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

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

#101

Post by chrisseaton »

godelski wrote: post #87
Closi wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hand counting is how we do it in the U.K. It’s not actually that hard at all, including validation, through simple physical processes (that are incredibly tried and tested!). Write the contents of the vote totals on the outside of the box containing the ballots (total must reconcile to number of ballots placed in), then total all the box totals at the end for a single constituency. Constituencies then report back. We…

There are scaling issues though. The US is 5x the size of the UK. Counting is actually pretty hard and I'm not convinced it scales linearly. I'm also not convinced results are actually back in a day, but rather good estimates are given within a day.

> There are scaling issues though.

It’s literally an ‘embarrassingly parallel’ problem.

A hundred people can count ten times the ballots that ten people can, and then merge their results.

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

#102

Post by drivingmenuts »

There’s too much money behind commercial voting software. At the end of the day, it’s politicians who make the decision on what to support based on contributions and influence from companies with deep pockets and wealthy backers.

Additionally, voting doesn’t happen often enough for that to be at the top of our minds among all the other things we have to deal with that have more immediate and visceral impact. Only a small portion of the American population lives well enough to be able to look beyond next month or even next week. Unlike the EU, we are largely reliant on our own resources for major life emergencies, and we’re gathering (or failing to gather) resources to mitigate them.

It will take many generations of work to fix that situation so that people can worry more about long term needs rather than staying focused on the short term. It will also take a lot of money that the middle class can’t afford and the wealthy won’t spend.

I don’t expect it to happen in my lifetime.

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

#103

Post by robjan »

martimarkov wrote: post #24
chrisseaton wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to OP's question is... why have software at all? Why not just paper? Why do you want a 'voting machine' at all? What's wrong with paper? The solution to a problem that should not be solved with software is not to have different software.

It kills trees.

As long as they are replaced it's not too much of a problem.

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

#105

Post by godelski »

chrisseaton wrote: post #101
godelski wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are scaling issues though. The US is 5x the size of the UK. Counting is actually pretty hard and I'm not convinced it scales linearly. I'm also not convinced results are actually back in a day, but rather good estimates are given within a day.

> There are scaling issues though. It’s literally an ‘embarrassingly parallel’ problem. A hundred people can count ten times the ballots that ten people can, and then merge their results.

This is a naive assumption. There's a few aspects that have to be considered that make it not trivially parallel.

The first is that there are a lot of reduction steps where we're doing many to one communication. The more nodes you have the more communication there has to be and this is an issue.

The second issue is that if we (naively) assume that there's a consistent error at each step, that the error will grow in each gather step. So if each worker has a 0.5% error rate, each gather has a 0.5% error rate, then our error rate depends on the number of workers and gather steps.

For what it is worth there is at least a gather step at each poll station, then each precinct, then the state, and then the country. It is also likely that these all get worse as the election is closer and there's more pressure on.

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

#106

Post by godelski »

jen20 wrote: post #100
godelski wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are scaling issues though. The US is 5x the size of the UK. Counting is actually pretty hard and I'm not convinced it scales linearly. I'm also not convinced results are actually back in a day, but rather good estimates are given within a day.

The overall counting process in the UK scales horizontally rather well (it's a great example of map-reduce!), and it's close to unthinkable that the results affected by any given count would not be known on the evening of an election day, even if the shape of the resulting government were not known as in 2010. What is not reflected however is the sheer number of votes that people tend to cast in the US - often voting…

You also have to consider that polling stations are not uniform in their ratio of people to workers/machines. Some places you can just walk right in and other places you wait all day to vote. Assuming symmetry in this aspect is ignoring the fundamental problem here. If you watched the graphs update you'd notice that the small counties typically got their results quickly but the large counties took a lot longer. There is also the gather step where you gather the county votes from the polling station. Larger cities have a more difficult gather operation that smaller areas. Again, this all can be observed if you watch the votes over time.

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

#107

Post by godelski »

chrisseaton wrote: post #97
godelski wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume this is working under the presumption that we get rid of the voting software that already exists? This is a big part of OP's question, but I'll entertain it. You have to look at the 2000 election[0] where there was a switch to digital means. I don't have exact numbers, but I am under the impression that these machines are easier to use and are less error prone than the previous punch card methods. Your digit…

But yet again... you're talking about it relative to an alternative like punch machines... how about no machines .

