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“A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

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

#61

Post by shittyadmin »

lb1lf wrote: post #51
shittyadmin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And how does it count votes per candidate then? Codes can be simply be computed as HMAC(secret key, SIN + candidate) or something similar, the user and any attacker without the secret key just has a random string of bits. You do realize votes are tallied by computer currently, right? Most of these just rely on phone-based systems that often expose interfaces to news orgs and such. The sort of interface I'm talking…

...how does the user know his vote is valid and added to the tally? Changing a vote to be for another candidate is not the only way to influence an election; you could have votes for the 'wrong' candidate be thrown out as invalid, too.

> ...how does the user know his vote is valid and added to the tally?

I could say the same thing currently - how do you know that vote you placed on a voting machine actually counted?

> you could have votes for the 'wrong' candidate be thrown out as invalid, too.

That's why you have codes that have no public mapping to candidates as I already suggested - I even suggested a primitive way to do so.

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

#62

Post by KerrickStaley »

mdorazio wrote: post #23
CWuestefeld wrote: post #3

If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck. Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. And I think that people realize this. So when…

I agree, but it's important to note that many people don't vote in the US because they simply don't have the time to leave work/school and go to a polling place, or won't get paid for it if they do [1]. More mail-in ballots could potentially alleviate this, but a lot of people prefer to vote in person. Also due to our two-party system, gerrymandering, and the way congress works, many people don't vote because they fe…

I agree that changing the voting system would help a lot in shaking up the stratified two-party dynamic we have in the USA.

STAR seems like an interesting method, but one potential issue with it is that it's more complicated than methods like approval voting (more bubbles on the ballot, harder to explain to people). Approval voting seems like the simplest fix to our existing voting system. It would encourage third parties and more diversity of positions, while also reducing the extreme polarization that we see between the Republicans and Democrats.

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

#63

Post by [deleted] »

lolc wrote: post #60
shittyadmin wrote: post #7

Good idea honestly, the security issues are greatly overblown - especially if we can simply make this a mailer with "if you want to vote for this candidate, enter this code/scan this qr code", where nothing about that code identifies the candidate they voted for. And it'd definitely help to improve voter turnout, just look at studies on how poll lines impact future voting behavior...

> simply That one word you can never use to describe electronic voting with secret ballot. Sure it may be made easy, but it won't ever be simple.

[deleted]

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

#64

Post by bilbo0s »

logifail wrote: post #50
bilbo0s wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and “blockchain,” which it claims allows it to secure the voting process... (I'm rubbing my temples right now) I don't even have the words for how bad this would be for a democracy or republic. I will, however, make a curt but general comment on blockchain: Anytime you see that buzzword, be on your guard.

Question: Are there (m)any people other than those involved in the manufacture and sales of voting machines , or their lobbyists, that support increased automation in the voting process? I'm absolutely, 100% happy with putting a pencil mark onto a paper ballot, which I fold and place into a box (with people watching), which is later taken (with people watching) to a counting place, emptied out on a table (with people…

Finally.

REASON!

Now this guy has the right idea.

Why are people trying to fix something that is not broken?

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

#65

Post by calvinbhai »

RankingMember wrote: post #31
athenot wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving voting day from a Tuesday to a Sunday would also make a big difference. There are many people who have have informed opinions but can't afford to take off work (write-up for being late to work/take off early, lost income, transport issues). Also that would avoid removing a school day since most public schools are used for polling. Another option would be to switch to make mail-in ballots only.

I'm in favor of ditching Columbus day and replacing it with November 6th as a national holiday for that reason.

why not rename Columbus day into something like "we seek forgiveness" day?

how does it make sense to have November 6th as a holiday in a country where more than 50% people don't/can't vote?

