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Advocates say paper ballots are safest

189 points by marchenko 8y ago

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
We should only change vote tech to make it more secure not more efficient.
- ethbro 8y ago
  Congratulations! We've managed to develop a completely secure voting device, with a formally verified codebase. The machines cost USD$150,000. Due to the cost, we will be able to deploy two machines at a single voting site in your county. Please ensure you arrive with enough time, as lines are expected.
  - KSteffensen 8y ago
    That's nice. You have fun with that. We'll keep our $300k and our paper ballots. No lines are expected as we've tried this before and know more or less how many will show up.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - wool_gather 8y ago
      The parent's `sarcasm` tags were apparently swallowed in HTML sanitization. :) It was meant to sound like a horrible idea.
      - ethbro 8y ago
        Apparently the modest nature of my proposal wasnt clear enough. I forget to really punch sarcasm in text. My point: cost is always a consideration. And in voting, has a direct correlation to such issues as deployment and voter ability to... well, vote.
  - crpatino 8y ago
    Congratulations!!! because you allowed USD$1,500 Voting Machines to exist, you are now stuck with a dictator for life. You can console yourself saying that the despot in charge usually gets 70+% votes (in spite of being universally despised).
  - _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
    This depends obviously on where you are in the political spectrum. I would not like to make voting more complicated,to prevent people from voting, but the current majority in the US support making voting harder for many people. I assume you're one of those.
madeofpalk 8y ago
Please, no one mention blockchain.
- Havoc 8y ago
  haha that was actually my first thought. The whole cryptocurrency stuff seems pretty shady but there are select applications where blockchain is ideally suited & this seems like one of them. i.e. All those independent election monitors can set up their own node etc
  - henrikschroder 8y ago
    Stop thinking like an engineer. The most important feature of elections is that everyone in society can take part of the process, understand the process, and (locally) verify that the elections are fair. Technology just introduces black boxes that citizens are somehow expected to trust, because something something cryptography something blockchain. No, that's not good enough.
    - Havoc 8y ago
      >Technology just introduces black boxes that citizens are somehow expected to trust oh please. People trust the lock sign on HTTPS all day without understanding it. (or mastercard or the bridge they drive over or well anything). Avoiding superior technological solutions just because the man on the street doesn't understand them is a bad approach. If society did that we'd still be in the 1800s.
      - ninkendo 8y ago
        > oh please. People trust the lock sign on HTTPS all day without understanding it Yes, and the internet is an absolute cesspool when it comes to security. Do we really want to hold up the internet as a shining success that we should be applying to probably the most important institution we have?
      - ketzu 8y ago
        The understanding is an important part of voting, not in general use of technology and the parent did mention this: > The most important feature of elections
fareesh 8y ago
Can Americans explain why voter ID is seen to be disenfranchising or sometimes inarticulately simplified as "racist"? Voter ID is mandatory in so many parts of the world. What are the rest of us missing? Edit: Not that it matters, but I live in India, so "poor people can't get ID" confuses me even further.
- tobylane 8y ago
  Where white people live it's easy to get ID, and white people are more likely to have it for other reasons. Where black people live it's harder to get ID, and black people are less likely to have it for other reasons. Both are minor differences.
- vowelless 8y ago
  Best case interpretation from my vantage point: bigotry of low expectations. Apparently some people believe that poor people or minorities in America find it harder than even the poorest Indians to go get identification.
  - fareesh 8y ago
    I am from India, which is why I find this especially confusing - hence my motivation for asking
  - brewrwe 8y ago
    Aadhaar isn't a beacon of hope, the reason the poorest Indians are getting Aadhaar at all is to survive as the government of India forces it down people's throats, denying their benefits and even existence as real people if they don't have Aadhaar. Lets not even touch the attempts at demonetization as of late, these policies haven't created a stable environment in India. https://m.rediff.com/news/column/the-giant-mess-called-aadhaar/20180116.htm https://m.rediff.com/news/column/the-giant-mess-called-aadha...
    - UncleEntity 8y ago
      The poorest people in the US also need ID cards to just survive too, try to get any sort of government benefits without being able to prove who you are.
pertsix 8y ago
Counter-point: paper ballots are not safest.
- tobylane 8y ago
  Is there detail to your counter point?
- rurban 8y ago
