Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#221

Post by cmdrfred » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 2:37 PM UTC

frobozz wrote: post #138

pmontra wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italy here, it works in the same way. Parties have their watchers. I expect this to happen in every country, unless there is only one real party and the others are there just for the show. In every paper based system problems can arise outside the voting site: parties can buy votes but that's the same with internet voting. With the internet and computers an attacker has the benefit of changing a vote every 1,000, on…

The paper based system guards against vote buying through the guarantee of secrecy. I go into a booth on my own, make my mark(s) fold my paper, and put it in a locked box. No one but me knows how I voted. If I go in with someone else, the officials will take action. You can try to buy my vote, but I can just take your money and vote however I want. If I can vote from wherever I like, then someone can stand over my sh…

> If I can vote from wherever I like, then someone can stand over my shoulder and watch me vote, then only pay for it if I do as I'm told.

and this scales?

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#222

Post by Kurtz79 » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 2:37 PM UTC

FatalBaboon wrote: post #164

> In fact, online voting is such a dangerous idea that computer scientists and security experts are nearly unanimous in opposition to it. Stopped reading. Online voting is not just about electing presidents. If you can poll the people easily, you have a democracy where people directly chose, instead of having a mafious bunch in a grand building making what corporations want the law, ahem I meant doing what is good fo…

Do you really think it would be better if anyone could decide about anything, even without having proper knowledge of the issue ?

The idea of "representative" democracy (opposed to "direct") is that you elect someone more or less aligned to your ideas, which has the time and competence to make the best decisions. It's far from a perfect system, but let's not delude ourselves about the alternative.

In practice, every decision has its side effects, and law in most cases is the result of compromise.

I can't think of a worse system where your average Joe can vote about things like taxes, gun control, minimum wage, immigration, national security, not having the slightest idea of how his decisions will affect the whole picture.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#223

Post by zanny » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 2:41 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #209

yummyfajitas wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've stumbled across a bigger issue - democracy is fundamentally broken since no one has any incentive to vote correctly. I know a lady who's a likely Trump voter. But she also donated money to Hillary in order to get the "woman card". https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/products/the-woman-card She's pretty honest that it's just entertainment for her - like voting on American Idol. Think about how many election…

Maybe representative democracy is broken (there are reams of good texts written about it). OTOH direct democracy may be not as broken, since the effects of voting are much more immediate and local. See Switzerland that constantly keeps voting against populist measures like lowering the retirement age. It lasted ~850 years so far, longer than almost all European states and 100% of American states. Switzerland is compa…

People have generally not established direct democracies throughout history for a reason. I personally never want to see a direct democracy in the US, because if you want to have your faith in your countrymen destroyed go spend an hour sitting on a bench outside a Walmart and just watch humanity at work.

The vast majority of people are borderline illiterate emotional animals. You don't see or interact with them because they exist in their isolated silos of service work and personally proffered bars and TV stations, but the number of rational informed actors in any given election is in a steep minority.

I don't know the Swiss well, but I'd hope they have a much better culture to support direct democracy than what the US has, because the US would be a disaster. Islam would be banned, Hispanics would be kill on sight, police would be given heavy artillery to demolish drug dens. Whenever any international news of any kind phases the country there would be immediate over-reactionary laws passed to diminish liberty and perpetuate a culture of fear, because that is a large part of what we have now, and giving that animal brain legitimacy on the national stage would be a global catastrophe.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#224

Post by HelloNurse » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

frobozz wrote: post #138

pmontra wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italy here, it works in the same way. Parties have their watchers. I expect this to happen in every country, unless there is only one real party and the others are there just for the show. In every paper based system problems can arise outside the voting site: parties can buy votes but that's the same with internet voting. With the internet and computers an attacker has the benefit of changing a vote every 1,000, on…

The paper based system guards against vote buying through the guarantee of secrecy. I go into a booth on my own, make my mark(s) fold my paper, and put it in a locked box. No one but me knows how I voted. If I go in with someone else, the officials will take action. You can try to buy my vote, but I can just take your money and vote however I want. If I can vote from wherever I like, then someone can stand over my sh…

The quasi-standard protocol to sell a paper vote is photographing the marked ballot inside the booth, before putting it in the box.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#225

