Ask HN: Why Isn't Open Source Voting Software Mandated?

How many questions are on a typical UK ballot? I am under the impression that in most parliamentary systems a ballot normally has one race for MP. That's it -- or maybe one other issue, under extraordinary circumstances (e.g. Brexit).

A typical U.S. ballot may have 20 or 30 issues on it.

Even if one assumed that all other factors were equal (they aren't), even the raw counting might be expected to consume 20 or 30 times as much time.

We vote on a LOT of things here, and it becomes quite complicated.

A U.S. voter may well be voting on issues related to the sewer district, and the school district, and the library district, and the city council, and (this is important) those various districts might be overlapping or even disjoint. Just because both Bob and Alice are in Sewer District 5 doesn't mean they're both in Road District A. Far from it.

It takes time just to ensure that everyone has been given the proper ballot, much less count and combine the figures from various polling stations (Sewer District 5 may cover multiple polling stations, as may Road District A, but they may not be, and probably aren't the same stations).

It's a mess, granted, but we prefer voting on stuff rather than electing a council or MP who takes care of everything for us.

True, but:

1. You didn't have to count 151 million votes in the UK election

2. You didn't have to wait a few days for mail-in ballots that were delayed in transit to arrive

3. You didn't have to do this in the middle of a global pandemic that required poll workers to stay 6 feet apart

Generally the US election results can be predicted the same day, this year had additional challenges due to extremely high turn-out, high use of mail-in ballots, and limited number of pool workers due to pandemic.

In my opinion, elections should be done using paper ballots, and those ballots are counted using electronic tabulation machines. After a batch of ballots are counted, a random sample of them are selected and manually counted. Should the results match, then you can have a high certainty of the accuracy of the count. Electronic tabulation machines are actually more accurate than hand-counting, and by hand counting again, you reduce the risk of the machines making "mistakes" due to technical glitches or malicious backdoors etc.

Software or not, is not the point. Members of the local polling station should be able to verify votes, and the easiest process is hand-counting, then publishing the sums per candiate.

Hard disagree. I think there are a lot of reasons why electronic voting is preferable to paper ballots, just that the reasons disqualifying electronic voting are complicated problems to solve.

In my county, paper ballots are used (used to use electronic booths) and the form is printed in English, Spanish, Korean, and Vietnamese. Hypothetically an electronic ballot has no issues with localizing to an infinite number of languages without regards to costs of printing out separate ballots. Electronic voting isn't impeded by the restrictions of paper. It could have rich media, sound, videos, etc.

Accessibility is another potential advantage. Right now with paper ballots the expected procedure for voting as a person who is unable to use the ballot is to have a family member fill it out for them. Electronic voting means that you can make accommodations for all sorts of disabilities and special needs while still allowing the person to vote without the need for a proxy.

Electronic voting could be more convenient than in person paper ballots. Hypothetically if a person could vote online on their phone, the process would be more convenient and more people may vote. It also makes it easier to vote for people that are traditionally disenfranchised due to time constraints of voting in person (they can't afford to go to the polls, even if there exists laws that require employers to allow for time to go vote on election day). It also limits avenues for voter intimidation.

Finally, electronic voting would (hypothetically) be instantaneous and accurate. It isn't dependent on humans for counting. There isn't really a potential for 'hanging chad' incidents. We'd know the victors of an election as soon as polls close.

The issue is unfortunately all of these advantages don't really outweigh the issues that we don't have good solutions for (yet, or maybe ever).

Electronic voting isn't tamper proof. Having open source voting software doesn't really help verify that the software that you say is running is what actually is running. If it is exploited, it is much easier to tamper with electronic votes than it is paper ones. If it is online, that opens it up to even larger issues of exploitation.

There's no way to verify that what you intend to vote for is how you actually voted according to the machine. With a paper ballot there is tangible proof of how you voted, while that doesn't exist on a purely electronic vote.

Paper ballots have their own set of issues, but they are manageable compared to the current limitations we have for dealing with electronic voting.

An important property of our voting system is that it is impossible for a voter to prove (to a third party) how he/she voted. This property is important because it guards against bribing/coercing/pressuring voters to vote for particular candidates. I don't know of any practical way of enabling a voter to check that his/her vote was correctly counted without also compromising the anti-bribery property, especially with a realistic model of the abilities and limitations of most voters.