  Sure. Electronic voting is the safest and cheapest bet for leading politicians to win elections. For voter fraud paper ballots are of course more difficult, but nevertheless doable. See the study about the recent turkish elections.
tobylane 8y ago
Pencils are safer than pens. I really like the British voting process, not just because I grew up with it but because we can point to what about it makes so much sense.
vowelless 8y ago
There is absolutely no need to have electronic voting machines. Votes happen months before one needs to take office. Counting of paper ballots is an easy and solved problem. No need to try to optimize speed of counting for elections. It's not a big enough issue. Paper ballots are also decentralized and thus, much harder to manipulate. The downside risk of electronic voting is very high. It invariably leads to centralization, meaning allows risk of amplified manipulation in presence of hacks. "Why can we have electronic banking, but not electronic voting, vowelless?” For one, elections cannot be insured like your bank transactions can. Loosing money can be devastating, but the Republican system with democratic voting is much more important than the banking system.
- KSteffensen 8y ago
  While I agree with you that the risks are not worth it, there is the counterargument that votes are expensive. If votes were made less expensive it might be feasible to put more things out for popular vote Edit: typo. Stupid autocorrect set for the wrong language
  - brewrwe 8y ago
    Vores?
    - rhizome 8y ago
      Odd place for small rodents to appear, but maybe there's a lesson to be learned from them.
      - brewrwe 8y ago
        I think it was a typo on the prior commenters part, but apparently my comment got flagged. Man HN is touchy!
    - fao_ 8y ago
      Edible votes perhaps?
  - 8y ago
tzhenghao 8y ago
Yes, and the only way to break the paper ballot method is fake ballots introduced physically into election sites. However, I predict this is much harder stunt to get away with the rise of social media. If anything, going with paper ballots reduces the attack vectors and the speed at which it's executed on a legitimate process.
- rossdavidh 8y ago
  Plus, if you want to intrude physically into election sites, which can and has happened in the U.S., at least you have to have a lot of people involved in order to do it on a large scale (increasing the chances of getting caught). Electronic voting machines could potentially be compromised in many places by a relatively small group of people, some of whom might not even be in the country.
pmoriarty 8y ago
Not only should we not use electronic voting machines, we should not use electronic vote counting machines. Paper ballots counted by electronic means should be just as suspect, as whoever hacks the counting machine could set vote totals to be just shy of the limit required to initiate a manual recount. All votes should be counted by hand.
- Isamu 8y ago
  Hand counting is another source of error or corruption though. I like the idea of optical scanning with random audits. That is you'll scan them, then keep them locked up together with subtotals for each box. You can audit that the subtotals add up, and then randomly pick boxes to hand count. You can then verify that the votes in the box match the subtotals for that box.
  - nemetroid 8y ago
    How is hand counting a source for corruption if all counting takes place in public?
  - tobylane 8y ago
    UK election counting is done by hand, double checked, overseen by the candidates and there’s tv cameras in just about every counting room, especially in tight races or cabinet seats.
  - pjmorris 8y ago
    > Hand counting is another source of error or corruption though. Hand counting, in public, at the voting site, puts the count in view of all interested parties. Any errors or corruption are the results of the collected views of those present. Electronic counting, in any form, adds to that the views of whomever builds, delivers, and collects the electronic count.
- amai 8y ago
  "The people who cast the votes decide nothing; the people who count the votes decide everything!" Joseph Stalin
Isamu 8y ago
After the Bush vs. Gore election problems in 2000, I recall a paper here on HN of a study of different voting mechanisms. I think it was an MIT study - if anybody knows the paper, please post. Anyway the conclusion was that all systems have some non-zero error rate, but the most reliable was paper ballots with optical readers. Ability to audit was important too. So this paper was discussed here and I thought it might make some impact on the voting systems in the US. After all, I thought, here we had a credible study, the merits were being discussed, and so on. Of course what happened was that my state (PA) adopted all electronic systems, with poor audit trail, etc. I don't think any legislature anywhere made a good faith effort to weigh the possible options in a rational way. I think the vendors came in, gave a presentation, and the everybody went with their gut feel.
- Shivetya 8y ago
