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

#161

Post by teleforce » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:55 AM UTC

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…

One of the main aims of voting system (physical or online) is to increase the participation of the voters, since the average turnout of global voters are less than 70% (filter by continents for simpler aggregated average) [1].

For example even in country with pervasive internet connectivity (99%) like in Netherland the voter turnout in 2024 is only 77%.

Security technology of trust management in the centralized voting system and architecture has already been solved and well understood, and now we are even moving into zero trust with multi-factor authentications.

All this while the venerable Kerberos has been around for decades with its secure derivatives, and its secure alternatives are numerous. For the more challenging fully distributed arguably has already been solved recently by blockchain, immutable data, etc.

This is the classic example is not that you can't (as claimed by the the article), but you won't. This is what political will is all about and since this is on political voting this lame attitude is kind of expected.

[1] Voter turnout of registered voters, 2024:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/voter-turnout-of-register...

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

#162

Post by autoexec » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:55 AM UTC

foolfoolz wrote: post #15

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

* “internet voting is insecure” wins because your internet money is not safe. Hackers get into people's bank accounts all the time. It's actually amazing to me how many people here somehow think that internet banking is anything but massively insecure.

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

#163

Post by artyom » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:56 AM UTC

Premise: there's people that will try to game and cheat on anything that's important, including democratic elections. No matter your voting method, those people will exist.

Solution: the basic unit (paper ballot in this case) can be understood by any adult with basic education, which means anyone can detect cheating, not just a technical wizard. The only skill you need is reading.

Give me a solution that follows the same principle and I'd consider it.

Nobody cares about results coming faster except journalists that have to fill 2-3 TV hours with nonsense until there's some numbers.

No engineer that's worth of the title would advocate for electronic voting -- unless they're in the business of selling electronic voting. See the Premise.

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

#164

Post by closewith » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:56 AM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #52

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…

You're conflating "efficiency" with "disenfranchising voters." Mail-in voting enabled citizens who otherwise simply couldn't vote, to vote. Citizens who, more often than not, were from already disadvantaged backgrounds.

Many countries with far higher participation rates do not allow mail-in voting, which definitely should be banned to prevent voter manipulation.

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

#165

Post by robomartin » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:56 AM UTC

torton wrote: post #152

robomartin wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Even the most cursory research into mail-in voting shows a number of safeguards designed into the process; one summary can be found at https://responsivegov.org/research/why-mail-ballots-are-secu... . Instances of mail based voting fraud are extremely rare despite the extremely high motivation of some actors (such as the current US federal leadership) to find any evidence to the contrary.

[flagged]

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

#166

Post by nonethewiser » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:57 AM UTC

tdb7893 wrote: post #157

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…

Are there places that don't do paper voting in the US? Ballots are still paper everywhere I've voted (mail in ballots, electronic ballots with printouts, filling in bubbles, etc. It's always been paper). Also, even with paper ballots hand counted people aren't suddenly going to trust elections, at least not some people I know. I had someone say that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants voted in the last electi…

Isn't it effectively computers everywhere? Sure, you may write on a piece of paper but there is a computer scanning and reporting it. I dont see a practical difference between that and submitting a form directly on a computer.

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

#167

Post by autoexec » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:57 AM UTC

zwranadikos wrote: post #122

So my internet banking is secure for my funds, but internet voting is not for my vote. Right... OK, we got the message.

Internet banking is not secure. People's accounts get hacked all the time. Your bank transactions aren't a secret from your bank though. There are a lot of eyes on your accounts (including your own) and corrections can be made after the fact.

No one (including yourself) can be allowed to look up how you voted later.

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

#168

Post by autoexec » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:59 AM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #129

autoexec wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really is the best way to do it. Scantron gives fast results and you get a paper physical record which shows the actual ballot exactly as it was presented to the voter along with what their vote was.

How many people spend time making their selections on the computer, then compare every single selection on the print out? Deniers could say the computer randomly prints votes to skew in certain candidate/party direction knowing not everyone would catch it. all it would take is one person saying their printed ballot does not match their specific selection, and the whole thing would become chaos.

We agree. Don't use computers. Scantron is only there to get a fast count for the news agencies. Manual counting of physical paper ballots would still be done anyway.

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

#169

Post by idiotsecant » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:59 AM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #160

elbasti wrote: post #149

Voting is not a monolithic process. It's actually a combination of 3 things: - How votes are cast - How votes are counted - How votes are custodied In order for an election to be trusted, all three steps must be transparent and auditable. Electronic voting makes all three steps almost absolutely opaque. Here's how Mexico solves this. We may have many problems, but "people trust the vote count" is not one of them: 1.…

>Elections like this can be gamed, but the gaming becomes an exercise in coercing people to vote counter to their preference, not "hacking" the system. If that's gaming the system, what even is the point of voting?

Are you suggesting that voting is pointless because some people can be convinced to vote for stupid things?

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

#170

Post by SilentM68 » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 2:59 AM UTC

With the world the way it is now a days and software/firmware being insecure, it is difficult to see Internet Voting as a secure means of voting. Paper ballots with multiple biometric tools or AI to measure a voter's physiological state of mind, honesty, confirm identity may be something that should be considered.