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No, it would not require a large conspiracy to pull off. With electronic voting, a single highly skilled engineer could rig an election without needing any acco

No, it would not require a large conspiracy to pull off. With electronic voting, a single highly skilled engineer could rig an election without needing any accomplices at all. That is why it's terrifying.

thevardanian 8y ago
A paper ballot system is just as terribly ineffective as electronic voting. Look at Russia. They have a paper voting system as well. I know in other poorer nations thugs just straight stuff the ballots with votes, some even steal the box, some set it on fire, and it can be in general a complete shit show. What is simply required is a publicly available audit of elections, where any citizen can verify for themselves the outcome of their local results.
- elefanten 8y ago
  You didn't respond to any of the logic in the comments above. Yes, you need some minimum of civil society infrastructure for paper ballots to be categorically more secure than electronic ballots. But the article is about the US. In the US, paper is simply safer.
  - liberte82 8y ago
    If the civil society infrastructure doesn't exist to secure free elections with paper balloting, then you're not really living in a democracy anyway, and you've got bigger issues to deal with.
- rtkwe 8y ago
  That's more a problem with the system surrounding the paper ballot than the paper system itself. Switch to an electronic means in those countries won't remove the fixing problem just make it harder to see because the fix will happen before election day instead of the day of. It's not just the paper system it's that the paper system can be monitored by representatives of each party, there's no good way to do that with an electronic system that doesn't at least create a separate paper record of the vote that's counted separately.
- beat 8y ago
  Driving is unsafe. I could drive right into a tree! Yeah, well, don't drive into trees then. Well-designed, verifiable, auditable paper ballot systems already exist in the US. In many states, the paper-based ballot process is completely safe and reliable. For those states that struggle, the correct solution is to look to the states that don't struggle, and imitate them.
- kartan 8y ago
  > A paper ballot system is just as terribly ineffective as electronic voting. Look at Russia. They have a paper voting system as well. If corruption is widespread at all levels of society no system will work. > I know in other poorer nations thugs just straight stuff the ballots with votes, some even steal the box, some set it on fire, and it can be in general a complete shit show. And you know that this happens because you need a shit show to mess election at that level. With electronic voting, you will not even notice. Paper voting is inefficient and is what it makes it hard to break. You need a lot of manpower to alter an election. If you can alter the election result with manpower, the system that you use does not matter anymore.

thevardanian 8y ago

A paper ballot system is just as terribly ineffective as electronic voting. Look at Russia. They have a paper voting system as well. I know in other poorer nations thugs just straight stuff the ballots with votes, some even steal the box, some set it on fire, and it can be in general a complete shit show. What is simply required is a publicly available audit of elections, where any citizen can verify for themselves the outcome of their local results.

elefanten 8y ago
You didn't respond to any of the logic in the comments above. Yes, you need some minimum of civil society infrastructure for paper ballots to be categorically more secure than electronic ballots. But the article is about the US. In the US, paper is simply safer.
- liberte82 8y ago
  If the civil society infrastructure doesn't exist to secure free elections with paper balloting, then you're not really living in a democracy anyway, and you've got bigger issues to deal with.
rtkwe 8y ago
That's more a problem with the system surrounding the paper ballot than the paper system itself. Switch to an electronic means in those countries won't remove the fixing problem just make it harder to see because the fix will happen before election day instead of the day of. It's not just the paper system it's that the paper system can be monitored by representatives of each party, there's no good way to do that with an electronic system that doesn't at least create a separate paper record of the vote that's counted separately.
beat 8y ago
Driving is unsafe. I could drive right into a tree! Yeah, well, don't drive into trees then. Well-designed, verifiable, auditable paper ballot systems already exist in the US. In many states, the paper-based ballot process is completely safe and reliable. For those states that struggle, the correct solution is to look to the states that don't struggle, and imitate them.
kartan 8y ago
> A paper ballot system is just as terribly ineffective as electronic voting. Look at Russia. They have a paper voting system as well. If corruption is widespread at all levels of society no system will work. > I know in other poorer nations thugs just straight stuff the ballots with votes, some even steal the box, some set it on fire, and it can be in general a complete shit show. And you know that this happens because you need a shit show to mess election at that level. With electronic voting, you will not even notice. Paper voting is inefficient and is what it makes it hard to break. You need a lot of manpower to alter an election. If you can alter the election result with manpower, the system that you use does not matter anymore.