Pros and cons of paper ballots. Go!
To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software
31–40 of 237 posts
Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software
#32To protect voting, use paper ballots.
Paper ballots without voter ID requirement are ridiculous.
Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software
#33Previous discussion (5 days ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14920513
Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software
#34My first job was an ethnography of electronic voting in a wealthy region in northern Italy.
By our observations electronic voting added several layers of complexity that are difficult to justify.
Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you mean it doesn't really matter whether we even know about the fraud happening?
Most fraud other than most primitive attempts by idiots goes unnoticed. If voter ID is not required it is not possible to prevent people who don't have right to vote from voting.
> Most fraud other than most primitive attempts by idiots goes unnoticed.
You know this how, exactly?
Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software
#36A lot of talk about securing voting machines/verifying that they run the correct software. Why do we have to have physical machines? If it's electronic, surely a website would do if you have the correct means of ID? NB: this is not an indication of which side I fall on the debate, it is an observation. [EDIT] Also, I'm aware similar issues exist with a website, but it seems a lot of focus goes on the actual machine.
For me the biggest issue with voting that is not a "paper ballot cast in a sealed secure room" is that there is no way to guarantee that the person is voting for the party they like. This is because somebody could break into your home and coerce you to vote for some party, they will also be able to verify that you have voted as they have instructed you. With a secure room they can maybe pressure you to vote one way or other, but in the end they can not verify it. Unless they can hack the electronic system and reverse the ID->vote link. This problem disappears with paper ballot (if it is reasonably secured, in my country at some point you received a ballot for every party and only cast the one you liked, the third party could ask you to bring them all the other ballots as proof)
Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software
#37I'd like to reference Tom Scott's video[0] here. There is no need for an electronic voting system, paper ballots work perfectly. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI
This video is absolutely an amazing summary. Thanks for linking it!
Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software
#38I'm not a crypto fanboy or anything, but I feel like voting is a great application of blockchain technology. It seems like the system could be made to be both anonymous and publicly verifiable, and the vote count would return more or less immediately.
Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software
#39Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.
There are attempts to create an end-to-end auditable voting systems. Where you don't have to trust the organizers or machinery to not trick you, and you can validate that your vote was counted correctly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_sy...
Sadly, as far as I know, none is without issues (older systems were found to have various problems, and newer stuff is still bleeding edge that wasn't yet reviewed thoroughly).
Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software
#40A lot of talk about securing voting machines/verifying that they run the correct software. Why do we have to have physical machines? If it's electronic, surely a website would do if you have the correct means of ID? NB: this is not an indication of which side I fall on the debate, it is an observation. [EDIT] Also, I'm aware similar issues exist with a website, but it seems a lot of focus goes on the actual machine.
In case anyone can't see why this is a whole heap more terrible on top of the terribleness of electronic ballots... Verifying actual real identity over the internet is impossible. Even if you did webcam-based biometric authentication of identity - these are fooled by a photograph. Going to a polling station and verifying your identity to a human being is much harder to fake, and almost impossible to scale. The web is…
Last time I voted I took a driving licence. All they did was check my face matched my card, and the name and address matched my registration no real check on whether or not the card was genuine.
When I created my government account I provided passport and driving licence numbers on top of the above.
I feel this invalidates your veracity point, and probably the scaling point too?
The second and third points seem more viable and are potential issues. Especially the third, this would be the main concern IMO. Though I'm sure there are protections against this too (thinking virtually distributed).