  well if anything it shows that you cannot trust paper ballots or that in a close contest no one will. electronic voting will work provided you can take a record of your vote, say a bar code, and scan it and verify your vote was recorded properly. so give them a paper copy with their votes printed out and a code they can scan either at home, their phone, any government facility, that says - yeah it counted. when it comes to bulk counting the electronic version is used or a printout of every single bar code value is mass scanned back in. how else can you have a paper ballot that cannot be altered?
  - tobylane 8y ago
    What’s the it that shows you can’t trust paper? Votes being edited isn’t a fear here. We write with pencils in fear of disappearing ink but the whole counting process is monitored by the candidates, with no claims of vote editing.
  - jacques_chester 8y ago
    > how else can you have a paper ballot that cannot be altered? With simple, boring techniques requiring the presence of multiple scrutineers appointed by different candidates. The process relies on mutual suspicion to detect problems at every step. In an Australian election, all ballot boxes are numbered. The seals are also numbered. When a ballot box is assembled, the seal numbers and box number are logged, signed by the senior Electoral Officer present and countersigned by at least two scrutineers appointed by different candidates. Ballots are not numbered, but are counted as they are dispensed. Each is initialled by the official who hands it to the voter. This process is observable by scrutineers. When time comes to count, the box numbers are cross-checked with the logs, again under scrutineers. When the ballots are hand-counted, it happens with scrutineers watching. When the tallies are made, it happens with scrutineers present. When any of the scrutineers disagrees with some aspect of the process, they can appeal to the electoral commission. If they're dissatisfied, the matter can be taken to the Court of Disputed Returns. So far as I am aware, only once, in over a century of Australian elections, have ballot boxes been lost. That election was voided and rerun from scratch. Paper works. You just need to see how other people are already using it successfully.
chaitanya 8y ago
Paper ballots might work best in the west, but in some developing countries ballot stuffing remains a big problem. In these countries I feel VVPAT is a better solution. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter-verified_paper_audit_trail https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter-verified_paper_audit_t...
pi-squared 8y ago
CMV: I think we should be able to vote electronically with the same convenience that we do online shopping not to make it easier to count the votes but rather to increase turnout numbers. 50-60% - is that better for representative democracy or 90%? The counterpoint of decentralization - there is a single point where final counts happen. So who is to say that final single point isn't manipulatable?
- nemetroid 8y ago
  Sweden has paper ballots and around 85% voter turnout.
- ufo 8y ago
  Voting from home would be very dangerous as it would undermine the secrecy of the vote. It would become much easier for people with power (employers, religious authorities, abusive family members, etc) to coerce others to vote for a chosen candidate.
- crpatino 8y ago
  The way it works in Mexico, every political party has a representative in each voting site. Once the site officials (not government employees, but citizes selected at random) finish the ballot counting, they fill-in an act that is signed by every representative. So, each party has an unofficial report for each office, and their only restriction to know if there was a fraud is how faster they can double check official government figures. And yes, we do take elections pretty seriously around here. After the "System blackout" of 1988, it is not possible to have any sort of legitimacy without a robust election process with heavy involvement from the public. It is also one of the most expensive systems around the world, but at least we can be reasonably certain that the rascals that rule us are indeed the rascals the majority did choose.
- freddie_mercury 8y ago
  Echoing the other comment about Sweden: The last Australian election had 91% turnout, which was the lowest since 1926. It is possible to have high turnout without computers. You could, for instance, not have elections on a weekday as a start.
agrinman 8y ago
xkcd agrees: https://xkcd.com/2030/ https://xkcd.com/2030/
partycoder 8y ago
The 3 important aspects of a legitimate vote are: 1) Secret 2) Unique: one vote per citizen and all votes are worth the same. 3) Universal: no citizens should be prevented from voting. - The US doesn't consistently follow these: - A citizen from state A is worth more than a citizen from state B because of the electoral college. - A citizen can register to vote in multiple states. - DNC superdelegates are worth more votes in primaries. - Right to take time off to vote. - Geographic location of polling places. ... and a large list of irregularities.
- owl_paste 8y ago
  You should really research the electoral college instead of just assuming it's unfair. There is a reason for it. You may disagree, but it's not just an obvious flaw or oversight. It was intentional. Edit: to the downvoters, your downvotes won't magically and retroactively count as votes in the 2016 election. Why not participate in the discussion instead of the incivility? Or, you know, hypocritically participate in the HN equivalent of the Electoral College, those with downvoting ability.
