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Public trust demands open-source voting systems

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Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#91

Post by estimator7292 »

teddyh wrote: post #13

No. Public trust demands no software or programmable hardware in the election process. • Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI > • Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs >

Aren't most paper ballots processed by machine anyway? Every ballot I've ever cast has gone through something akin to a Scantron machine.

The cost of human labor to count all ballots by hand will be enormous. Probably worth it I suppose, but this really is something that should be primarily automated. But again, trust in software. Sigh, why can't we just have nice things?

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#92

Post by mariusor »

teddyh wrote: post #13

No. Public trust demands no software or programmable hardware in the election process. • Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI > • Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs >

Posting those links without any insight from your side is just quoting dogma and, to me, it shows that you haven't really spent any time to consider the arguments. In my opinion shows that you lack imagination.

Every problem Tom mentions can be worked on and overcome. Maybe not today, maybe not by the next big election, but we should still start now, rather than later. We need to do everything possible to increase participation in the democratic process, especially for the demographics that are currently not very involved, which are also the demographics that are more likely to adopt electronic methods of voting.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#93

Post by n8cpdx »

pessimizer wrote: post #86

This is a power problem, not a technical problem. The US has the worst voting system intentionally, not accidentally. And mail-in voting shows we aren't even a little serious about election integrity. We're militantly against it: you can get people to rabidly support universal IDs for trivial, nonsensical reasons that have never resulted in significant problems; and to demand digital IDs, device attestation, and real…

The US doesn’t have a national ID system, so your proposal doesn’t make sense. The closest thing is social security cards but those are not photo IDs.

A signed affidavit or local ID should be fine to establish identity. That can be done when signing up for mail in voting (although I personally prefer in person).

Voter fraud is extremely rare under the current system.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#94

Post by lucideer »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #72
Areibman wrote: post #26

From a process perspective, how can a constituent know with absolute certainty that their vote was counted, every voter in the system was legal, and the final tally was authentic? Especially when there's no way to even audit what you voted for after the fact? Every time I try to get to the bottom of this, it always boils down to "trust the system" which makes me uneasy.

Each polling station should have representatives from multiple parties as well as independent observers. > how can a constituent know with absolute certainty that their vote was counted The representative of your party plus independent observer said all votes at your polling station were counted. You know both those community members and know them to be generally honorable. Ergo your vote was counted. > every voter i…

> If you can't trust other humans at their word, democracy cannot fundamentally work.

This, but also, important to point out that this is a question of scale: "If you can't trust other human*s*" - plural.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#95

Post by standardUser »

teddyh wrote: post #13

No. Public trust demands no software or programmable hardware in the election process. • Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI > • Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs >

Belgium has been doing it for 25 years, though not without some issues. I'm happy to let other countries lead the way on this since we have a perfectly viable alternative.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#97

Post by vandyswa »

teddyh wrote: post #13

No. Public trust demands no software or programmable hardware in the election process. • Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI > • Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs >

A solid starting point, but it's easy to lose sight of the other critical part of the puzzle--integrity of the voting rolls. High quality vote tabulation needs to start from voters, where _only_ legitimate voters vote, and each only votes (at most) once, after which yes, their vote is accurately tabulated.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#98

Post by jerojero »

estimator7292 wrote: post #91
teddyh wrote: post #13

No. Public trust demands no software or programmable hardware in the election process. • Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI > • Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs >

Aren't most paper ballots processed by machine anyway? Every ballot I've ever cast has gone through something akin to a Scantron machine. The cost of human labor to count all ballots by hand will be enormous. Probably worth it I suppose, but this really is something that should be primarily automated. But again, trust in software. Sigh, why can't we just have nice things?

Chile has a very good election system and there's basically no machine input in the process.

What's important is being able to segment the population in enough voting places so that each voting place is maneaganle just by a small number of people. The Chilean system is scalable because you can always just add more voting places as the population grows.

Usually these voting places are civic centres, stadiums, schools.

It's a good system and generally for a presidential election we get the results in about 4 hours after voting ends.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#99

Post by didibus »

teddyh wrote: post #13

No. Public trust demands no software or programmable hardware in the election process. • Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI > • Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs >

Crypto could be argued similarly no? But it seems to have sustained trust.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#100

Post by dmurray »

lucideer wrote: post #69
okanat wrote: post #23

Public trust cannot exist if the voting system requires *any* expertise. Voting systems should be idiot-proof. If you cannot explain how voting system is manipulation-proof to a 7 year old, your voting system is untrustworthy. This means anything more complex than a pen or a stamp on an approved paper is too complex.

I live in Ireland which I think has one of the best voting systems in the world (don't worry we've still got plenty of other serious problems with our electoral system). It's 100% paper PRSTV & so the counts are slow. Not only is this generally OK (because getting a rapid result is absolutely not a requirement of any well-functioning voting system) but it also has actual benefits. The main benefit is predicated on th…

One of the weird things for computer people about the Irish voting system is that it's non-deterministic! You can count the same ballots in a different order and get a different result (because it depends which votes you choose as "surplus" to redistribute).

In practice it doesn't seem to matter that much. The counters even out the first-level effects of this, so it only matters for votes that have been transferred more than once; it can be determined statistically that it changes the result only in a very small number of cases; and there are plenty of other weird threshold effects to care about instead. But it's one property you might expect of a fair voting system that Ireland doesn't give you.

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