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Physical collection is risky, but we can mitigate the risks. I can't speak to the US system, but here in New Zealand every political party is entitled to appoi

Physical collection is risky, but we can mitigate the risks. I can't speak to the US system, but here in New Zealand every political party is entitled to appoint scrutineers to each polling place. They cannot speak or interact with anyone but they watch the whole process from checking voter entitlement, through transporting the ballots and then counting. The idea is each party distrusts the others so won't let them get away with rigging the ballot. Mutual distrust produces a trustworthy outcome.

roenxi 8y ago
Also on this point, we know the large silent majority is made up mostly of moderates who want to live in a civilised democratic country where the government either leaves everyone alone or have a mass benevolent impact. As long as attacks don't scale it seems safe to assume corruption will be localised and the integrity of the system will hold. The risk is that IT is used to centralise democracy to bring down costs, then becomes compromised in an unrelated attack.
- everdev 8y ago
  But if the parties are picking partisan voting officials to oversee the election, there might not be much moderation or civility among them.
toyg 8y ago
Same in Italy, each party can have one person observing proceedings. There used to be tons of parties, hence there were lots of eyes around. The better-organised parties also tracked in realtime whether their sympathizers had actually voted, seat by seat, and could send messages through relays to hurry them to the booth. Before computers, journalists typically relied on the major parties to have the first results, well before they were officially declared. This has changed in modern times, as a number of parties disappeared after electoral reforms; and the risk of tampering and shenanigans has increased substantially.
jcrawfordor 8y ago
Election administration is by state in the US. To my knowledge, every US state except for West Virginia allows some form of "observer" or "challenger" (or sometimes both with different purposes), often appointed by either political parties or candidates. It's a bit of a patchwork from state to state, but yes, in general, there is a system of interested persons observing the polling place. (In this state, observers and challengers are different, with challengers specifically serving the purpose of challenging individuals that may not actually be qualified to vote. Since the pollbooks are electronic today challengers are rarely seen, they were generally only able to challenge clerical errors that are no longer seen with computer pollbooks)
- nemo846 8y ago
  Kind of hard to observe electronic voting. If someone wants to screw with physical votes, they have to access the boxes which hold them. Easily detectable. Electronic ... you can have the software changed to modify votes and few would be the wiser - even have the changes hide themselves if you are smart.
  - taeric 8y ago
    This seems overly simplistic. Both have ridiculously tough to harden attack vectors. In physical, it isn't enough to protect where the votes are done. They have to be transported back and ultimately counted somewhere. At any point in that process, they are vulnerable. No?
    - Retra 8y ago
      Vulnerable to what, though? Physically changing votes takes time, and swapping them leaves a paper trail. If someone miscounts paper votes, you can just recount them. With a computer, you flip a bit and there's no record. Votes are miscounted? Tough, those numbers are a real as any other numbers. And how much time does it take to swap a vote? Less than a microsecond?
      - mathieuh 8y ago
ironic_ali 8y ago
Yeah nah, that's choice but, at least our scrutineers aren't so easily bribed by fish. Edit: should read articles before commenting..
- Simon_says 8y ago
  It's animal cruelty to open seals with shims, no matter what they're protecting.
hyperpallium 8y ago
They can collude to exclude a third party.
TheSoftwareGuy 8y ago
So what happens if one of them sees something fishy? Can they report it in a way that will lead to action?

roenxi 8y ago

Also on this point, we know the large silent majority is made up mostly of moderates who want to live in a civilised democratic country where the government either leaves everyone alone or have a mass benevolent impact. As long as attacks don't scale it seems safe to assume corruption will be localised and the integrity of the system will hold. The risk is that IT is used to centralise democracy to bring down costs, then becomes compromised in an unrelated attack.

everdev 8y ago
But if the parties are picking partisan voting officials to oversee the election, there might not be much moderation or civility among them.

toyg 8y ago

Same in Italy, each party can have one person observing proceedings. There used to be tons of parties, hence there were lots of eyes around. The better-organised parties also tracked in realtime whether their sympathizers had actually voted, seat by seat, and could send messages through relays to hurry them to the booth. Before computers, journalists typically relied on the major parties to have the first results, well before they were officially declared. This has changed in modern times, as a number of parties disappeared after electoral reforms; and the risk of tampering and shenanigans has increased substantially.

jcrawfordor 8y ago

Election administration is by state in the US. To my knowledge, every US state except for West Virginia allows some form of "observer" or "challenger" (or sometimes both with different purposes), often appointed by either political parties or candidates. It's a bit of a patchwork from state to state, but yes, in general, there is a system of interested persons observing the polling place. (In this state, observers and challengers are different, with challengers specifically serving the purpose of challenging individuals that may not actually be qualified to vote. Since the pollbooks are electronic today challengers are rarely seen, they were generally only able to challenge clerical errors that are no longer seen with computer pollbooks)

nemo846 8y ago
Kind of hard to observe electronic voting. If someone wants to screw with physical votes, they have to access the boxes which hold them. Easily detectable. Electronic ... you can have the software changed to modify votes and few would be the wiser - even have the changes hide themselves if you are smart.
- taeric 8y ago
  This seems overly simplistic. Both have ridiculously tough to harden attack vectors. In physical, it isn't enough to protect where the votes are done. They have to be transported back and ultimately counted somewhere. At any point in that process, they are vulnerable. No?
  - Retra 8y ago
    Vulnerable to what, though? Physically changing votes takes time, and swapping them leaves a paper trail. If someone miscounts paper votes, you can just recount them. With a computer, you flip a bit and there's no record. Votes are miscounted? Tough, those numbers are a real as any other numbers. And how much time does it take to swap a vote? Less than a microsecond?
    - mathieuh 8y ago

ironic_ali 8y ago

Yeah nah, that's choice but, at least our scrutineers aren't so easily bribed by fish. Edit: should read articles before commenting..

Simon_says 8y ago
It's animal cruelty to open seals with shims, no matter what they're protecting.

hyperpallium 8y ago

They can collude to exclude a third party.

TheSoftwareGuy 8y ago

So what happens if one of them sees something fishy? Can they report it in a way that will lead to action?