Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election • Hacker News Board

Re: Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election

#161

Post by AcerbicZero » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #133

plopz wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is then what do you do with low voter turnout? The article says that this election has in previous years resulted in <1% of eligible voters. That is clearly untenable.

>The problem is then what do you do with low voter turnout? What's the problem with low voter turnout? If someone doesn't feel like voting, they should have that right. A non-vote is a vote of confidence that you are OK with any choice. In fact, high voter turnout is usually indicative of major societal divisions or issues (case in point, the upcoming national election will probably have HIGH voter turnout as anti-Tr…

You're looking at it backwards. Democracy draws its power from the "consent of the governed", not from the complacency of the subjects. Remember the whole "taxation without representation" thing back when this democracy thing was getting started? Government is a tool of the people, and if the people chose to not engage in the process, the government has no legitimate claim by which it can act on the people's behalf.

The government doesn't ask for your consent, it assumes it, and the only method by which you can directly withhold consent is to refuse to participate in their political process. Low voter turnout is an indicator of an illegitimate government, which no longer has the consent of the people to continue governing them (At least in a democracy).

*Edit: If people chose to not vote (or engage in other political actions) the question should be "do we need this part of the government" not "how do we get more people to vote in this part of the government"

Re: Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election

#162

Post by mjevans » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 11:21 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #153

Beldin wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voluntary disclosure sounds as if it undoes the secret ballot. Just a reminder: the secret ballot is secret to protect those, whose genuine vote would otherwise be manipulated (/forced/extorted/...) Not every individual voter might need that level of protection for themselves. But every individual voter requires this level of protection for the whole process. Phrased differently: for some, anonymity in voting is nice…

>Just a reminder: the secret ballot is secret to protect those, whose genuine vote would otherwise be manipulated (/forced/extorted/...) For mail-in voting (which is how the majority of people in King County vote), what makes the ballot secret? Can someone be forced or extorted to fill in the ballot in front of their persecutor? >For democracy to function, we need everyone's genuine vote. I'd honestly like to see ano…

Source: I vote in King County (of which Seattle is a member city and probably uses the same process given the same elections office).

The Mail In Ballot procedure here uses a double-envelope system.

The inner envelope has the vote (with a matching identifier tab pulled off). It is supposed to contain only the vote.

The other envelope contains the inner envelope and this envelope is marked with the address of the voter, and a legally binding contract (signed by the voter and/or representative witnesses if they are unable).

My belief is that the validation process for these ballots includes multiple stages and probably blinding, wherein, the outer envelope is authenticated as a registered voter and that it contains something likely to be a vote (there's a small viewing circle). This would then be stripped and the trusted inner envelope, still sealed, added to a tabulation bin. Said tabulation bin would then be counter later in an anonomized manor.

Re: Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election

#163

Post by int_19h » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 11:22 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #128

legitster wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting without the information packet seems mind boggling to me. But then I realize that's how 99% of the world votes and I understand so much more now.

I have zero idea what you're talking about. I have never in my life received in informational packet along with my ballot. Like there's a short short summary of ballot issues but nothing about any of the candidates.

Here's an example of what it looks like in WA. https://www.kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/elections/how-to-vo...

These pamphlets are made separately by each county, and large counties sometimes make different versions when there are many local elections or initiatives on the ballot (e.g. King County had 4 versions of this pamphlet, each covering a different set of municipal elections, the corresponding school districts etc).

You get them in the mail in advance of your ballot.

Re: Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election

#164

Post by dane-pgp » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

mslong wrote: post #85

chimeracoder wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sorry, but explain to me how I'm able to submit my taxes securely every year online, or pay for my marketplace insurance securely every month, but voting on our own digital devices is somehow beyond reach of what we can technically fathom? Because the threat models are completely different. For starters, if you get your taxes wrong, or if someone fraudulently tries to file on your behalf, it's a reversible process.…

Good points, but it just means you have to move the verification process upfront like I lay out in another comment further up this chain. Bottom line is that we have a literal army of software engineers in this country that are capable of figuring this stuff out if it was a priority to get voting to 100% turnout. We split the atom and landed on the moon, I'm pretty confident we can figure out mobile voting.

I admire your confidence, but I always feel uneasy when I hear someone use the line: "We landed on the moon, so we can surely do ".

Next time you try to use it, consider how much credibility you'd give to this argument: "We had men land on the moon and return safely, so we can surely land men on the sun and return them safely".

