Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections • Hacker News Board

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#111

Post by bwestergard » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:28 AM UTC

dstroot wrote: post #107

gpt5 wrote: post #5

The most important feature of public elections is trust. Efficiency is one of the least important feature. When we moved away from paper voting with public oversight of counting to electronic voting we significantly deteriorated trust, we made it significantly easier for a hostile government to fake votes, all for marginal improvements in efficiency which don't actually matter. Moving to internet voting will further…

I suppose I'm an optimist. I believe it is possible to create a secure online voting system. My life savings might be held at Fidelity, Merrill, or elsewhere, my banking is online, 90% of my shopping is online and it all has "good enough" security. Plus most banks seem to be well behind the state of the art in security. I believe with the technologies we have available today, we could create a secure, immutable, audi…

People of limited technical ability can understand the checks and balances of a paper voting system, which legitimizes outcomes. No digital voting system I'm aware of has this characteristic.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#112

Post by robomartin » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:29 AM UTC

piou wrote: post #59

gpt5 wrote: post #5

The most important feature of public elections is trust. Efficiency is one of the least important feature. When we moved away from paper voting with public oversight of counting to electronic voting we significantly deteriorated trust, we made it significantly easier for a hostile government to fake votes, all for marginal improvements in efficiency which don't actually matter. Moving to internet voting will further…

The majority of the U.S. votes on paper: https://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/ . Most of the rest of the country votes using Ballot Marking Devices that produce paper ballots; less than 5% of the population lives somewhere where the only or default choice is electronic voting.

[flagged]

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#113

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:29 AM UTC

dghlsakjg wrote: post #46

terminalshort wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't be anonymous. There has to be some form of IDV to ensure it is a registered voter.

The ballot has to be anonymous, or unable to be tied back to the voter once cast. It’s a hard requirement for a variety of reasons

You have to trust the voting place/ballot receiver in all cases. Like, after they take your name, you need to make sure that they aren't secretly associating your name with the ballot you are filling in. Likewise, if you vote by mail, you need to make sure that they aren't associating your identity on the envelope with the anonymous ballot inside the envelope.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#114

Post by bigger_cheese » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:29 AM UTC

jpollock wrote: post #24

foolfoolz wrote: post #15

* “all your money lives on the internet and it’s safe” * “internet voting is insecure” who wins?

Internet voting needs to be anonymous and non demonstrable. Internet money needs to be the opposite, and reversible through the courts.

I think it is very difficult to secure internet voting, someone can stand behind you and twist your arm or otherwise coerce you to vote for their candidate. Much harder to do when there are observers and witnesses at the polling booth.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#115

Post by phanimahesh » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:29 AM UTC

FeteCommuniste wrote: post #43

terminalshort wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't be anonymous. There has to be some form of IDV to ensure it is a registered voter.

The vote needs to be anonymous, not the registration + checkin process.

When digital content can be duplicated with ease, it is difficult to guarantee verified voter but untraceable vote.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#116

Post by iamnothere » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:30 AM UTC

ss1996 wrote: post #22

I agree with the risks, the overall theme being it's much easier to potentially manipulate a million internet votes than physical. In other worlds, internet vote manipulation scales significantly more than physical. But I could make the argument with any high trust internet system. Let's take another high trust activity we do on the internet - banking. Internet banking gives a hacker the ability to steal millions whi…

Unless you’re talking about crypto, your internet banking hacker will not get away with anything significant. You can’t just “hack the bank” and take a million dollars. Banks only transfer funds digitally to one another by agreement through systems like SWIFT, and these transactions are traceable and reversible. Changing some ones and zeros in your account and then attempting to withdraw it all would raise a ton of flags, and you would need to breach an unrealistic number of systems and processes to make it possible.

At best you might be able to scam someone into sending you a few hundred dollars via Zelle. Some scam centers do this 24/7, but it isn’t that easy, and apparently they rely on human trafficking to acquire free labor.

The complex systems backing internet banking (including the people and processes) are immense in scale. They evolved over decades and were honed and improved as real problems occurred. Needless to say, there is no room for iterative trial and error in elections.

If you hack the bank you get very little, at least today. If you hack an election you get everything. No thanks. No to electronic voting.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#117

Post by reactordev » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:30 AM UTC

dstroot wrote: post #107

gpt5 wrote: post #5

The most important feature of public elections is trust. Efficiency is one of the least important feature. When we moved away from paper voting with public oversight of counting to electronic voting we significantly deteriorated trust, we made it significantly easier for a hostile government to fake votes, all for marginal improvements in efficiency which don't actually matter. Moving to internet voting will further…

I suppose I'm an optimist. I believe it is possible to create a secure online voting system. My life savings might be held at Fidelity, Merrill, or elsewhere, my banking is online, 90% of my shopping is online and it all has "good enough" security. Plus most banks seem to be well behind the state of the art in security. I believe with the technologies we have available today, we could create a secure, immutable, audi…

We have ID.gov and we have blockchain. If we can ensure that the person submitting the vote is indeed that person, would it matter whether it was online, in a booth, or by mail?

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#118

Post by closewith » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:30 AM UTC

dstroot wrote: post #107

gpt5 wrote: post #5

The most important feature of public elections is trust. Efficiency is one of the least important feature. When we moved away from paper voting with public oversight of counting to electronic voting we significantly deteriorated trust, we made it significantly easier for a hostile government to fake votes, all for marginal improvements in efficiency which don't actually matter. Moving to internet voting will further…

I suppose I'm an optimist. I believe it is possible to create a secure online voting system. My life savings might be held at Fidelity, Merrill, or elsewhere, my banking is online, 90% of my shopping is online and it all has "good enough" security. Plus most banks seem to be well behind the state of the art in security. I believe with the technologies we have available today, we could create a secure, immutable, audi…

How do you solve the issue of manipulated voting? That's solved by in-person ID-authenticated voting, but can never be solved by online voting.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#119

Post by nerocap » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:30 AM UTC

If we can’t create a secure online voting system why do we use it for passports, banking, medical records, drivers licenses, criminal and law record keeping.

This is just an attempt at control using the majority of cases that most websites and applications are insecure. If enough effort and time is invested of course we can create a fairly robust and secure voting system.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#120

Post by dfadsadsf » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:32 AM UTC

dstroot wrote: post #107

gpt5 wrote: post #5

The most important feature of public elections is trust. Efficiency is one of the least important feature. When we moved away from paper voting with public oversight of counting to electronic voting we significantly deteriorated trust, we made it significantly easier for a hostile government to fake votes, all for marginal improvements in efficiency which don't actually matter. Moving to internet voting will further…

I suppose I'm an optimist. I believe it is possible to create a secure online voting system. My life savings might be held at Fidelity, Merrill, or elsewhere, my banking is online, 90% of my shopping is online and it all has "good enough" security. Plus most banks seem to be well behind the state of the art in security. I believe with the technologies we have available today, we could create a secure, immutable, audi…

Money are stolen electronically every day - we do not know how to build secure systems. Considering the stakes for national elections (civil war or government instability) good enough is not good enough.

I agree with you on local elections - electronic voting is good enough for town or even state level elections. The stakes are dramatically lower.