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Furthermore how does your average voter verify that the code itself is secure? How are your grandparents going to validate the crypto? How can your illiterate c

Furthermore how does your average voter verify that the code itself is secure? How are your grandparents going to validate the crypto? How can your illiterate cousin ensure the hardware isn't backdoored? I just don't get the draw of an electronic voting system. Paper works, and it works well. Anyone that can count can validate a single precinct. You can have one person, or 100 people all standing there watching a ballot box all day for tampering. You can have a whole group of people count the results, or just a few. In a traditional paper system, swaying a single precinct with "blackhat" methods takes a lot of physical resources, a lot of time, and in most cases a lot of people. Then multiply that by every precinct in the country, and it quickly becomes pretty much impossible to do (and get away with). I've said it before, and i'll say it again. Electronic voting is dangerous and is a very bad idea. And it doesn't matter if it's FOSS, it doesn't matter if it's vetted, it doesn't matter what safeguards are put in place, all it takes is one mistake. One fuckup, and someone can now choose the leader of a nation. And replacing a system where literally everyone can validate a system on voting day if they want to with a system where only a fraction of a fraction of people can even read and understand the code, let alone validate the code (and can't actually validate the hardware, or make sure what is running on the hardware is actually that code), and it takes a magnitude more time to do so, just isn't a good idea.

Quarrelsome 10y ago
> I just don't get the draw of an electronic voting system. Make elections cheap. For those that wish to experiment with majority rules a reliable system would allow the people to technically be able to vote in their government on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. So further to this if elections are easy to run and are cheap what does it matter if someone breaks one election? You can just run the next one fine. It changes the variables somewhat and requires a sustained and persistent threat to be engaged to subvert the democracy. Combined with a team that investigate irregularities you can create a vaguely stable system, especially if you consider ideas such as binding authentication to geography instead of identity making it more difficult to stuff ballot boxes as teams can easily verify how many votes should be possible from a specific gps co-ordinate. I'm not saying its a great idea, its probably awful but it opens up an option to society that previously hasn't been available and that's interesting.
- bjackman 10y ago
  You make good points but as I understand it, Switzerland has a relatively direct form of democracy and already runs referenda very often. > what does it matter if someone breaks one election? You can just run the next one fine This assumes it's easy to detect manipulation which I think is very unlikely. Edit: according to Wikipedia, Switzerland has 13 national referendums (not "referenda" apparently) in 2016 so not as many as I thought. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_referendums,_2016 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_referendums,_2016
  - tribaal 10y ago
    Well, many things are decided by elected comitees, but referendum are required to change the constitution (we're ok with it changing, it's not seen as an untouchable artifact here). Citizens can also decide to submit things to referendum, and that has absolute decision power. To do so you need to gather a set number of signatures depending on the level of the decision (communal, state-wide or federal). This is very often used by political parties as a "weapon" to counter their opponent's decisions - they organise signature gatherings, and if they reach their goal the people gets to have the final word on the topic at hand. Of course, anyone can submit a referendum on anything, as long as you gather the required number of signatures. You don't need to be elected or in a party or anything like that. The system does lead to some ridiculous things being put up for nation-wide discussion, but that is usually seen as the cost of living in a direct democracy. I can think it's stupid, but it's your right to bring it to my attention if you consider it important (a bit like freedom of speech and the old "I'll fight your your right to say it even though I disagree"). EDIT: doh' I did repeat the "referenda" mistake here :/ Edited out.
- VLM 10y ago
  The problem is so many government decisions can't be rolled back, like military, treaty, supreme court appointments, some environmental regulations... You'd have to change everything else and every other country first to tolerate a "by bad, we're gonna redo" attitude and then implement "my bad, redo". An interesting simpler direct majority rule scheme is to halt elections completely and use jury selection techniques to select decision makers. What we'd lose in expertise we'd more than gain in the lack of sociopaths and psychopaths. A government completely of jury duty/draft would be far more effective than the one we have, which is probably why no one in power wants it.
CaptainZapp 10y ago
Paper works, and it works well. Anyone that can count can validate a single precinct Add to that there's not really a need to speed up deployment of the results for elections and referendums in Switzerland. Except for the "house of representatives" (Nationalrat) where it can take a tad longer due to the complexities of the vote, results are usually in at voting day before 6pm (Voting closes at noon). I'm also deeply reluctant to accept the necessities of electronic voting. Given all parameters it's a really hard (if not impossible) problem to crack.
- kennywinker 10y ago
  > voting day before 6pm (Voting closes at noon). As a late sleeper, I find this voting system biased and unfair.
  - CaptainZapp 10y ago
    Sigh! You don't have to show up on voting day in person. You can mail your vote in up to one month in advance. (Postage paid by your taxes) You can chose not to vote for (usually dumb) reasons. But wanting to sleep in is not one of those.

