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

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

#191

Post by macspoofing » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 2:06 PM UTC

AcerbicZero wrote: post #161

macspoofing wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.…

>Democracy draws its power from the "consent of the governed"

OK. I believe I'm arguing for consent.

>not from the complacency of the subjects

That's a red-herring. It has nothing to do with anything.

>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.

If they choose to not engage because they don't trust the system .. then sure, that's a problem. If they choose to not engage because they are fine with any outcome - I don't see the problem.

> Low voter turnout is an indicator of an illegitimate government

You can't just say things. Sometimes that may be the case. And sometimes it may not. Typically in western nations, low voter turnout stems from a comfortable, prosperous life.

>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"

Sure. And I'm not against either.

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

#192

Post by deogeo » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

swebs wrote: post #189

deogeo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused - wouldn't that mean the vote isn't secret?

It won't go on record who you voted for, but someone at the office will have to confirm that you voted and enter in the vote. If mail-in ballots were completely anonymous, then someone could just print 10,000 copies and stuff the polls.

I thought we were talking about non-mail-in ballots, that you print at home, but submit personally.

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

#193

Post by joejerryronnie » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

fg6hr wrote: post #184

joejerryronnie wrote: post #156

Me and 10,000 of my bots would like to participate in this election.

I'm pretty sure there is a competing botnet that would be happy to override votes of your botnet. If online votes are counted only once, then what matters is which botnet is faster and has a better link to the voting servers. High Frequency Voting, in other words.

Haha, you’re right! So, as always, it boils down to an arms race between the two sides. So keep an eye on who's leasing office space near the voting server data centers.

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

#194

Post by jimmaswell » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

modriano wrote: post #181

addicted wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fair enough, but the issue is that at least in the US, youre not actually replacing paper ballot voting in most cases. The US currently has digital (often internet connected) polling booths, which bring all the security problems of mobile/net voting, and none of the benefits. I would much rather have mobile voting, as opposed to the current widespread digital voting booths system. Ideally, of course, we'd wan…

Mobile voting is a nightmare idea. A very large portion of the population is far from tech savvy, but to have mobile voting as an option, the entire voting base has the know how to correctly place a mobile vote, or else a significant percentange of the population could get duped into using a fake voting app/site and not actually voting. Authenticating voters is also a significant technical problem, as the barriers to…

One verification avenue that comes to mind is matching fingerprints but that would only work for those who both can afford such a high-end phone and can take time off to go register their fingerprints with their voting office, or however that would be implemented. Maybe a future rollout like this could be done when biometrics like this are standard in cheap smartphones and biometric collection becomes a standard voluntary part of voter registration.

Maybe mail-in ballots could come with QR codes but this kind of defeats the idea of a mobile-only option.

Maybe we just need to accept that some voter fraud will happen like it already does (the standard for voting in-person is nothing but matching the name you tell them to a list of names, not even any ID required) and settle for something potentially exploitable like SMS's with links sent to phone numbers whose registered names/addresses correspond to a registered voter, where you then have to verify some information like past addresses or whatever. If we'd just force telecom companies to tighten up their security that would be a perfect solution, and as it is it's probably good enough using the existing rate of voter fraud as a bar. Stealing a phone number in the process of identity theft is something that happens and is easier than it should be but it still takes a while on the phone and someone making a full time job of it just to hope to catch that automated text probably wouldn't get that many, if the texts were sent at random times throughout a whole month or so.

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

#195

Post by tatersolid » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

iudqnolq wrote: post #167

joejerryronnie wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> Can you point to a single case of any progressive politician using their power to manipulate those descriptions?

Pretty much every ballot initiative in the last 50 years of the state of Illinois. Search “Illinois Democratic machine” for the history of the abuses.

One recent ballot initiative I recall read “do you support improvements to water reclamation infrastructure of Cook County at the cost of $X bond issue”. It did not mention that the full text of the measure drastically increased the number and salaries of democratic party appointees in the water dept and they would get guaranteed life pensions at 80% of salary.

When a single party has most of the government positions, election corruption abounds.

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

#196

Post by joshuaheard » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

Klathmon wrote: post #83

joshuaheard wrote: post #25

I don't understand why a bank's website is secure enough to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I can't cast a single vote online.

Because one can buy you a nice yacht, but the other can buy control over the most powerful military in the world, the stakes are just significantly larger for an election. The reward provides a sort of ceiling on how much time and money can be spent on trying to break a system. Even if you could get access to a few billion dollars by somehow "hacking" a bank and get away with it, that means that you'd only be spendin…

You have identified many problems that need to be addressed. I hope eventually the security problems will be worked out. It seems to me that online voting is a natural evolution and would certainly be more convenient for voters like myself used to doing everything online.

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

#197

Post by Ill_ban_myself » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #142

Ill_ban_myself wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From one side of your mouth you're demanding perfect privacy and from the other side I'm sure you'll tell me its necessary because of the laws in the US for voting procedure and policy to be bottom up starting with localities, then states, then federal elections. I think we both know perfect privacy is cost prohibitive at the local and state levels and largely a talking point that ends with the listener assuming it i…

Well then. I am explicitly not shutting you down. I shared my views and why. I encouraged you to do the same. For instance, one cheap and obvious way to improve uitilityof exit polling would be to implement compulsory voting. Also, please work on a campaign. To the best of my knowledge, modern campaigns don't rely much on polling. Most effort is put into GOTV (voter identification and balloting chasing). Edit: Oops.…

KOBE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcMe2H3mIKk