good at picking the best candidate?

> best candidate

Erm, how do you define best? (I know how _I_ define it, but not anyone else.)

More importantly, what sorts of people are simultaneously motivated to vote and NOT good at picking "the best" (translation: my preferred) candidate? PLENTY.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#35

Post by yurisagalov »

wl wrote: post #32
yurisagalov wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online voting (the kind you could do in the comfort of your own home) suffers from manipulation in the more traditional form: I sit at your house with a baseball bat and make sure you vote for my candidate of choice. Voting at a voting booth prevents that. I'm generally in favor of overhauling the voting system with technology (especially open source technology that can be publicly validated), but I think there are s…

Vote by mail suffers from the baseball bat problem, yet it's not uncommon in the US.

You're right. I was actually just about to edit my post to comment on the fact that absentee ballots still suffer that problem, so perhaps my thoughts here are invalid.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#36

Post by labster »

debracleaver wrote: post #2

Hey everyone. Debra Cleaver here, founder of Vote.org. I am ready to answer all of your questions about voting in the US, as long as they are non-partisan. Partisan questions should be directed to your local political party. I'm especially keen to talk about ways we can use technology to modernize the election process. My current focus is how we can use electronic signatures to roll out online voter registration in s…

Debra, how would you feel about an Australian-style fine for failure to vote here in the U.S.? I assume Vote.org work primarily on technological ways to promote voting, but will it also deal with social structural or institutional ways to increase voter turnout?

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#37

Post by jqm »

debracleaver wrote: post #25
bpodgursky wrote: post #6

I'd rather have 100% turnout by the 10% who are actually informed about the issues and candidates.

who decides if someone is informed enough? will their be a test? if so, we're treading dangerously into the jim crow era of american voting, and i don't think either one of us would be comfortable with that.

Each potential voter decides if they are informed enough. Or at least interested enough. And the two probably go together.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#38

Post by dexterdog »

orky56 wrote: post #26
bpodgursky wrote: post #6

I'd rather have 100% turnout by the 10% who are actually informed about the issues and candidates.

deleted

How is it partisan? I know plenty of people whom I consider informed on the issues with whom I am in complete disagreement politically.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#39

Post by PeCaN »

dexterdog wrote: post #31
debracleaver wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my general take on this is that we are ready to go with online voting when it is as secure as paper based voting. honestly, we're not there yet, but it is something i expect to see in the relatively near future.

How is this not more secure? This actually has a chance at being an accurate vote count while we know that the current system can never be accurate.

Let me know when we go a week without a security breach, and I'll let you know when online voting can be secure.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#40

Post by strommen »

debracleaver wrote: post #2

Hey everyone. Debra Cleaver here, founder of Vote.org. I am ready to answer all of your questions about voting in the US, as long as they are non-partisan. Partisan questions should be directed to your local political party. I'm especially keen to talk about ways we can use technology to modernize the election process. My current focus is how we can use electronic signatures to roll out online voter registration in s…

Do you know of studies or other hard data that tracks _why_ people don't vote? The article claims it is the difficulty of the process, but I would have guessed the top reason is voter apathy (which isn't really a technology issue).

Here's one thing technology could help with: identify which polling places are facing long delays on Election Day, so additional resources can be allocated to speed them up. Without being "partisan", I've noticed that areas with lots of college students and minorities tend to have much longer delays than affluent mainly-white areas (I wonder why that is...)

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