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It's really not outside the realm of possibility. We manage to have free and fair elections, with a voters roll. We manage to have pretty well-run surveys of pu

It's really not outside the realm of possibility. We manage to have free and fair elections, with a voters roll. We manage to have pretty well-run surveys of public opinion, which are quite reliable. Every citizen could have a unique code or login which allows them to vote. Security would be important and require some of some 3rd party who designed the system. That will take trust. However we trust our government to make all the decisions for us daily, and we trust 3rd parties to our security and privacy all the time. Look at the blockchain as an example of an open, secure, trustless, permanent ledger. It or a similar technology could be utilized if no 3rd party is desired. What's lacking is the will to implement such a system, not the technical feasibility.

datenwolf 11y ago
The problem is: Average Joe or my mother are not going to understand it. And a democratic process that is not transparent to everyone is not democratic. Also voting by paper ballot is not less efficient or slower than voting with voting machines. I used to live in a rather large district and observed the counts of several elections (communal and federal). Communal elections are a major clusterfuck of parties, lists, individual candidates; every voter has 3 votes that may be distributed according to certain rules, etc., etc. And even with that mess counting all the votes the mandatory two passes took less than 3 hours. Yet it took another 5 hours for the official result to be announced. That 5 hour overhead would have still been there if electronic voting machines would have been used. Also a lot of people forget that it's not a democracy's goal to be efficient, but to be just and, well democratic. If you want efficiency you want some form of dictatorship, technocracy or other top-down heavy from of government. Personally I don't care if I get the result of the election the same day, or a week later. Usually the actual administration will not form for another few weeks or so, due to playing their cards with all the other parties, forming coalitions and such.
- Synaesthesia 11y ago
  Well you don't have to have electronic voting either, the population can regularly elect local collectives or councils which can make decisions. OK not too different from our model of government. The important thing is popular control over all institutions, mutual aid, co-operation, including corporations, not rule by elites. Look at the Spanish revolution, it was a great success, and mostly achieved by illiterate peasants, everybody understood it very easily. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH2pFTx_8VE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH2pFTx_8VE

datenwolf 11y ago

The problem is: Average Joe or my mother are not going to understand it. And a democratic process that is not transparent to everyone is not democratic. Also voting by paper ballot is not less efficient or slower than voting with voting machines. I used to live in a rather large district and observed the counts of several elections (communal and federal). Communal elections are a major clusterfuck of parties, lists, individual candidates; every voter has 3 votes that may be distributed according to certain rules, etc., etc. And even with that mess counting all the votes the mandatory two passes took less than 3 hours. Yet it took another 5 hours for the official result to be announced. That 5 hour overhead would have still been there if electronic voting machines would have been used. Also a lot of people forget that it's not a democracy's goal to be efficient, but to be just and, well democratic. If you want efficiency you want some form of dictatorship, technocracy or other top-down heavy from of government. Personally I don't care if I get the result of the election the same day, or a week later. Usually the actual administration will not form for another few weeks or so, due to playing their cards with all the other parties, forming coalitions and such.

Synaesthesia 11y ago
Well you don't have to have electronic voting either, the population can regularly elect local collectives or councils which can make decisions. OK not too different from our model of government. The important thing is popular control over all institutions, mutual aid, co-operation, including corporations, not rule by elites. Look at the Spanish revolution, it was a great success, and mostly achieved by illiterate peasants, everybody understood it very easily. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH2pFTx_8VE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH2pFTx_8VE