  - MereInterest 8y ago
    I'd be interested to hear what you say what the original reason is, as I've heard several. Not one of them is at all useful in the modern day. 1) To appease slave-owning states, by allowing slaves to be counted toward the allocation of representatives and electoral votes. No longer relevant after Civil War. 2) To prevent demagogues from gaining popular support. Assumes that electors will meet and decide on a candidate when the electoral college votes, rather than being bound ahead of time. Clearly, did not do this job in 2016. 3) To keep small states from being overwhelmed by large states. Assumes that loyalty and identity are primarily to a state (e.g Virginian) rather than to the country (American). Furthermore, causes undo emphasis on swing states, which are primarily based on how much urban/rural area falls within the state borders. I have not heard any reasons to dissuade me from the belief that the electoral college is a vestigial organization that no longer serves any purpose. Edit: Also, your entire comment is a form of personal attack that does not give any argument. At most, you imply that an argument for the existence of the electoral college exists, but give no support for its existence. If you are going to say that a reason exists, at least give a one sentence description, or a link to what you believe that reason to be. As it is, you are disingenuously setting yourself up to say, in effect, "Well, none of those reasons are the one that I was thinking of. I'm keeping the real reason for myself, but feel free to continue guessing while I act like I have the superior position."
forrestthewoods 8y ago
Change My Mind: Washington State's vote by mail is the best system in the world. Ballots and guides are mailed out 2 to 4 weeks before voting day. All voters need to do is fill out their ballot at their leisure and put it in a mailbox or ballot drop box before the end of election day. I see no compelling reason to prefer any other system in existence.
- henrikschroder 8y ago
  It allows vote coercion, I can threaten you to vote a certain way and watch you drop off the ballot, and there's no way for you to change your vote later. Having monitored physical polling stations where people vote in secret removes this opportunity, because I can only see that you voted, but not what you voted for.
  - forrestthewoods 8y ago
    That's a theoretical problem. And one that doesn't scale. You wouldn't be able to realistically intimidate 10,000 people and watch each one drop their ballot into a box. In practice I don't think there are even fringe accusations of it being a problem. > Having monitored physical polling stations where people vote in secret removes this opportunity It reduces, but does not remove, the opportunity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_...
    - genericid 8y ago
      > That's a theoretical problem. Currently. > You wouldn't be able to realistically intimidate 10,000 people and watch each one drop their ballot into a box. Your fanatical followers and/or henchman can do that. You can also use photos/videos to watch "your" voters more scalably. Another option is to pay them rather than intimidating.
    - pseudalopex 8y ago
      Bribery and coercion have been reduced to practice many times throughout human history. Voting by mail also facilitates misdirecting or tampering with ballots. People have used all four approaches to sway elections with absentee ballots. Often they've been caught because the mailed ballots showed unusual trends or there were unusually many of them. The risks should be weighed against the benefits of greater turnout, but countries and even US states have found ways to improve turnout while keeping the safeguards of the secret ballot.
kwhitefoot 8y ago
Why is any technology of any kind required? Surely all that is needed is for the voters to make indelible marks on pieces of paper and for another person to tally those marks.
amai 8y ago
Paper ballots are safest, but not perfectly safe. The voting system is routinely hacked in a lot of countries, e.g. in the US: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering Russia: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_instances_of_ballot_box_stuffing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_instances_of_ballot_bo... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting Ultimately if the people in power do not respect the democratic process, they can and will hack the voting and vote count process. In addition to that modern democracies suffer from selection bias. The persons you can vote for are often a hand or self selected group of people which will not threaten the existing oligarchy. The only voting system I know that would be free of all these problems is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition . Because the greek understood already 2500 years ago: "It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election." (Aristotle, Politics 4.1294be)
gahikr 8y ago
Why not have both as an audit system? Electronic voting for instant tabulation. It prints out a voter verifiable ballot receipt that goes into a ballot box. If the electronic count and the paper count don’t match, some error or fraudulent activity has occurred.