Re: Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election

#165

Post by mjevans » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #129

Ill_ban_myself wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope by the length of my next sentence I'll be worthy of some small part of the praise you're giving the Seattle Times here :-) It seems to me that the only difference between an exit poll and a voluntary disclosure checkbox which, if utilized by a statistically significant portion of the electorate, could be leveraged by official government commissions to audit election results where online voting is offered is th…

Forgive me, I don't know what you're advocating for here. I greatly appreciate that you're chewing on the policy, problem, tech. For the USA, I no longer think polls are useful predictors, nor are exit polls useful audits or verification. For polling to work (be useful), like is done in Germany, requires the whole system to be designed as such. Our gold standard is the Australian Ballot. Private voting, public counti…

I agree with proportional representation applied within a bounding area of authority and letting representation by __area__ and/or __area of interest__ be by decided by the vote rather than distracting (which is subject to jerry mandering).

I prefer the "Path Voting" method (which I have to google for with wikipedia path voting every time, since I can't remember how to spell the inventor's name). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method

"The Schulze method (/ˈʃʊltsə/) is an electoral system developed in 1997 by Markus Schulze that selects a single winner using votes that express preferences. The method can also be used to create a sorted list of winners. The Schulze method is also known as Schwartz Sequential dropping (SSD), cloneproof Schwartz sequential dropping (CSSD), the beatpath method, beatpath winner, path voting, and path winner."

Re: Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election

#166

Post by iudqnolq » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 11:37 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #154

reaperducer wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is going to pay you to tick the organ donor box, or threaten you or your family if you don't. Both of those things have happened with voting in the past, which is why ballots are secret.

>No one is going to pay you to tick the organ donor box, or threaten you or your family if you don't. Both of those things have happened with voting in the past, which is why ballots are secret. It's perfectly legal to take a selfie at the ballot box showing that you voted a particular way. It's feasible that some party could anonymously pay, say, $20 for every selfie they are sent with the way of voting that they as…

You can take the selfie and then void your ballot. Person who paid you won't know.

If you tick a disclosure box and void your ballot, then that can be tracked.

Re: Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election

#167

Post by iudqnolq » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 11:39 PM UTC

joejerryronnie wrote: post #160

legitster wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting without the information packet seems mind boggling to me. But then I realize that's how 99% of the world votes and I understand so much more now.

Just wait till they gamify electronic voting - "Congratulations, you've just earned your Junior Progressive badge! Vote for two more progressive candidates to level up!"

"they"?

What makes you certain progressives will control election infrastructure?

And the same officials who would set the text of the app currently oversee the descriptions of the issues on the ballot that each voter gets. Can you point to a single case of any progressive politician using their power to manipulate those descriptions?

I don't believe any politician has done so in the last 50 years, from either party. Do you have evidence that I'm wrong, or do you have any other evidence that the election infrastructure being so blatantly abused is at all plausible?

Re: Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election

#168

Post by catalogia » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 11:45 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #155

bobthepanda wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lot easier to hijack online voting infrastructure than it is to start digging through everyone's mailboxes at the correct time when they happen to actually be sending a ballot out. The voting period in Washington is 18 days. So someone would have to either be constantly looking through my mail for the better part of three weeks, or have the best luck when it comes to predicting when I would actually send it ou…

To corrupt the vote, just offer some money for every empty ballot that gets sent to you to fill in and mail. There are a lot of people who would trade their ballot for a $20 bill.

Good luck scaling that far enough to make a difference, without at the same time broadcasting your intentions to everybody.

Re: Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election

#169

Post by downerending » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 12:19 AM UTC

skue wrote: post #9

This is for a voluntary county board position without regulatory power that by statute needs to be elected by March when no one is paying attention. So someone decided to try this out. OTOH, the WA Sec. of State opposes mobile/online elections due to security concerns, as does her upcoming political opponent [1] and FWIW the Seattle Times recently wrote an Editorial also opposing the practice. [2] Bottom line, this h…

There should be an official list of elections that don't actually matter. Or perhaps those that do, since it would be far shorter.

I can't recall the last time there was an election in my precinct for any question whatsoever that was actually in play. These days I just give my wife my ballot to vote--it makes us both happier.

Re: Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election

#170

Post by annoyingnoob » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 1:38 AM UTC

dane-pgp wrote: post #158

annoyingnoob wrote: post #82

Vote is the new app that makes voting easy. No more paper booklets full of legal mumbo jumbo. Just press the Vote button and Vote does the rest, done and done. Vote automates your votes by choosing the best candidates for you using SocialAI technology.

I guess you're being satirical, and maybe not everyone appreciates that, but you raise an interesting idea. Could AI (or rather, some simplistic machine learning algorithms) help to inform voters about which candidates share the same values as them, or what position on a ballot proposition they should take to be consistent with other views they have expressed? Of course, that might end up putting a lot of power into…

That sounds super scary to me. I mean where do you get the information that informs expressions you might make on the internet? Is it those same newspapers and TV stations? Other places where you self-selected to go? If so, whats the difference between going with the source(s) vs going with your expressions?

I'll agree that voting should be on paper. I'm not ready to boil it all down to something like a dating app.