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We trust our financial system and it already has decades of fraud detection. Our voting system should be through something similar with all history, fraud dete

We trust our financial system and it already has decades of fraud detection. Our voting system should be through something similar with all history, fraud detection, voter verification and more. Our current voting system is already rife with fraud with little remedy and recounts are difficult, we need to expect fraud and move to a digital system that does have fraud detection in it similar to our financial system. This system can track all your votes and have a paper trail, you can opt out if you want and deliver it in person. Our current system is such a patchwork of systems it it security by obscurity and broken, recounts are difficult and if we moved to a common system that has records for every vote in every state in a consistent format, then research could detect anomalies and fraud as well. Digital records that are as secure as financial records, and tracked, are easier to find fraud and recount, no security by obscurity. Noone would trust banks that keep paper records and aren't verifiable anymore today, voting shouldn't be that way either. We all use the financial systems, credit systems, and trust them. Even with their problems people trust that the amount they have and what they use is recorded correctly in terms of financial data. We should expect the system to be hacked and have fraud detection to match it just like in the financial system. Until we do move to digital voting with fraud detection then our elections will be secure only by obscurity, and lots of games being played with no recourse and lack of trust in possible fraudulent counts and recounts.

ajb 8y ago
Banks solve a different problem. The reason why banks can be computerised does not apply to voting. Bank functioning is observable by the people concerned: You can see if money you didn't spend left your account, and if you failed to get paid. Failures are detected very quickly. Voting has two key differences: * Voting is anonymous (to render intimidation and bribery of voters ineffective). * It's not sufficient that citizens votes are counted correctly, it is necessary that no spurious votes are also counted. The means by which electronic banking is rendered safe are therefore much harder to apply. Voting must also not just be secure, but be demonstrably secure to the voters. With paper voting, you can go and watch the votes being counted. At every stage of the process, the answer to 'how do you show the public that the process has integrity' is helped by the fact that the votes are on macroscopic objects whose movement is obvious. Electronic voting systems lack this feature.
- drawkbox 8y ago
  > Banks solve a different problem. The reason why banks can be computerized does not apply to voting. I disagree, fraud detection and security is the best we currently have and people trust it due to these areas. > Bank functioning is observable by the people concerned: You can see if money you didn't spend left your account, and if you failed to get paid. Failures are detected very quickly. I can observe my votes were recorded correctly, others can't see them, data would be anonymized/fingerprinted/hashed when counting. > Voting is anonymous (to render intimidation and bribery of voters ineffective). Financial systems do not allow other people to see your data/account amounts and more. Who people vote for is easily determined by metadata and you really think security by obscurity on our current system is really that private? Lots of holes and ways to get voter data in security by obscurity. You don't think the voting machines and secretary of state offices/recorders have that data? No need if digital and verifiable. I think people have a false sense of security how private their votes are. > It's not sufficient that citizens votes are counted correctly, it is necessary that no spurious votes are also counted. You can easily anonymize data when running reports and fingerprint/hash results. Patterns and anomalies are much easier to find in a data based system, just as fraud is detected by the digital financial system. > The means by which electronic banking is rendered safe are therefore much harder to apply. Agree to disagree. > Voting must also not just be secure, but be demonstrably secure to the voters. With paper voting, you can go and watch the votes being counted. People trust their financial system but wouldn't if it was all on paper by some individual counted and just given their word that it was correct... There can still be a paper trail and reports/vote records can be kept forever. > At every stage of the process, the answer to 'how do you show the public that the process has integrity' is helped by the fact that the votes are on macroscopic objects whose movement is obvious. Electronic voting systems lack this feature. There wouldn't be any blackbox or hackable machines to trust, you trust that your vote was securely counted online, in an app or if you want down at the paper ballot and entered into this system. But again, financial transactions are trusted, I don't trust random ATMs that are like random voting machines, I trust the app/site where my financial data resides. The middle man is security by obscurity and more insecure currently than if it was truly online/digital. Our current elections system are all a patchwork of hackable areas. If we had a better standard voting system that expected hacking and fraud, like financials, we'd be better off on security, verifiability and reliability without election day games and suppression filled with security by obscurity. Votes currently go into the ether, into various unverifiable counting systems, counted by people who have biases, entered into black box voting systems that are hackable, transferred differently from these precincts to the recorder and there are so many holes along the way it is not trustworthy in any way. Your vote could go down the memory hole and you'd never know.

ajb 8y ago

Banks solve a different problem. The reason why banks can be computerised does not apply to voting. Bank functioning is observable by the people concerned: You can see if money you didn't spend left your account, and if you failed to get paid. Failures are detected very quickly. Voting has two key differences: * Voting is anonymous (to render intimidation and bribery of voters ineffective). * It's not sufficient that citizens votes are counted correctly, it is necessary that no spurious votes are also counted. The means by which electronic banking is rendered safe are therefore much harder to apply. Voting must also not just be secure, but be demonstrably secure to the voters. With paper voting, you can go and watch the votes being counted. At every stage of the process, the answer to 'how do you show the public that the process has integrity' is helped by the fact that the votes are on macroscopic objects whose movement is obvious. Electronic voting systems lack this feature.

drawkbox 8y ago
> Banks solve a different problem. The reason why banks can be computerized does not apply to voting. I disagree, fraud detection and security is the best we currently have and people trust it due to these areas. > Bank functioning is observable by the people concerned: You can see if money you didn't spend left your account, and if you failed to get paid. Failures are detected very quickly. I can observe my votes were recorded correctly, others can't see them, data would be anonymized/fingerprinted/hashed when counting. > Voting is anonymous (to render intimidation and bribery of voters ineffective). Financial systems do not allow other people to see your data/account amounts and more. Who people vote for is easily determined by metadata and you really think security by obscurity on our current system is really that private? Lots of holes and ways to get voter data in security by obscurity. You don't think the voting machines and secretary of state offices/recorders have that data? No need if digital and verifiable. I think people have a false sense of security how private their votes are. > It's not sufficient that citizens votes are counted correctly, it is necessary that no spurious votes are also counted. You can easily anonymize data when running reports and fingerprint/hash results. Patterns and anomalies are much easier to find in a data based system, just as fraud is detected by the digital financial system. > The means by which electronic banking is rendered safe are therefore much harder to apply. Agree to disagree. > Voting must also not just be secure, but be demonstrably secure to the voters. With paper voting, you can go and watch the votes being counted. People trust their financial system but wouldn't if it was all on paper by some individual counted and just given their word that it was correct... There can still be a paper trail and reports/vote records can be kept forever. > At every stage of the process, the answer to 'how do you show the public that the process has integrity' is helped by the fact that the votes are on macroscopic objects whose movement is obvious. Electronic voting systems lack this feature. There wouldn't be any blackbox or hackable machines to trust, you trust that your vote was securely counted online, in an app or if you want down at the paper ballot and entered into this system. But again, financial transactions are trusted, I don't trust random ATMs that are like random voting machines, I trust the app/site where my financial data resides. The middle man is security by obscurity and more insecure currently than if it was truly online/digital. Our current elections system are all a patchwork of hackable areas. If we had a better standard voting system that expected hacking and fraud, like financials, we'd be better off on security, verifiability and reliability without election day games and suppression filled with security by obscurity. Votes currently go into the ether, into various unverifiable counting systems, counted by people who have biases, entered into black box voting systems that are hackable, transferred differently from these precincts to the recorder and there are so many holes along the way it is not trustworthy in any way. Your vote could go down the memory hole and you'd never know.