It still surprises me how much essential services like public transport are completely reliant on cloud providers, and don't seem to have backups in place. Here in The Netherlands, almost all trains were first delayed significantly, and then cancelled for a few hours because of this, which had real impact because today is also the day we got to vote for the next parlement (I know some who can't get home in time befor…
Tell HN: Azure outage
661–670 of 841 posts
Re: Tell HN: Azure outage
#662Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should research what’s inside the boxes in Oregon before just assuming they’re easier to tamper with.
Doesn't look difficult: https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info/ballot-box-fires (yes, that's in Oregon)
Re: Tell HN: Azure outage
#663Earlier quoted context omitted.
Electronic voting and mail voting are very different things though.
They both share the fact that you don't see your vote enter a ballot box.
If you wish, you can write a phrase on your ballot. The phrases and their corresponding vote are broadcast (on tv, internet, etc). So if you want to validate that your vote was tallied correctly, write a unique phrase. Or you could pick a random 30 digit number, collisions should be zero-probability, right?
I mean, this would be annoying because people would write slurs and advertisements, and the government would have to broadcast them. But, it seems pretty robust.
I’d suggest the state handle the number issuing, but then they could record who they issues which numbers to, and the winning party could go about rounding up their opposition, etc.
Re: Tell HN: Azure outage
#664Earlier quoted context omitted.
They both share the fact that you don't see your vote enter a ballot box.
It could be possible to have a system like: If you wish, you can write a phrase on your ballot. The phrases and their corresponding vote are broadcast (on tv, internet, etc). So if you want to validate that your vote was tallied correctly, write a unique phrase. Or you could pick a random 30 digit number, collisions should be zero-probability, right? I mean, this would be annoying because people would write slurs and…
Re: Tell HN: Azure outage
#665It still surprises me how much essential services like public transport are completely reliant on cloud providers, and don't seem to have backups in place. Here in The Netherlands, almost all trains were first delayed significantly, and then cancelled for a few hours because of this, which had real impact because today is also the day we got to vote for the next parlement (I know some who can't get home in time befor…
can't believe it's 2025 and some still need to go to some place to vote. I can vote since I can remember(at least 20 years) by mail for anything, we also vote multiple times a year(4-6 times), we just get 1 Month before the things to vote by mail and then mail in back votes. Hope we can soon vote online to get rid of the paper overhead.
Re: Tell HN: Azure outage
#666Re: Tell HN: Azure outage
#667Earlier quoted context omitted.
It could be possible to have a system like: If you wish, you can write a phrase on your ballot. The phrases and their corresponding vote are broadcast (on tv, internet, etc). So if you want to validate that your vote was tallied correctly, write a unique phrase. Or you could pick a random 30 digit number, collisions should be zero-probability, right? I mean, this would be annoying because people would write slurs and…
Voting systems require that there be no way to prove that you voted a certain way, otherwise it opens the market for vote-selling.
Googling around a bit, it sounds like there are systems that let you verify that your ballot made it, but not necessarily that it was counted correctly. (For this reason, I guess?)
Re: Tell HN: Azure outage
#668Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is it not possible? It's just additional votes, there isn't anything actually stopping counting by hand, is there? How was it counted historically without voting machines?
It takes a lot of people (redundancy and to keep shift hours low to increase count accuracy) to accurately count by hand. https://verifiedvoting.org/election-system/hand-counted-pape...
Re: Tell HN: Azure outage
#669Re: Tell HN: Azure outage
#670Earlier quoted context omitted.
My county lets you look up if it was received. You can vote on Election Day in person if they don’t.
My county sends me a text message when they've counted my ballot.
Sure you got a notification! That doesn't mean anything. Even with human counted ballots or electronic ballots.
Following the chain of custody from vote to verification, in some way, would be nice.