189 points by marchenko 8y ago

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

We should only change vote tech to make it more secure not more efficient.

ethbro 8y ago
Congratulations! We've managed to develop a completely secure voting device, with a formally verified codebase. The machines cost USD$150,000. Due to the cost, we will be able to deploy two machines at a single voting site in your county. Please ensure you arrive with enough time, as lines are expected.
- KSteffensen 8y ago
  That's nice. You have fun with that. We'll keep our $300k and our paper ballots. No lines are expected as we've tried this before and know more or less how many will show up.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    The parent's `sarcasm` tags were apparently swallowed in HTML sanitization. :) It was meant to sound like a horrible idea.
    - ethbro 8y ago
      Apparently the modest nature of my proposal wasnt clear enough. I forget to really punch sarcasm in text. My point: cost is always a consideration. And in voting, has a direct correlation to such issues as deployment and voter ability to... well, vote.
- crpatino 8y ago
  Congratulations!!! because you allowed USD$1,500 Voting Machines to exist, you are now stuck with a dictator for life. You can console yourself saying that the despot in charge usually gets 70+% votes (in spite of being universally despised).
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  This depends obviously on where you are in the political spectrum. I would not like to make voting more complicated,to prevent people from voting, but the current majority in the US support making voting harder for many people. I assume you're one of those.

madeofpalk 8y ago

Please, no one mention blockchain.

Havoc 8y ago
haha that was actually my first thought. The whole cryptocurrency stuff seems pretty shady but there are select applications where blockchain is ideally suited & this seems like one of them. i.e. All those independent election monitors can set up their own node etc
- henrikschroder 8y ago
  Stop thinking like an engineer. The most important feature of elections is that everyone in society can take part of the process, understand the process, and (locally) verify that the elections are fair. Technology just introduces black boxes that citizens are somehow expected to trust, because something something cryptography something blockchain. No, that's not good enough.
  - Havoc 8y ago
    >Technology just introduces black boxes that citizens are somehow expected to trust oh please. People trust the lock sign on HTTPS all day without understanding it. (or mastercard or the bridge they drive over or well anything). Avoiding superior technological solutions just because the man on the street doesn't understand them is a bad approach. If society did that we'd still be in the 1800s.
    - ninkendo 8y ago
      > oh please. People trust the lock sign on HTTPS all day without understanding it Yes, and the internet is an absolute cesspool when it comes to security. Do we really want to hold up the internet as a shining success that we should be applying to probably the most important institution we have?
    - ketzu 8y ago
      The understanding is an important part of voting, not in general use of technology and the parent did mention this: > The most important feature of elections

fareesh 8y ago

Can Americans explain why voter ID is seen to be disenfranchising or sometimes inarticulately simplified as "racist"? Voter ID is mandatory in so many parts of the world. What are the rest of us missing? Edit: Not that it matters, but I live in India, so "poor people can't get ID" confuses me even further.

tobylane 8y ago
Where white people live it's easy to get ID, and white people are more likely to have it for other reasons. Where black people live it's harder to get ID, and black people are less likely to have it for other reasons. Both are minor differences.
vowelless 8y ago
Best case interpretation from my vantage point: bigotry of low expectations. Apparently some people believe that poor people or minorities in America find it harder than even the poorest Indians to go get identification.
- fareesh 8y ago
  I am from India, which is why I find this especially confusing - hence my motivation for asking
- brewrwe 8y ago
  Aadhaar isn't a beacon of hope, the reason the poorest Indians are getting Aadhaar at all is to survive as the government of India forces it down people's throats, denying their benefits and even existence as real people if they don't have Aadhaar. Lets not even touch the attempts at demonetization as of late, these policies haven't created a stable environment in India. https://m.rediff.com/news/column/the-giant-mess-called-aadhaar/20180116.htm https://m.rediff.com/news/column/the-giant-mess-called-aadha...
  - UncleEntity 8y ago
    The poorest people in the US also need ID cards to just survive too, try to get any sort of government benefits without being able to prove who you are.

pertsix 8y ago

Counter-point: paper ballots are not safest.

