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

#241

Post by fsckboy » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:40 AM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #41

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 US overwhelmingly uses paper voting (often paired with electronic tabulation). We can't "move back", it's where we are. Electronic tabulation introduces little risk when the ballots are paper.

>We can't "move back", it's where we are.

vote by mail (and similar ballot harvesting, bulk ballot dropoffs with hazy chain-of-custody as from a nursing homes and immigrant communities) are new, based on paper, and open to abuse.

It's not where we were.

traditional absentee balloting was a small scale thing used by college students, military personnel, etc. and if it was messed up, it was not likely to change outcomes or a threat to counting accurately (no election is perfect)

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

#242

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:41 AM UTC

topspin wrote: post #231

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard great things about the way that India votes. It sounds like their Election Commission takes their job very seriously.

> It sounds like their Election Commission takes their job very seriously. A key part of India's system is the Elector's Photo Identity Card (EPIC), required to cast ballots. Similar obligations are present wherever election integrity is taken seriously.

> Similar obligations are present wherever election integrity is taken seriously.

Asserted without evidence, and apparently quite likely to be an attempt to cast aspersions on "election integrity" in the USA and elsewhere.

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

#243

Post by creata » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:41 AM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #134

pa7ch wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risk limiting audits are why this work. You physically sample ballots at random. The number you sample grows as the gap in the electronic tally shrinks to reach high confidence the election was tabulated correctly.

The normal person has no knowledge of stats. I am a professional physicist, and I struggle with stats. The methods you suggest can convince a stats professional that the tally is correct. It cannot convince a normal person of the same.

> It cannot convince a normal person of the same.

But you don't need everyone to be convinced of it first-hand. You just need everyone to trust someone who is convinced of it.

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

#244

Post by ronbenton » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:41 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…

Drives me nuts how many people don’t understand we are already using paper ballots. Electronically tabulated using risk-limiting audits.

Why are so many people convinced we don’t use paper ballots? Disinformation?

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

#245

Post by slg » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:43 AM UTC

topspin wrote: post #231

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard great things about the way that India votes. It sounds like their Election Commission takes their job very seriously.

> It sounds like their Election Commission takes their job very seriously. A key part of India's system is the Elector's Photo Identity Card (EPIC), required to cast ballots. Similar obligations are present wherever election integrity is taken seriously.

>Similar obligations are present wherever election integrity is taken seriously.

The flip side is even more true. If someone is claiming they care about election integrity and isn't willing to pair that with funding of an equivalent ID system that is both free and easy for voters to acquire, they don't actually care about election integrity.

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

#246

Post by indecisive_user » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:43 AM UTC

VladVladikoff wrote: post #177

jpollock wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anonymity keeps the government from locking you up if you vote the wrong way. Non-demonstrable keeps you from selling your vote to your boss. That is why you typically show id, get a ballot and there is no relationship between the two.

I could still sell my vote to my boss in the typical system. And we could use cryptography to vote anonymously after authentication online.

In the current system how do you sell your vote?

You go into the voting booth alone.

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

#247

Post by zamadatix » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:43 AM UTC

badestrand wrote: post #237

golem14 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem, as I understand it, is that if you can prove to yourself that your vote was counted right, you can also prove it to the guy with the sledgehammer next to you saying "it would be a shame if something happened to your family, so prove how you voted"...

By that logic we have to get rid of mail-in voting as well because there could always be a sledgehammer guy standing next to someone in their own home.

Some do think so, but there is also a material difference in needing to be intimidated at the time of the vote being cast vs any point in the future as well.

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

#248

Post by derektank » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:44 AM UTC

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.…

If you’re willing to do away with the secret ballot, you can eliminate a lot of the need for transparency in the mechanics. If people are able to check their own vote for discrepancies and speak to others to confirm their validity, you only really need to confirm that the final vote count is tabulated correctly (which again, is relatively easy to independently verify).

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

#249

Post by zug_zug » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:44 AM UTC

golem14 wrote: post #142

ggm wrote: post #3

I live in an economy where people vote with pencils on paper in cardboard booths and at scalable cost, it just works. Obviously the cost also has to scale linearly for the 200+m voter economies, and time becomes a factor, but for community acceptance I still think paper and pen/pencil beats machine hands down. (this is Australia. we have compulsory attendance at voting booths for eligible citizens, you can spoil your…

The problem, as I understand it, is that if you can prove to yourself that your vote was counted right, you can also prove it to the guy with the sledgehammer next to you saying "it would be a shame if something happened to your family, so prove how you voted"...

Such a weird argument. I've never met anybody with a sledgehammer threatening votes. Feels like a willfully absurd excuse to avoid having an audit trail in elections.

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

#250

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:44 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…

> The most important feature of public elections is trust.

I think that perhaps you meant to say that the easiest thing about public elections to undermine is trust. You don't need to actually hack the ballots, send in fake electors, or any other actively nefarious stuff. Just undermine people's "trust" in elections (ironically by talking about how important that "trust" is), and voila, you've done much more harm to an election process than anything we have actual evidence for.