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They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

theguardian.com

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Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#61

Post by colordrops »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #28
joshfraser wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be pseudo-anonymous like Bitcoin. You would keep the mapping between public keys and real-world identities private. But perhaps some percentage of people would choose to waive their right to privacy, further strengthening trust in the system. Statistically, the public voters should be in line with the final outcome.

> But perhaps some percentage of people would choose to waive their right to privacy, further strengthening trust in the system. This has the same problem. Didn't waive your right to privacy and provably vote for the right candidate - you're fired (or worse). That's why taking photos of a ballot isn't allowed, you can't have any way to show who you voted for.

So we shouldn't attempt anything that could be overridden by illegal activities by employers?

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#62

Post by neilv »

davidw wrote: post #57

Happy with my Senator Ron Wyden's take on this: paper ballots. He's also mentioned in the article. Our system here in Oregon works pretty well: you vote by mail with paper ballots and there's automatic voter registration.

One of the downsides of vote-by-mail is that it makes some ways of buying votes easier.

But it does have the upside of making participation easier (especially for people overburdened with work or other responsibilities). And the physical paper auditing trail makes it immensely better than all the electronic systems without that record.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#63

Post by WillPostForFood »

5trokerac3 wrote: post #11

> “To say that they don’t have any evidence of any wrongdoing is not to say that nothing untoward happened,” Raskin said. “It’s simply to say that we don’t have the evidence of it.” What kind of "show me the man and I'll show you the crime" nonsense is this? Why doesn't this article talk about how DHS was caught red-handed hacking into GA election systems?

Because it wasn't true:

https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/339734-investigatio...

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#64

Post by the_snooze »

tptacek wrote: post #41

If you want to have strong opinions about voting security, you should do as Matt Blaze recommends and sign up to be an election judge. I did it after my business partner 'lvh did, presumably at Blaze's urging, and he's right: you really can't comprehend fully what's going on in an election until you've worked on one firsthand. A lot of things you'd be inclined to think are major security problems probably aren't, and…

Some people might interpret this as gatekeeping, but it really is true. If you're serious about election security, you'll learn a lot very quickly by immersing yourself in the process and the people who do it.

For example, one often-overlooked advantage of traditional in-person paper voting is that you're entitled to spoil your ballot and request a fresh one. This protects voters from being coerced into voting a certain way and taking a photo of their ballot as proof, as there's no guarantee that the ballot in the photo is the same as what was submitted.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#65

Post by hannasanarion »

rectang wrote: post #51
hannasanarion wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lie. The Democrats have tried at least six times in the last fifteen years to get money out of elections and make elections more secure, such as by requiring paper backups. Every time they were blocked by Bush, or the Republican Filibuster, or Trump. Election security is not a "both sides" issue. Democrats want more of it, Republicans want less of it, and this is bourne out very clearly in their voting reco…

This isn't uniformly true: consider that New York's governor Cuomo blocked played a part in blocking reforms there for several years. It's not historically true, either, when you consider buying votes in the Daley machine of Chicago. It's possible to talk about the politics of this on HN, but if we apply one level of generalization ("people in power for whom free and fair elections do not serve their interest"), we c…

Cuomo is not a good example of an mainline Democrat. He sides with Republicans in the state senate as often as Democrats. The only NY politician with a worse approval rating is Mayor DeBlasio.

Election reform is a major piece of the Democratic party platform, and has been for a very long time.

Whenever it comes up in Congress, the vote is party-line: all Democrats in favor of more secure and less money-influenced elections, all Republicans opposed.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#66

Post by nomel »

joshfraser wrote: post #47
joshfraser wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if our elections are rigged and we don't know it? Is it worth risking a faked election as long as we all feel good about it?

The problem with paper is that it's too easy to remove and replace the ballots you don't like.

Being physical, you would physically have to remove the previous vote first. This would require some combination of a chemical process, color matching, and/or glue piecing back on.

This all takes time, tight tolerances, and automation to a happen at an impactful scale, which minimal oversight would mostly prevent.

Compare this to an SQL statement to change a whole states worth of votes in a few hundred milliseconds.

You can always recount the paper.

Whatever solution, it require the limitation of involving something physical and difficult to manipulate.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#67

Post by paulgb »

the_snooze wrote: post #64
tptacek wrote: post #41

If you want to have strong opinions about voting security, you should do as Matt Blaze recommends and sign up to be an election judge. I did it after my business partner 'lvh did, presumably at Blaze's urging, and he's right: you really can't comprehend fully what's going on in an election until you've worked on one firsthand. A lot of things you'd be inclined to think are major security problems probably aren't, and…

Some people might interpret this as gatekeeping, but it really is true. If you're serious about election security, you'll learn a lot very quickly by immersing yourself in the process and the people who do it. For example, one often-overlooked advantage of traditional in-person paper voting is that you're entitled to spoil your ballot and request a fresh one. This protects voters from being coerced into voting a cert…

> This protects voters from being coerced into voting a certain way and taking a photo of their ballot as proof

I like that, and I think it's an important property of voting systems that people who want to implement online voting overlook. But isn't it undermined by absentee voting, or is there a similar mechanism for that?

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#68

Post by hannasanarion »

kazagistar wrote: post #54
hannasanarion wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because now you can prove to anybody which way you voted, opening yourself to blackmail, bribery, or duress. The secrecy of the vote is crucial to its integrity.

Maybe you could move things down the chain: make it illegal for any entity (with perhaps some exceptions for anonymity compliant polling) to ask for voting proof, with very significant felony punishments (large organizational fines, jailtime for individuals).

Or you can just use a voting system where producing proof is non-trivial, like paper ballots.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#69

Post by SolaceQuantum »

deburo wrote: post #56
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But perhaps some percentage of people would choose to waive their right to privacy, further strengthening trust in the system. This has the same problem. Didn't waive your right to privacy and provably vote for the right candidate - you're fired (or worse). That's why taking photos of a ballot isn't allowed, you can't have any way to show who you voted for.

Huh? If you're asked to waive your right by your employer, I'm pretty sure you can get them in trouble by going to the media and make a fuss about it. This is a silly hypothesis.

I don't know if this is true. Assuming this is an established practice by large companies, there would also be a cultural notion (by managers agreeing with the sentiment, CEOs, famous executives espousing it) that hiding your voting patterns means you are voting for the "wrong people". Plus, by going to the media, you'll be permanently known to any future employer as a rat on your company's practices. While this is good for society it has personal consequences to you.
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