tobylane 8y ago
Is there detail to your counter point?
rurban 8y ago
Sure. Electronic voting is the safest and cheapest bet for leading politicians to win elections. For voter fraud paper ballots are of course more difficult, but nevertheless doable. See the study about the recent turkish elections.

tobylane 8y ago

Pencils are safer than pens. I really like the British voting process, not just because I grew up with it but because we can point to what about it makes so much sense.

vowelless 8y ago

There is absolutely no need to have electronic voting machines. Votes happen months before one needs to take office. Counting of paper ballots is an easy and solved problem. No need to try to optimize speed of counting for elections. It's not a big enough issue. Paper ballots are also decentralized and thus, much harder to manipulate. The downside risk of electronic voting is very high. It invariably leads to centralization, meaning allows risk of amplified manipulation in presence of hacks. "Why can we have electronic banking, but not electronic voting, vowelless?” For one, elections cannot be insured like your bank transactions can. Loosing money can be devastating, but the Republican system with democratic voting is much more important than the banking system.

KSteffensen 8y ago
While I agree with you that the risks are not worth it, there is the counterargument that votes are expensive. If votes were made less expensive it might be feasible to put more things out for popular vote Edit: typo. Stupid autocorrect set for the wrong language
- brewrwe 8y ago
  Vores?
  - rhizome 8y ago
    Odd place for small rodents to appear, but maybe there's a lesson to be learned from them.
    - brewrwe 8y ago
      I think it was a typo on the prior commenters part, but apparently my comment got flagged. Man HN is touchy!
  - fao_ 8y ago
    Edible votes perhaps?
- 8y ago

tzhenghao 8y ago

Yes, and the only way to break the paper ballot method is fake ballots introduced physically into election sites. However, I predict this is much harder stunt to get away with the rise of social media. If anything, going with paper ballots reduces the attack vectors and the speed at which it's executed on a legitimate process.

rossdavidh 8y ago
Plus, if you want to intrude physically into election sites, which can and has happened in the U.S., at least you have to have a lot of people involved in order to do it on a large scale (increasing the chances of getting caught). Electronic voting machines could potentially be compromised in many places by a relatively small group of people, some of whom might not even be in the country.

pmoriarty 8y ago

Not only should we not use electronic voting machines, we should not use electronic vote counting machines. Paper ballots counted by electronic means should be just as suspect, as whoever hacks the counting machine could set vote totals to be just shy of the limit required to initiate a manual recount. All votes should be counted by hand.

Isamu 8y ago
Hand counting is another source of error or corruption though. I like the idea of optical scanning with random audits. That is you'll scan them, then keep them locked up together with subtotals for each box. You can audit that the subtotals add up, and then randomly pick boxes to hand count. You can then verify that the votes in the box match the subtotals for that box.
- nemetroid 8y ago
  How is hand counting a source for corruption if all counting takes place in public?
- tobylane 8y ago
  UK election counting is done by hand, double checked, overseen by the candidates and there’s tv cameras in just about every counting room, especially in tight races or cabinet seats.
- pjmorris 8y ago
  > Hand counting is another source of error or corruption though. Hand counting, in public, at the voting site, puts the count in view of all interested parties. Any errors or corruption are the results of the collected views of those present. Electronic counting, in any form, adds to that the views of whomever builds, delivers, and collects the electronic count.
amai 8y ago
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing; the people who count the votes decide everything!" Joseph Stalin

Isamu 8y ago

After the Bush vs. Gore election problems in 2000, I recall a paper here on HN of a study of different voting mechanisms. I think it was an MIT study - if anybody knows the paper, please post. Anyway the conclusion was that all systems have some non-zero error rate, but the most reliable was paper ballots with optical readers. Ability to audit was important too. So this paper was discussed here and I thought it might make some impact on the voting systems in the US. After all, I thought, here we had a credible study, the merits were being discussed, and so on. Of course what happened was that my state (PA) adopted all electronic systems, with poor audit trail, etc. I don't think any legislature anywhere made a good faith effort to weigh the possible options in a rational way. I think the vendors came in, gave a presentation, and the everybody went with their gut feel.

