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Why not just figure out a secure way to allow people to vote from their smart phones? I know there are some issues to work out, and some political factions that

Why not just figure out a secure way to allow people to vote from their smart phones? I know there are some issues to work out, and some political factions that are very motivated to stop this from happening, but it seems like everything else is a half measure in terms of lowering the friction to voting.

gpm 8y ago
Because we want to focus on solutions that are actually possible. Smart phones are not secure. Their hardware is not secure. Their operating systems are not secure. The software running on the operating systems is not secure. The network they connect to is not secure. The servers they would need to connect to are not secure. There is no paper trail. Every argument against voting machines applies 10x more to smartphones. I say this, while also thinking that if we could securely vote via smartphone we could have a far more functional democracy than we do today.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  Oh please. Election commissions and their data handling, voting machines, and processes they use Are Not Secure. I walked in and obtained a copy of all voter registrations for Bloomington,In (Monroe Co.) And they loaded it on MY usb drive! I was expecting $5 for a burned CD. Nope. Instead they made themselves vulnerable to evil PowerShell or ironpython exploits, or even badUSB. To pretend that our votes is secured is horrendously laughable, except we shouldn't be laughing.
  - dlivingston 8y ago
    As horrifying as that is, it is ultimately not scalable nationally, while some zero day exploit is.
  - k_sh 8y ago
    That's voter registration, not votes - and it's specifically because we vote with paper ballots instead of computers/phones that hacking into any official computer system won't allow you to change the results.
- randyrand 8y ago
  If you make it audit-able, it doesn't need to be 100% secure. Everyone could vote under a username of their choosing, and afterwords could download the "official" spreadsheet of all votes casted and look to make sure your username has the correct vote. The spreadsheet would be a few megabytes at most and could be duplicated/distributed across different mediums. The main worry would be someone adding fake usernames and votes to the spreadsheet. I'm not sure how we guard against this under the current system either.
  - frostburg 8y ago
    Terrible idea, would enable large scale buying of votes.
    - randyrand 8y ago
      It's not a terrible idea - but that is a valid concern, yes. Note that mass buying of votes is a concern under the current system as well. Allow people to pledge that they’ll vote a certain way, and pay them if their county and/or country votes the way they pledged.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        It's a horrible idea. Votes are private for a reason. Vote buying is not a concern in the US. The privacy of the votes guarantees that the vote buyer can't be certain that the voter voted the way they said they would, so the vote buyer can never know if their "purchase" actually mattered. This inherent uncertainty makes standard means of political persuasion, i.e., political advertising, a more effective spend. Vote buying is a concern in places like India and South America--coincidentally, jurisdictions which already allow mobile voting...
        gpm 8y ago
        Mail in ballots have already done away with that layer of security though. Vote buying isn't a concern in the US because there is still a mostly functional criminal justice system, and because any politician who bought votes would be shunned by the vast majority of voters in the current culture.
craftyguy 8y ago
> Why not just figure out a secure way to allow people to vote from their smart phones? Because that's literally impossible with the current state of smartphone 'security'.
macrael 8y ago
one day, that would be wonderful. But frankly, computers and the systems that support them are not trustworthy enough for this, right now. Paper ballots are auditable, if there is a re-count you can trust a bunch of people to sit down and look at the marks on the page.
reubenswartz 8y ago
One important aspect of in-person voting is avoiding voter coercion. (Hasn't always been true.) While I'm generally in favor of expanding remote voting, there are security concerns not just at the technology level, but the social level, as well.

gpm 8y ago

Because we want to focus on solutions that are actually possible. Smart phones are not secure. Their hardware is not secure. Their operating systems are not secure. The software running on the operating systems is not secure. The network they connect to is not secure. The servers they would need to connect to are not secure. There is no paper trail. Every argument against voting machines applies 10x more to smartphones. I say this, while also thinking that if we could securely vote via smartphone we could have a far more functional democracy than we do today.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago
Oh please. Election commissions and their data handling, voting machines, and processes they use Are Not Secure. I walked in and obtained a copy of all voter registrations for Bloomington,In (Monroe Co.) And they loaded it on MY usb drive! I was expecting $5 for a burned CD. Nope. Instead they made themselves vulnerable to evil PowerShell or ironpython exploits, or even badUSB. To pretend that our votes is secured is horrendously laughable, except we shouldn't be laughing.
- dlivingston 8y ago
  As horrifying as that is, it is ultimately not scalable nationally, while some zero day exploit is.
- k_sh 8y ago
  That's voter registration, not votes - and it's specifically because we vote with paper ballots instead of computers/phones that hacking into any official computer system won't allow you to change the results.
randyrand 8y ago
If you make it audit-able, it doesn't need to be 100% secure. Everyone could vote under a username of their choosing, and afterwords could download the "official" spreadsheet of all votes casted and look to make sure your username has the correct vote. The spreadsheet would be a few megabytes at most and could be duplicated/distributed across different mediums. The main worry would be someone adding fake usernames and votes to the spreadsheet. I'm not sure how we guard against this under the current system either.
- frostburg 8y ago
  Terrible idea, would enable large scale buying of votes.
  - randyrand 8y ago
    It's not a terrible idea - but that is a valid concern, yes. Note that mass buying of votes is a concern under the current system as well. Allow people to pledge that they’ll vote a certain way, and pay them if their county and/or country votes the way they pledged.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      It's a horrible idea. Votes are private for a reason. Vote buying is not a concern in the US. The privacy of the votes guarantees that the vote buyer can't be certain that the voter voted the way they said they would, so the vote buyer can never know if their "purchase" actually mattered. This inherent uncertainty makes standard means of political persuasion, i.e., political advertising, a more effective spend. Vote buying is a concern in places like India and South America--coincidentally, jurisdictions which already allow mobile voting...
      - gpm 8y ago
        Mail in ballots have already done away with that layer of security though. Vote buying isn't a concern in the US because there is still a mostly functional criminal justice system, and because any politician who bought votes would be shunned by the vast majority of voters in the current culture.

craftyguy 8y ago

> Why not just figure out a secure way to allow people to vote from their smart phones? Because that's literally impossible with the current state of smartphone 'security'.

macrael 8y ago

one day, that would be wonderful. But frankly, computers and the systems that support them are not trustworthy enough for this, right now. Paper ballots are auditable, if there is a re-count you can trust a bunch of people to sit down and look at the marks on the page.

reubenswartz 8y ago

One important aspect of in-person voting is avoiding voter coercion. (Hasn't always been true.) While I'm generally in favor of expanding remote voting, there are security concerns not just at the technology level, but the social level, as well.