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ElectionGuard – A free open-source voting SDK

blogs.microsoft.com

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Re: ElectionGuard – A free open-source voting SDK

#31

Post by scj »

xmprt wrote: post #28
mises wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But tampering with a paper-only election requires physical interference and working across many different locations. It is much easier, if you have the talent, to break into an electronic election.

That's why you use both. Paper for tallying and electronic for auditing. I used to think electronics wouldn't help but now I'm starting to be convinced.

Tallying is only a problem if polling stations are overcrowded.

The simpler solution is to hire more counters. I can't imagine that'd be more expensive than developing custom hardware & software.

Re: ElectionGuard – A free open-source voting SDK

#33

Post by justinmchase »

shinigami wrote: post #13
maze-le wrote: post #2

It may not be a popular opinion around here, but the best election guard is doing them with pen & paper.

It's a terrible idea. Paper-only elections are easily corrupted. The right answer is combining paper & electronic.

Electronic elections suffer the same corruption issues but are more scalable.

Re: ElectionGuard – A free open-source voting SDK

#34

Post by justinmchase »

deevolution wrote: post #6
maze-le wrote: post #2

It may not be a popular opinion around here, but the best election guard is doing them with pen & paper.

Care to explain why you think pen and paper is the best solution?

Paper ballots, hand counted, twice.

This is still the most optimal current system as it much harder to corrupt at scale. The proprietary systems we have can easily be corrupted at the time of aggregation. There have been enough examples of people demonstrating simple tally hacks that there is no way to know if any election is genuinely counted accurately.

That's not to say that its impossible. I think block chain has some promising potential here but databases that are proprietary are completely untrustworthy today.

Re: ElectionGuard – A free open-source voting SDK

#36

Post by jakeogh »

shinigami wrote: post #13
maze-le wrote: post #2

It may not be a popular opinion around here, but the best election guard is doing them with pen & paper.

It's a terrible idea. Paper-only elections are easily corrupted. The right answer is combining paper & electronic.

What you are proposing it to "recount" when the electronic voting does not match expectations. It's a awful idea, and is equivalent to electronic-only voting since recounts are expensive and get challenged in court.

Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI

Re: ElectionGuard – A free open-source voting SDK

#38

Post by maltalex »

scj wrote: post #31
xmprt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you use both. Paper for tallying and electronic for auditing. I used to think electronics wouldn't help but now I'm starting to be convinced.

Tallying is only a problem if polling stations are overcrowded. The simpler solution is to hire more counters. I can't imagine that'd be more expensive than developing custom hardware & software.

Also less expensive than transporting and deploying an enormous amount of computers and networking equipment on Election Day.
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