Shivetya 8y ago
well if anything it shows that you cannot trust paper ballots or that in a close contest no one will. electronic voting will work provided you can take a record of your vote, say a bar code, and scan it and verify your vote was recorded properly. so give them a paper copy with their votes printed out and a code they can scan either at home, their phone, any government facility, that says - yeah it counted. when it comes to bulk counting the electronic version is used or a printout of every single bar code value is mass scanned back in. how else can you have a paper ballot that cannot be altered?
- tobylane 8y ago
  What’s the it that shows you can’t trust paper? Votes being edited isn’t a fear here. We write with pencils in fear of disappearing ink but the whole counting process is monitored by the candidates, with no claims of vote editing.
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  > how else can you have a paper ballot that cannot be altered? With simple, boring techniques requiring the presence of multiple scrutineers appointed by different candidates. The process relies on mutual suspicion to detect problems at every step. In an Australian election, all ballot boxes are numbered. The seals are also numbered. When a ballot box is assembled, the seal numbers and box number are logged, signed by the senior Electoral Officer present and countersigned by at least two scrutineers appointed by different candidates. Ballots are not numbered, but are counted as they are dispensed. Each is initialled by the official who hands it to the voter. This process is observable by scrutineers. When time comes to count, the box numbers are cross-checked with the logs, again under scrutineers. When the ballots are hand-counted, it happens with scrutineers watching. When the tallies are made, it happens with scrutineers present. When any of the scrutineers disagrees with some aspect of the process, they can appeal to the electoral commission. If they're dissatisfied, the matter can be taken to the Court of Disputed Returns. So far as I am aware, only once, in over a century of Australian elections, have ballot boxes been lost. That election was voided and rerun from scratch. Paper works. You just need to see how other people are already using it successfully.

chaitanya 8y ago

Paper ballots might work best in the west, but in some developing countries ballot stuffing remains a big problem. In these countries I feel VVPAT is a better solution. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter-verified_paper_audit_trail https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter-verified_paper_audit_t...

pi-squared 8y ago

CMV: I think we should be able to vote electronically with the same convenience that we do online shopping not to make it easier to count the votes but rather to increase turnout numbers. 50-60% - is that better for representative democracy or 90%? The counterpoint of decentralization - there is a single point where final counts happen. So who is to say that final single point isn't manipulatable?

nemetroid 8y ago
Sweden has paper ballots and around 85% voter turnout.
ufo 8y ago
Voting from home would be very dangerous as it would undermine the secrecy of the vote. It would become much easier for people with power (employers, religious authorities, abusive family members, etc) to coerce others to vote for a chosen candidate.
crpatino 8y ago
The way it works in Mexico, every political party has a representative in each voting site. Once the site officials (not government employees, but citizes selected at random) finish the ballot counting, they fill-in an act that is signed by every representative. So, each party has an unofficial report for each office, and their only restriction to know if there was a fraud is how faster they can double check official government figures. And yes, we do take elections pretty seriously around here. After the "System blackout" of 1988, it is not possible to have any sort of legitimacy without a robust election process with heavy involvement from the public. It is also one of the most expensive systems around the world, but at least we can be reasonably certain that the rascals that rule us are indeed the rascals the majority did choose.
freddie_mercury 8y ago
Echoing the other comment about Sweden: The last Australian election had 91% turnout, which was the lowest since 1926. It is possible to have high turnout without computers. You could, for instance, not have elections on a weekday as a start.

agrinman 8y ago

xkcd agrees: https://xkcd.com/2030/ https://xkcd.com/2030/

partycoder 8y ago

The 3 important aspects of a legitimate vote are: 1) Secret 2) Unique: one vote per citizen and all votes are worth the same. 3) Universal: no citizens should be prevented from voting. - The US doesn't consistently follow these: - A citizen from state A is worth more than a citizen from state B because of the electoral college. - A citizen can register to vote in multiple states. - DNC superdelegates are worth more votes in primaries. - Right to take time off to vote. - Geographic location of polling places. ... and a large list of irregularities.