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

#66

Post by cafard »

Shivetya wrote: post #35
athenot wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving voting day from a Tuesday to a Sunday would also make a big difference. There are many people who have have informed opinions but can't afford to take off work (write-up for being late to work/take off early, lost income, transport issues). Also that would avoid removing a school day since most public schools are used for polling. Another option would be to switch to make mail-in ballots only.

how do you validate mail in ballots? I am more worried about votes where we have to verify an absent voter simply because the chance of fraud increases. Fraud not only in not knowing if it is the actual voter but also because we cannot insure their vote was not forced. my state had early voting for weeks so there really isn't a "voting day" issue here. (Georgia). Now I have not looked but how many other states offer…

Oregon already has vote by mail exclusively, and absentee voting has been around for years.

As for verifying an absent voter, back about 1980 when I voted absentee, I had to have the form notarized.

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

#67

Post by knieveltech »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #3

If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck. Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. And I think that people realize this. So when…

If you want people to vote make it mandatory like Australia. Anything short of that seems incoherent.

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

#68

Post by toyg »

acdha wrote: post #36
athenot wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving voting day from a Tuesday to a Sunday would also make a big difference. There are many people who have have informed opinions but can't afford to take off work (write-up for being late to work/take off early, lost income, transport issues). Also that would avoid removing a school day since most public schools are used for polling. Another option would be to switch to make mail-in ballots only.

My $.10 proposal: change Veterans Day to be the 2nd Tuesday in November. Almost no cost, there's a strong “they served so you would have this right” angle, and it'd pair naturally with other civic events.

With all due respect, ideologically linking the military and democracy is a horrifically bad idea. The two systems embody completely opposite concepts.

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

#69

Post by JumpCrisscross »

lb1lf wrote: post #27
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

> The Boston-based company raised $2.2 million earlier this year, helped along by buzzwords such as “biometrics” and “blockchain,” which it claims allows it to secure the voting process. Its app reportedly requires voters to take and upload a picture of their government-issued I.D., along with a selfie-style video of their face, which facial-recognition technology then uses to ensure the person pictured in the I.D. a…

...and it doesn't address one of the key issues with votes being cast in places other than a booth in a polling station where you are alone: Coercion. What's to stop a family member (OK, not much of an issue for overseas military personnel, one would think) or another person from hovering just outside the camera's capture area with a blunt object, ready to -ahem- influence your vote? Granted, this would only affect i…

> What's to stop a family member...[from] influenc[ing] your vote?

This is also a problem with mail-in ballots. (It’s why I believe early votes should be allowed to be overwritten by in-person votes.)

The issue with smartphone voting with selfie verification is almost everyone’s phones contain selfies. (Americans overseas are also likely to have a photo ID on their camera roll.) So controlling the phone means controlling a vote. That’s a scalable risk.

Moreover, if the app is anonymising after verifying, it means the app developers have been deputised by the Board of Elections to verify voters and count their votes. (Whether you voted is public, in America. For whom you voted is not.) That’s a big deal!

The blockchain add-on is worthless if done right, dangerous or illegal if done wrong, and increases the cross-section across which the above issues get amplified.

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

#70

Post by Frondo »

Shivetya wrote: post #35
athenot wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving voting day from a Tuesday to a Sunday would also make a big difference. There are many people who have have informed opinions but can't afford to take off work (write-up for being late to work/take off early, lost income, transport issues). Also that would avoid removing a school day since most public schools are used for polling. Another option would be to switch to make mail-in ballots only.

how do you validate mail in ballots? I am more worried about votes where we have to verify an absent voter simply because the chance of fraud increases. Fraud not only in not knowing if it is the actual voter but also because we cannot insure their vote was not forced. my state had early voting for weeks so there really isn't a "voting day" issue here. (Georgia). Now I have not looked but how many other states offer…

Oregon has had mail-in ballots only for decades and voter fraud is as close to a non-issue as statistically possible, easily on par with in-person voter fraud -- which is also extremely rare.

It also boosts turnout and saves money, and it's great to sit there and look over your ballot at your leisure.

We used to have voting parties where we'd all sit around and actually talk about the ballot issues and candidates one by one. Nothing's ever felt so much like democracy in action as that.

tl;dr vote-by-mail is great and fraud is virtually non-existent, e.g. Oregon's two decades of vote-by-mail.

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