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If it's just electronic ballots recorded in a proprietary system by a private company, the system is as vulnerable as any other e-voting system. If we were to

If it's just electronic ballots recorded in a proprietary system by a private company, the system is as vulnerable as any other e-voting system. If we were to properly distribute the process by running a public key database and giving each citizen a private key by which to sign a message in the blockchain casting their vote, it introduces a new and far more insidious problem: the system now provides a receipt for each vote that a malicious actor could use to reliably buy votes on a massive scale with complete automation: visit a website, use your private key to prove you voted for their candidate, receive a bitcoin payout.

specialist 9y ago
"... electronic ballots recorded in a proprietary system by a private company..." This is the second biggest threat to elections. And probably the most timely. -- My tour of duty as an election integrity activist radically changed my worldview on these things. I previously thought the gear was the biggest problem. Now I know that the biggest threat is disruption. While well intentioned, HAVA caused a lot of disruption. Resulting in no one knows what the rules are. Ditto the continuous ongoing "reforms". Like changes in voter ID laws, rules, procedures. Moving poll sites. Etc. Any changes that must be made should be done incrementally, methodically. The second biggest threat is the privatization of our election administration. Like you observe. No private entity any where should be responsible for verifying eligibility, issuing ballots, counting votes. Election administration is the most fundamental function a democratic government performs, its prime responsibility. It must be performed by citizens working for the government to have any legitimacy whatsoever. The third biggest threat to our elections is our form of voting. The USA's FPTP (winner takes all) elections are very brittle, intolerant of the inevitable margin of error. Much better, for both democracy and election administration, would be to use Approval Voting and Proportional Representation. Yes, I still believe the gear we continue to use remains a big open untreated wound.

specialist 9y ago

"... electronic ballots recorded in a proprietary system by a private company..." This is the second biggest threat to elections. And probably the most timely. -- My tour of duty as an election integrity activist radically changed my worldview on these things. I previously thought the gear was the biggest problem. Now I know that the biggest threat is disruption. While well intentioned, HAVA caused a lot of disruption. Resulting in no one knows what the rules are. Ditto the continuous ongoing "reforms". Like changes in voter ID laws, rules, procedures. Moving poll sites. Etc. Any changes that must be made should be done incrementally, methodically. The second biggest threat is the privatization of our election administration. Like you observe. No private entity any where should be responsible for verifying eligibility, issuing ballots, counting votes. Election administration is the most fundamental function a democratic government performs, its prime responsibility. It must be performed by citizens working for the government to have any legitimacy whatsoever. The third biggest threat to our elections is our form of voting. The USA's FPTP (winner takes all) elections are very brittle, intolerant of the inevitable margin of error. Much better, for both democracy and election administration, would be to use Approval Voting and Proportional Representation. Yes, I still believe the gear we continue to use remains a big open untreated wound.