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

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

#301

Post by reading-at-work » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 8:25 PM UTC

athenot wrote: post #12

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…

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 live in Oregon, and we do have mail-in ballots. Can confirm that it's great.

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

#302

Post by pbhjpbhj » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 8:28 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #137

dforrestwilson wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I even need to elect a Congressman/woman to make decisions for me? Just let me do it directly now that the technology is here. We should vote on issues in real time, or within a week or month-long window. It would incentivize people with time and interest to be more involved, and get rid of that pesky agency problem. At the very least we can marginalize the role of politicians and perhaps be less disappointed…

Jesus no. Even full time politicians don't have the time to read all the bills they vote on. You really don't want to reduce complex legislation to single sentence statements that casuals can vote on in between checking their Facebook feeds. See Brexit for an example how that would turn out.

In the UK many "full time politicians" have 2 or 3 other jobs (that would be full-time for other people). Things like working on the board of large companies, being a columnist.

I guess if you're being told by lobbyists what to vote you don't need to take time ...

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

#303

Post by slededit » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 8:49 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #270

acdha wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that the number of people who know this is a tiny fraction of the population and, unsettling as it is to contemplate, in the subsequent century we’ve had major wars which are equally important to commemorate so it’s not like a single date can cover all of them.

The First World War was the second most recent major war in American history, and I think the statute of limitations has passed on making V-J Day a national holiday. Veterans Day/Armistice Day is also one of the few secular national holidays that we share with most Western countries.

Strange you don't consider Vietnam a major war. I won't blame you for forgetting Korea though as even contemporaries did so.

For me the definition of "major war" is were civilians forcibly conscripted.

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

#304

Post by therealdrag0 » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:03 PM UTC

octorian wrote: post #218

mortenjorck wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bureauc…

What's better about traditional methods? Numbers are always off, recounts always get different results. It still seems like a black box.

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

#305

Post by toyg » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #286

toyg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, ideologically linking the military and democracy is a horrifically bad idea. The two systems embody completely opposite concepts.

Apparently, voting rights and military duty are intrinsically linked since ancient times. Greek and Roman citizens had the right to vote linked to their duty of military service at times of war. E.g. Athens had lots of free non-citizens who did not have that privilege and that duty. (Also look up the etymology of the word "idiot".) Democratic institutions in Europe started to crop up (sometimes as a result of revolut…

Your line of thinking is exemplary of what I was talking about: “violence first, democracy later”, “democracy comes from fighting”, and soon enough thousands of people are sent to die for nothing in a Middle-Eastern desert.

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

#306

Post by toyg » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:12 PM UTC

ckastner wrote: post #148

toyg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, ideologically linking the military and democracy is a horrifically bad idea. The two systems embody completely opposite concepts.

How is democracy the opposite concept to the military? Or was that just poorly phrased?

Try voting out your sergeant.

Try having a political leader jailing people who don’t do what he tells them to do.

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

#307

Post by nine_k » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:22 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #305

nine_k wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, voting rights and military duty are intrinsically linked since ancient times. Greek and Roman citizens had the right to vote linked to their duty of military service at times of war. E.g. Athens had lots of free non-citizens who did not have that privilege and that duty. (Also look up the etymology of the word "idiot".) Democratic institutions in Europe started to crop up (sometimes as a result of revolut…

Your line of thinking is exemplary of what I was talking about: “violence first, democracy later”, “democracy comes from fighting”, and soon enough thousands of people are sent to die for nothing in a Middle-Eastern desert.

It just so happens that in the real world independence can only be defended by force.

In a civilized society, this force is normally only exerted by specially designated people, the police force, and, more rarely, by citizens defending themselves against assault.

But any society that wants to preserve itself has to have an army, or some other kind of a self-defense force, else the first invader to come by will overrun and subdue it. Delegating this to someone who are not the citizens possible to an only very limited extent.

Violence is not a great thing, sure, but sometimes it's the lesser evil, when the greater evils are serfdom or extermination. What a civilized society has to curb is aggression, which is the source of violence.

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

#308

Post by zanny » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #32

zanny wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of the problem I feel is choice fatigue. Its by design that when you go to vote in a US election you are often voting for sometimes 20 or more different positions, and because of the sheer quantity of people you are supposed to audit this way it becomes impossible to thoroughly investigate all your choices if each one takes an hour of research. You can't ask your average citizen to spend 20+ hours in advan…

A "local government dictator" could smuggle in bad actors just as easily as a party ticket. Either way, you're outsourcing the decision to someone other than yourself, and hoping that the checks on them (you could oust the local dictator, and the republicans want to keep you happy enough to not vote for the democrats) will be enough to keep them honest.

There is no dictator, you are electing a plurality of representatives by rank choice. Even if one bad actor gets in they are still a minority of authority on appointments from your delegation. And if a party were consistently putting in three reps that consistently make bad decisions a fundamental hope for democracy is that when your representatives are acting against your interests you don't vote for them again.

The point is that there is no executive, no dictator, appointed by the people. It all goes to either a council or legislature appointment. And as long as you do such elections locally enough that those representatives aren't just ivory tower detached from those they govern their failures will be reflected throughout the community.

A large part of why it is so easy to mislead voters today with ads and propaganda is that you aren't voting for people you know, you are voting for strangers from a distant land, and to them you are just a statistic.

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

#309

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #11

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…

A big part of the problem I feel is choice fatigue. Its by design that when you go to vote in a US election you are often voting for sometimes 20 or more different positions, and because of the sheer quantity of people you are supposed to audit this way it becomes impossible to thoroughly investigate all your choices if each one takes an hour of research. You can't ask your average citizen to spend 20+ hours in advan…

> The only reason TPTB made these elections direct was to incentivize people to vote by party color rather than by person to smuggle in bad actors into government.

No, the reason reformers made these changes was to break up rampant corruption and back-room dealing in State government and the allocation of appointed positions.

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

#310

Post by uxp100 » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

ascagnel_ wrote: post #268

jermaustin1 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every company I've worked for in NY/NJ has had the day off... except my current gig for an Italian company. Go figure.

NY/NJ has a heavy Italian influence, so the day acts as more of an "Italian Heritage Day" at this point.

Not just at this point. It's been seen as at least partially an Italian heritage day for longer than it's been an official holiday.