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I'll join you and take some of the downvotes you got, because I have a pet peeve on this topic to complain about. Too often this fallacy is used to criticize e

I'll join you and take some of the downvotes you got, because I have a pet peeve on this topic to complain about. Too often this fallacy is used to criticize e-voting: 1) find a flaw with electronic voting, 2) support paper ballots. Opportunity costs are completely missing. If paper offered perfect security, that would make sense, but it doesn't. I would have enormous respect for anyone willing to build an honest list of pros and cons on both sides. Let me take a first naive stab: - Electronic voting complicates auditing (in the worst cases making it all but impossible). - Machine manufacturers have a poor record of discovering and correcting vulnerabilities. - Mechanisms to force corrections of vulnerabilities are weak or unenforceable, or raise impossible policy dilemmas if vulnerabilities are discovered near an election. But... - Paper ballots are sometimes ambiguous in ways that skew results.[0][1] - Paper ballots have no mechanism to guarantee "availability." ie, ballot boxes have gone missing, switching recount totals, or sometimes aren't counted at all in close races.[1] - Tabulation is more costly, and often involves separate systems or equipment than recording and storage. "Introduce more unique systems and complexity!" is not usually a good way to guarantee security. On the pro side for both too: + Paper trails improve auditing (but what do you do if there are discrepancies, given the history of both lost paper and flaws in electronics?) + Estonia has had some flaws in their system, but also has tried some innovative solutions to guarantee identity (private keys for all citizens) and prevent coercion/vote buying (votes are revocable up to election day) Everything has flaws, risk mitigation is about shifting those flaws around. Pointing out a flaw in one system isn't a security analysis. Too often that's how people treat it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_(paper)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_(paper)#History [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/virginia-election-recount.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/virginia-election-reco... [2] https://www.wired.com/2008/10/florida-countys/ https://www.wired.com/2008/10/florida-countys/

abdullahkhalids 8y ago
Single-point of failure. The biggest con of electronic voting that you forgot. Its a single-piece of software that can be manipulated or hacked to change the outcome of the entire election by a small group of people. Pretty much every month for the past few years there has been a major security hack that affects millions of people. The same will inevitably happen with an electronic voting system and may go undetected for months/years. Second, usually in a paper voting system, the ballot box and the counting of the votes is always done in the presence of the election officer, and the representatives of at least two major political parties. All have conflicting aims, and to manipulate an election, you have to corrupt all three of them at many many polling stations.
- brownbat 8y ago
  I don't think that cuts one direction. Electronic doesn't have to have a single point of failure, that's a design decision. And paper ballots often have moments where they have single points of failure, like the examples I cited of missing ballot boxes. There weren't three corrupt parties involved in those.
- darawk 8y ago
  > Single-point of failure. The biggest con of electronic voting that you forgot. Its a single-piece of software that can be manipulated or hacked to change the outcome of the entire election by a small group of people Did you even read my original comment? It is not a single piece of software that can be hacked. It is a deterministic independently, cryptographically verifiable algorithm. You receive a receipt that allows you to personally and independently verify that your vote was counted correctly.

abdullahkhalids 8y ago

Single-point of failure. The biggest con of electronic voting that you forgot. Its a single-piece of software that can be manipulated or hacked to change the outcome of the entire election by a small group of people. Pretty much every month for the past few years there has been a major security hack that affects millions of people. The same will inevitably happen with an electronic voting system and may go undetected for months/years. Second, usually in a paper voting system, the ballot box and the counting of the votes is always done in the presence of the election officer, and the representatives of at least two major political parties. All have conflicting aims, and to manipulate an election, you have to corrupt all three of them at many many polling stations.

brownbat 8y ago
I don't think that cuts one direction. Electronic doesn't have to have a single point of failure, that's a design decision. And paper ballots often have moments where they have single points of failure, like the examples I cited of missing ballot boxes. There weren't three corrupt parties involved in those.
darawk 8y ago
> Single-point of failure. The biggest con of electronic voting that you forgot. Its a single-piece of software that can be manipulated or hacked to change the outcome of the entire election by a small group of people Did you even read my original comment? It is not a single piece of software that can be hacked. It is a deterministic independently, cryptographically verifiable algorithm. You receive a receipt that allows you to personally and independently verify that your vote was counted correctly.