“A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming • Hacker News Board

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#371

Post by tmaly » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 9:03 AM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #225

tmaly wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a Saturday or Sunday would have a much higher turnout. However, you would still be excluding a large number of lower income service workers that work on the weekend.

Has it been tested, I'm not convinced. One group effected negatively could be parents. They may find it more difficult to vote if their kids aren't in school. Particularly single parents. (I vote after the kids go to bed - but have taken a child to the polls a couple of times - but I have a partner to stay home and make that possible).

I took my daughter to the polls this year. She had a ton of fun feeding the ballot to the optical scanner and getting a sticker

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#372

Post by tomjen3 » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #369

tomjen3 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jury duty, which is so routinely avoided/worked around that it is a joke? Tax returns, which are only done at the threat of prison? And mostly in the US because other countries have figured out a way to do it directly as long as you have a job? I have voted in every election that I was elegible to, but this time I have lost every faith in the system and just want to some way to say to say enough is enough, you have l…

> Where in your system do I vote in farvour of that? Submit an empty ballot, or write "burn in hell" on it. It won't make a difference to how your vote is counted, but sitting at home and not voting will make just as little of a difference.

As you said, it makes no difference either way.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#373

Post by cyphar » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #372

cyphar wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where in your system do I vote in farvour of that? Submit an empty ballot, or write "burn in hell" on it. It won't make a difference to how your vote is counted, but sitting at home and not voting will make just as little of a difference.

As you said, it makes no difference either way.

I don't see how not voting is "keeping politicians accountable". Vote third party (in Australia we have many third parties and independents, though unfortunately because we use instant-runoff preferential voting we still have two very large primary parties).

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#374

Post by cyphar » Sat, Nov 10, 2018, 3:49 PM UTC

burfog wrote: post #342

devdas wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the huge problem of vote suppression in the US, either via gerrymandering or by demanding IDs which most minorities don't have and are inconvinient for them to get.

FYI, "IDs which most minorities don't have" is incorrect and it looks sort of racist. Here, the first third interviewing people at UC Berkeley with that idea and the remainder interviewing actual minorities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBxZGWCdgs

The video you linked is strawmanning the problems with voter ID in the US.

Nobody is saying that (these are direct quotes from the video) "black people don't understand how to use the internet" and "black people don't know how to get to the DMV". The problem is that poor people (outside of a major city in the US) don't have all of the documents they need to get ID, so they need to pay several hundred dollars to get those documents and the ID they need. Several hundred dollars might seem like a small amount of money to you, but the majority of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency -- there are lots of poor people in your country.

Interviewing people in a major city is not really a good example of journalism -- what benefit is gained from asking people who haven't experienced these problems, when we know for a fact that they exist.

(In Australia we don't have voter ID requirements at all, and no study that I know of has shown significant amounts of electoral fraud here. So the entire idea of needing ID is quite foreign to me, and I think you should ask yourself what the threat model voter ID is trying to defend against.)

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#375

Post by burfog » Sat, Nov 10, 2018, 8:00 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #374

burfog wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, "IDs which most minorities don't have" is incorrect and it looks sort of racist. Here, the first third interviewing people at UC Berkeley with that idea and the remainder interviewing actual minorities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBxZGWCdgs

The video you linked is strawmanning the problems with voter ID in the US. Nobody is saying that (these are direct quotes from the video) "black people don't understand how to use the internet" and "black people don't know how to get to the DMV". The problem is that poor people (outside of a major city in the US) don't have all of the documents they need to get ID, so they need to pay several hundred dollars to get t…

If you'd rather make this about poor people, OK.

Government benefits in the USA require ID. This is to keep somebody from getting the assistance that would be meant for more than one person.

It's kind of like voting for more than one person actually.

I guess you could claim that poor people don't get government assistance because of the ID requirements. Being unable to eat seems like a higher priority than being unable to vote.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#376

Post by throwawaylolx » Sun, Nov 11, 2018, 12:18 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #351

throwawaylolx wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher participation means voting is more likely to represent the population. As it is, vote results only reflect the opinions of those who considered that the benefit they gain from voting exceeds the costs, which is a biased sample and negatively affects democratic principles. Costs need to be made as negligible as possible in order to be inclusive.

If higher participation is important, then why not make the effort and go out of your house and vote? I just don't follow your line of thought.

Because that only raises participation by a negligible amount.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#377

Post by cyphar » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 8:30 AM UTC

burfog wrote: post #375

cyphar wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The video you linked is strawmanning the problems with voter ID in the US. Nobody is saying that (these are direct quotes from the video) "black people don't understand how to use the internet" and "black people don't know how to get to the DMV". The problem is that poor people (outside of a major city in the US) don't have all of the documents they need to get ID, so they need to pay several hundred dollars to get t…

If you'd rather make this about poor people, OK. Government benefits in the USA require ID. This is to keep somebody from getting the assistance that would be meant for more than one person. It's kind of like voting for more than one person actually. I guess you could claim that poor people don't get government assistance because of the ID requirements. Being unable to eat seems like a higher priority than being unab…

There are several problems with voter ID laws. Here's a longer video synopsis of the issue[1].

1. Usually voter ID laws don't allow all forms of ID. For instance, in Texas, you cannot use a school ID to vote but you can use a concealed carry permit -- why? Both are provided by government institutions. Most voter ID laws don't allow the same set of IDs that you need for a job. I'm pretty sure that the same is true for the IDs you need for government benefits.

2. 11% of Americans don't have drivers licenses. This breaks down to 8% white Americans and 25% black Americans (mostly because poor people have fewer drivers licenses and there are more poor black people than poor white people). Getting a drivers license takes several hours (which usually requires you to take time off work), paying a not-insignificant fee, and . Very few jobs require you to drive or have a drivers license, so why would you bother doing it?

3. There are several cases (such as in North Carolina) where their voter ID laws were ruled unconsititutional because they were specifically designed to disenfranchise black people by looking at the statistics of black voters (usually voting earlier, voting in-person more often, usually not having certain forms of ID) and restricting with "surgical precision" (according to the court ruling) their ability to vote.

If new laws are being passed that add requirements for voting which are designed around the fact that statistically more black people don't fulfill, then those laws are discriminatory. There is already evidence that this is the case (as was seen in North Carolina).

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI25YYZURGk