“A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming • Hacker News Board

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#211

Post by SeanBoocock » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

twtw wrote: post #111

athenot wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving voting day from a Tuesday to a Sunday would also make a big difference. There are many people who have have informed opinions but can't afford to take off work (write-up for being late to work/take off early, lost income, transport issues). Also that would avoid removing a school day since most public schools are used for polling. Another option would be to switch to make mail-in ballots only.

I'm not sure - CA has permanent vote by mail available to all eligible voters, and saw about a 38% voter turnout yesterday. Texas does not, and saw about a 40% voter turnout. If getting to the polling place is the bottleneck, I would expect CAs vote by mail option would increase voter turnout relative to somewhere without it. (Cue someone saying I can't compare TX to CA - it seems like if I can't that demonstrates th…

One thing in Texas’s favor is its early voting setup. Early voting was available from October 20th to last Friday, including weekends, typically from 7am to 7pm.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#212

Post by IncRnd » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #23

CWuestefeld wrote: post #3

If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck. Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. And I think that people realize this. So when…

I agree, but it's important to note that many people don't vote in the US because they simply don't have the time to leave work/school and go to a polling place, or won't get paid for it if they do [1]. More mail-in ballots could potentially alleviate this, but a lot of people prefer to vote in person. Also due to our two-party system, gerrymandering, and the way congress works, many people don't vote because they fe…

> they simply don't have the time to leave work/school and go to a polling place, or won't get paid for it if they do [1]. More mail-in ballots could potentially alleviate this, but a lot of people prefer to vote in person.

That's already solved. People can vote early in-person or mail-in ballots.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#213

Post by Bantros » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

twtw wrote: post #179

sailfast wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No - I believe everyone should try to educate themselves as much as possible about what they are voting on. What I "heard" in the original statement is something implied - something deeper (my hearing may be wrong) To say "we don't need more ignorant uninformed votes" when the only thing you know about a voter is who / what they voted for (not the _why_), while also saying there is a way to vote that will "help our s…

No need to apologize, but I do think you are reading a bit too much into it.

He really isn't

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#214

Post by wasdfff » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

jkaljundi wrote: post #128

As an Estonian who has voted online and via mobile ID for years, couldn't imagine going to vote in a physical location, using pen and paper.

Pen and paper is hardly done in the US except provisionally. All my votes were cast on a touchscreen with a printed paper recipes that I could look at and confirm of my choice. The paper ballot is kept by the board of elections.

Whose to stop bad actors from manipulating electronic votes? Whose to say your vote was even tallied? It is far easier to manipulate elections electronically. If Russian operatives are able to penetrate election systems in the behemoth of the US, do you feel confident that they are leaving your Estonian system in their immediate sphere of influence alone? It would potentially take one engineer and one computer to manipulate an electronic election. It would take a team of people, equipment, trucks, incinerators, fake ballots, whatever to do the same manipulation to millions of physical paper ballots stored in secure facilities.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#215

Post by tomjen3 » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

sailfast wrote: post #53

CWuestefeld wrote: post #3

If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck. Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. And I think that people realize this. So when…

> Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. EDIT: "Wow" Retracted and language changes - agree that ignorance is something to be fought, but it's a tough determination when it comes to voting. How are you determining a voter is ignorant? What if someone is informed but disagrees with you? Like so many things, we need both, and I don't think it is an either/or. It should be easie…

I would say a voter isn't ignorant if he can tell me why I believe what I believe in such a way that I can say that is correct.

You need to understand the positions, then you can disagree with them.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#216

Post by IncRnd » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 5:00 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #6

CWuestefeld wrote: post #3

If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck. Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. And I think that people realize this. So when…

You've got it backwards: people don't vote for a number of reasons. Many don't because elitists in politics constantly tell them they're too stupid or ignorant to know what's good for them, lecture about civic duty, and ignore the very real problems they have in their lives. Ignoring the real problems that exist in registering or getting to the polls doesn't help.

> Many don't because elitists in politics constantly tell them they're too stupid or ignorant to know what's good for them

If the cause of someone not voting is politicians saying they are too stupid to vote, maybe they really shouldn't vote.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#217

Post by AnthonyWnC » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 5:00 PM UTC

It is hilarious and idiotic to see all these modern luddite think that somehow electronic X (in this case, voting) won't work or can't be secure.

And yes, paper voting has to be the best solution ever. /s

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#218

Post by octorian » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 5:00 PM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #167

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

> The Boston-based company raised $2.2 million earlier this year, helped along by buzzwords such as “biometrics” and “blockchain,” which it claims allows it to secure the voting process. Its app reportedly requires voters to take and upload a picture of their government-issued I.D., along with a selfie-style video of their face, which facial-recognition technology then uses to ensure the person pictured in the I.D. a…

Honestly, I don’t think voting by app is inherently a “horrifically bad idea” – just that Voatz’ implementation is horrifically bad. Biometrics are going to be almost impossible to do in a non-invasive and secure way for now, so cut that part of the pitch. Blockchain may not be an entirely round peg in this square hole, but there are other cryptographic architectures that probably make more sense (I am not a cryptogr…

> Honestly, I don’t think voting by app is inherently a “horrifically bad idea”

Yes, it is. There are many ways such a system can go wrong. If its not this defective implementation, it'll be some other company's defective implementation. If not that, it'll be a targeted attack against the underlying platform.

Another big thing you have to think about is... Who will be choosing the system? Its going to be some bureaucrats with a vested interest in supporting one particular vendor, who use their power to silence any critics of said vendor's solution. Whenever electronic voting comes up, we always end up with this situation.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#219

Post by tomjen3 » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #118

bun_at_work wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandatory voting? How would you propose enforcing it? How does Australia enforce it? I'm not necessarily against mandatory voting, but it would be very hard to convince the American public that mandatory voting is a good idea when a huge part of the population would see that as an attack on their freedom to not vote. This doesn't even begin to discuss the situations where voting only occurs on a Tuesday (aside from m…

> Mandatory voting? How would you propose enforcing it? With a financial penalty if you don't submit a ballot. The simplest method would probably be a per-election tax credit. > I'm not necessarily against mandatory voting, but it would be very hard to convince the American public that mandatory voting is a good idea when a huge part of the population would see that as an attack on their freedom to not vote. Most man…

How would you deal with unregistered voters?

How would you deal with malicious voters, who now surely would be so pissed they would vote for a bad candidate, or put in ballots wrapped in dog shit?

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#220

Post by zaroth » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

Steltek wrote: post #146

zaroth wrote: post #21

My town has annual “Town Meetings” where everyone pours into a gymnasium (turnout is up to 800 voters in a town with population ~15,000) to vote on all the “articles” of which there can be upwards of 20. The annual meeting often extends multiple evenings as much discussion is permitted on each article, and traditional voting can add several hours to the process when vote counts are close. Instead of shouting aye or n…

Yikes, I can see a lot of our TMM's having trouble with phones. It'd be better to just invest in dedicated phones and not allow BYOD. In fact, I can see some TMM's trying to get away with voting remotely (attendance is sometimes challenging). That said, the remotes are amazingly useful for going back and looking over the results.

To be clear, they are wireless remotes, but you have to be in the room. And even these dedicated devices are not entirely frustration free, sometimes they have to revert to hand counting.

I don’t think anything is saved within each device, just the totals. They say there’s no way to know how each individual device (and therefore device-holder) voted.

I doubt strongly there is any actual crypto guaranteeing this though.