Post by yummyfajitas » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #209

yummyfajitas wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've stumbled across a bigger issue - democracy is fundamentally broken since no one has any incentive to vote correctly. I know a lady who's a likely Trump voter. But she also donated money to Hillary in order to get the "woman card". https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/products/the-woman-card She's pretty honest that it's just entertainment for her - like voting on American Idol. Think about how many election…

Maybe representative democracy is broken (there are reams of good texts written about it). OTOH direct democracy may be not as broken, since the effects of voting are much more immediate and local. See Switzerland that constantly keeps voting against populist measures like lowering the retirement age. It lasted ~850 years so far, longer than almost all European states and 100% of American states. Switzerland is compa…

Direct democracy is still broken. If I vote wrong I suffer nothing, but I may gain positive feelings.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#226

Post by guard-of-terra » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

netheril96 wrote: post #184

guard-of-terra wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"could just take the seller's signature device and do voting himself" That's identity thieft, which should be punishable by a few years behind bars. Also, make those signature devices tethered to receiving whatever equivalent of Social Security payments, and addicts/homeless will not let anybody lay a finger on it.

> That's identity thieft, which should be punishable by a few years behind bars. When the holder of the identity agrees, it is not a theft. Of course it is still criminal, but how could you reliably enforce that?

Identity is non-transferrable. It's theft all right, albeit with different victim.

Once one of those addicts complains that you're using their ID, you're a toast.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#227

Post by icebraining » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 2:46 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #148

mantas wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure votes are bought offline too. But it's much more difficult. The people who sell votes don't care to "change their mind". They get their reward and they're happy with that. People who would bother to change their mind, don't sell their votes in the first place.

Why would it be much more difficult? The difference is "upload a photo of your ballot" versus "upload a screenshot of your vote".

You can take a photo of the ballot with the "correct" box marked and then spoil it (eg. by marking all boxes). That's what I'd do if I was coerced to vote for some candidate.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#228

Post by franciscojgo » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 2:47 PM UTC

I am strongly against the view of the author.

I see that the majority (or a large portion) of voters are fanatics that vote based on affiliation and fanaticism, not policies nor experience.

Ie. The voting numbers are largely biased towards the political fanatic crowd.

I see online voting as a way to increase the number of ordinary people that vote. Getting the voting population to 80%+ or more is good for democracy. I see this as a positive.

Saying Online voting is a danger to democracy is like saying autonomous cars are a danger to safety.

Yes, if the autonomous system doesn't work and is made with loopholes that allow dangerous stuff, it will pose a danger. But if made to work fail-proof, it will be infinitely better.

There's no point in saying something will not work if your only argument is based on the proposition that it's going to be broken before it's even used.

Sure, an unsafe car is not safe. The only way to make it safe is to make sure it's safe.

The only way "democratic" online voting will work is to make sure it's "democratic".

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#229

Post by l3m0ndr0p » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 2:49 PM UTC

First of all, in America, we don't have a democracy. Democracy is mob rule. We have the appearance of a Constitutional republic.

Voting in the USA and who gets the votes is done by an electoral college. For the most part we don't have a direct vote. Where people vote for a person & that vote actually counts.

I believe this current form of voting in the USA is the real danger. It allows votes to be moved to another candidate because the electoral college made that decision with no input from the voters

We need to remove the voting system out of the hands of private corporations

We need to have a non-profit (open source GNU style) voting system that utilizes some kind of verifiable voting method, that would reduce the risk of fraud (block-chain like system). Maybe a decentralize like BitTorrent like platform

We need to reject the current electoral college system and make every vote count

Our country is in trouble and we don't even know it yet. Peace

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#230

Post by greeneggs » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 2:49 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #219

AdrienChey wrote: post #212

For a 2016 article about online voting, i'm really surprised to find no mention of block-chain related solutions... It seems most of the concern addressed here can be solve with this kind of "open-computing / open-data" technologies. If you are interested in this topic, I strongly advise you the reading of: https://medium.com/@DomSchiener/publicvotes-ethereum-based-v... And more generally what can be done with contra…

From your second link: "True, if you consider vote buying a type of electoral fraud, the scheme is not fraud-proof." And of course, "vote buying" can be substituted by "coerced voting". Any system where someone can physically see the voter casting their vote is flawed, regardless of whatever tricks you then use to obscure it once it's in the system.

It is a matter of degree. Anyone can carry a cell phone into a voting booth to photograph their ballot. And we already have voting by mail in many jurisdictions.