owl_paste 8y ago
You should really research the electoral college instead of just assuming it's unfair. There is a reason for it. You may disagree, but it's not just an obvious flaw or oversight. It was intentional. Edit: to the downvoters, your downvotes won't magically and retroactively count as votes in the 2016 election. Why not participate in the discussion instead of the incivility? Or, you know, hypocritically participate in the HN equivalent of the Electoral College, those with downvoting ability.
- MereInterest 8y ago
  I'd be interested to hear what you say what the original reason is, as I've heard several. Not one of them is at all useful in the modern day. 1) To appease slave-owning states, by allowing slaves to be counted toward the allocation of representatives and electoral votes. No longer relevant after Civil War. 2) To prevent demagogues from gaining popular support. Assumes that electors will meet and decide on a candidate when the electoral college votes, rather than being bound ahead of time. Clearly, did not do this job in 2016. 3) To keep small states from being overwhelmed by large states. Assumes that loyalty and identity are primarily to a state (e.g Virginian) rather than to the country (American). Furthermore, causes undo emphasis on swing states, which are primarily based on how much urban/rural area falls within the state borders. I have not heard any reasons to dissuade me from the belief that the electoral college is a vestigial organization that no longer serves any purpose. Edit: Also, your entire comment is a form of personal attack that does not give any argument. At most, you imply that an argument for the existence of the electoral college exists, but give no support for its existence. If you are going to say that a reason exists, at least give a one sentence description, or a link to what you believe that reason to be. As it is, you are disingenuously setting yourself up to say, in effect, "Well, none of those reasons are the one that I was thinking of. I'm keeping the real reason for myself, but feel free to continue guessing while I act like I have the superior position."

forrestthewoods 8y ago

Change My Mind: Washington State's vote by mail is the best system in the world. Ballots and guides are mailed out 2 to 4 weeks before voting day. All voters need to do is fill out their ballot at their leisure and put it in a mailbox or ballot drop box before the end of election day. I see no compelling reason to prefer any other system in existence.

henrikschroder 8y ago
It allows vote coercion, I can threaten you to vote a certain way and watch you drop off the ballot, and there's no way for you to change your vote later. Having monitored physical polling stations where people vote in secret removes this opportunity, because I can only see that you voted, but not what you voted for.
- forrestthewoods 8y ago
  That's a theoretical problem. And one that doesn't scale. You wouldn't be able to realistically intimidate 10,000 people and watch each one drop their ballot into a box. In practice I don't think there are even fringe accusations of it being a problem. > Having monitored physical polling stations where people vote in secret removes this opportunity It reduces, but does not remove, the opportunity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_...
  - genericid 8y ago
    > That's a theoretical problem. Currently. > You wouldn't be able to realistically intimidate 10,000 people and watch each one drop their ballot into a box. Your fanatical followers and/or henchman can do that. You can also use photos/videos to watch "your" voters more scalably. Another option is to pay them rather than intimidating.
  - pseudalopex 8y ago
    Bribery and coercion have been reduced to practice many times throughout human history. Voting by mail also facilitates misdirecting or tampering with ballots. People have used all four approaches to sway elections with absentee ballots. Often they've been caught because the mailed ballots showed unusual trends or there were unusually many of them. The risks should be weighed against the benefits of greater turnout, but countries and even US states have found ways to improve turnout while keeping the safeguards of the secret ballot.

kwhitefoot 8y ago

Why is any technology of any kind required? Surely all that is needed is for the voters to make indelible marks on pieces of paper and for another person to tally those marks.

amai 8y ago

Paper ballots are safest, but not perfectly safe. The voting system is routinely hacked in a lot of countries, e.g. in the US: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering Russia: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_instances_of_ballot_box_stuffing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_instances_of_ballot_bo... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting Ultimately if the people in power do not respect the democratic process, they can and will hack the voting and vote count process. In addition to that modern democracies suffer from selection bias. The persons you can vote for are often a hand or self selected group of people which will not threaten the existing oligarchy. The only voting system I know that would be free of all these problems is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition . Because the greek understood already 2500 years ago: "It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election." (Aristotle, Politics 4.1294be)

gahikr 8y ago

Why not have both as an audit system? Electronic voting for instant tabulation. It prints out a voter verifiable ballot receipt that goes into a ballot box. If the electronic count and the paper count don’t match, some error or fraudulent activity has occurred.