Quarrelsome 10y ago

> I just don't get the draw of an electronic voting system. Make elections cheap. For those that wish to experiment with majority rules a reliable system would allow the people to technically be able to vote in their government on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. So further to this if elections are easy to run and are cheap what does it matter if someone breaks one election? You can just run the next one fine. It changes the variables somewhat and requires a sustained and persistent threat to be engaged to subvert the democracy. Combined with a team that investigate irregularities you can create a vaguely stable system, especially if you consider ideas such as binding authentication to geography instead of identity making it more difficult to stuff ballot boxes as teams can easily verify how many votes should be possible from a specific gps co-ordinate. I'm not saying its a great idea, its probably awful but it opens up an option to society that previously hasn't been available and that's interesting.

bjackman 10y ago
You make good points but as I understand it, Switzerland has a relatively direct form of democracy and already runs referenda very often. > what does it matter if someone breaks one election? You can just run the next one fine This assumes it's easy to detect manipulation which I think is very unlikely. Edit: according to Wikipedia, Switzerland has 13 national referendums (not "referenda" apparently) in 2016 so not as many as I thought. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_referendums,_2016 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_referendums,_2016
- tribaal 10y ago
  Well, many things are decided by elected comitees, but referendum are required to change the constitution (we're ok with it changing, it's not seen as an untouchable artifact here). Citizens can also decide to submit things to referendum, and that has absolute decision power. To do so you need to gather a set number of signatures depending on the level of the decision (communal, state-wide or federal). This is very often used by political parties as a "weapon" to counter their opponent's decisions - they organise signature gatherings, and if they reach their goal the people gets to have the final word on the topic at hand. Of course, anyone can submit a referendum on anything, as long as you gather the required number of signatures. You don't need to be elected or in a party or anything like that. The system does lead to some ridiculous things being put up for nation-wide discussion, but that is usually seen as the cost of living in a direct democracy. I can think it's stupid, but it's your right to bring it to my attention if you consider it important (a bit like freedom of speech and the old "I'll fight your your right to say it even though I disagree"). EDIT: doh' I did repeat the "referenda" mistake here :/ Edited out.
VLM 10y ago
The problem is so many government decisions can't be rolled back, like military, treaty, supreme court appointments, some environmental regulations... You'd have to change everything else and every other country first to tolerate a "by bad, we're gonna redo" attitude and then implement "my bad, redo". An interesting simpler direct majority rule scheme is to halt elections completely and use jury selection techniques to select decision makers. What we'd lose in expertise we'd more than gain in the lack of sociopaths and psychopaths. A government completely of jury duty/draft would be far more effective than the one we have, which is probably why no one in power wants it.

CaptainZapp 10y ago

Paper works, and it works well. Anyone that can count can validate a single precinct Add to that there's not really a need to speed up deployment of the results for elections and referendums in Switzerland. Except for the "house of representatives" (Nationalrat) where it can take a tad longer due to the complexities of the vote, results are usually in at voting day before 6pm (Voting closes at noon). I'm also deeply reluctant to accept the necessities of electronic voting. Given all parameters it's a really hard (if not impossible) problem to crack.

kennywinker 10y ago
> voting day before 6pm (Voting closes at noon). As a late sleeper, I find this voting system biased and unfair.
- CaptainZapp 10y ago
  Sigh! You don't have to show up on voting day in person. You can mail your vote in up to one month in advance. (Postage paid by your taxes) You can chose not to vote for (usually dumb) reasons. But wanting to sleep in is not one of those.