I mean if we're calling a punch ballot a machine then I think a check mark constitutes a machine. Pencil, pen, hole punch, what's the difference? It is a mark on a physical piece of paper.

I think you're trying to work your solution into being correct rather than recognizing that the problem itself is extremely complicated. Given your other comments and our other conversations it is clear that you're overly simplifying the subject matter and frankly you are wrong about certain aspects of it (like that all votes are counted the night of rather than "enough"). If you flat out ignore these parts of the problem then you're going to get the wrong result. You should also not start with a solution and work towards an explanation, but rather work the other way around. These conversations feel really disingenuous to be honest. They feel more like they are based on how the UK is so much better without any real justification.

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

#108

Post by godelski »

rdsubhas wrote: post #99
chrisseaton wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to OP's question is... why have software at all? Why not just paper? Why do you want a 'voting machine' at all? What's wrong with paper? The solution to a problem that should not be solved with software is not to have different software.

What's wrong with paper? Single answer: Consistent recounts. For example, the US had two really high profile, narrow elections (2000 and 2020), and they still cannot figure out how many times to recount to believe the result. Best of 3 recounts? Best of 5? Keep recounting random places random times until the person you like wins? Does that even change or improve anything? With paper, it's 100% guaranteed that "No two…

To add to this, you can have a hybrid system. That's where your digital voting machine prints a receipt (actually 2!). The voter checks that the receipt matches and then deposits their anonymous stub into a bin. Need to verify results? You sample randomly from that receipt bin. If you really wanted to, you could count every single receipt but either way you have a verifiable way to verify that the digital results have not been manipulated. Of course this requires the voter to do slightly more work (verify, deposit their receipt, and keep the copy) but this also makes it a lot easier to show that voter fraud happened. There's verifiable proof. Granted as the wiki article notes, people don't verify and when they do verify don't commonly find discrepancies, but hey this is another account to fall back on. It should be done in addition to other methods, not as a cureall to catch voter fraud.

But this is basically what your [1] is, which got cut off.

/wiki/Voter-verified_paper_audit_trail

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

#109

Post by rdsubhas »

godelski wrote: post #108
rdsubhas wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with paper? Single answer: Consistent recounts. For example, the US had two really high profile, narrow elections (2000 and 2020), and they still cannot figure out how many times to recount to believe the result. Best of 3 recounts? Best of 5? Keep recounting random places random times until the person you like wins? Does that even change or improve anything? With paper, it's 100% guaranteed that "No two…

To add to this, you can have a hybrid system. That's where your digital voting machine prints a receipt (actually 2!). The voter checks that the receipt matches and then deposits their anonymous stub into a bin. Need to verify results? You sample randomly from that receipt bin. If you really wanted to, you could count every single receipt but either way you have a verifiable way to verify that the digital results hav…

Thanks for correcting the link [1].

And yes, the voting machines have evolved to deal with that as well. Now, the printed paper is clearly displayed, the citizen looks at it and then they press OK if it's fine, and it falls straight into the ballot box. A bit easier :)

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter-verified_paper_audit_tra...

2: https://youtu.be/DqcZZ-QrNgc?t=198

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

#110

Post by godelski »

rdsubhas wrote: post #109
godelski wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, you can have a hybrid system. That's where your digital voting machine prints a receipt (actually 2!). The voter checks that the receipt matches and then deposits their anonymous stub into a bin. Need to verify results? You sample randomly from that receipt bin. If you really wanted to, you could count every single receipt but either way you have a verifiable way to verify that the digital results hav…

Thanks for correcting the link [1]. And yes, the voting machines have evolved to deal with that as well. Now, the printed paper is clearly displayed, the citizen looks at it and then they press OK if it's fine, and it falls straight into the ballot box. A bit easier :) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter-verified_paper_audit_tra... 2: https://youtu.be/DqcZZ-QrNgc?t=198

[1] gets cut off because the length. Not sure if it is worth notifying @dang about though. As long as people know "tra" -> "trail"

[2] That is an interesting solution but I don't think solves the problem. How does the voter know that their receipt matches the one in the bottom compartment? I can's speak Hindi so maybe they verbally addressed this issue but it wasn't apparent from the visuals alone.

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