4 ms·

Disappearing a lot of paper ballots requires a lot of people working together and a lot of planning, making it more likely someone will talk and giving investig

Disappearing a lot of paper ballots requires a lot of people working together and a lot of planning, making it more likely someone will talk and giving investigators a better chance of figuring out what went wrong. It also increases the odds of an incriminating paper trail being made of the activities. The fundamental difference between computer systems and paper systems is that the effort required to corrupt a computer system is mostly unrelated to the size of the corruption. Paper systems require a lot more effort for a large effect.

threatofrain 8y ago
Why do paper systems require more effort to hack? People just have to be able to predict where close elections are located and botch a few elections. The incentive to do so is everywhere. There have been so many close elections in modern memory. What do you do when you detect anomaly? Have an unpalatably expensive recount? That can be expensive enough to use as a reliable weapon. How do you know if the final count is complete? Do you track down every voter? These things sound expensive enough to simply not happen. Instead one side detects enough anomaly for a court to intervene, and the court considers blunt options or leaving the results as-is. For things like Bush v Gore the court is under enormous pressure to act quickly and perfectly, and they voted along party lines.
- specialist 8y ago
  The gold standard for election integrity is the Australian ballot (private voting, public counting), where ballots are issued & cast at poll sites, and tabulated on site when the polls close. In my jurisdiction, trust is built on mutual distrust. Every receipt, seal, report, lock had to be handled and signed off by members of opposing parties. Sure, it's possible to corrupt poll site based elections. But you have to corrupt many sites. You'd also have to corrupt upstream and downstream actors as well. Super unlikely to go unnoticed.

threatofrain 8y ago

Why do paper systems require more effort to hack? People just have to be able to predict where close elections are located and botch a few elections. The incentive to do so is everywhere. There have been so many close elections in modern memory. What do you do when you detect anomaly? Have an unpalatably expensive recount? That can be expensive enough to use as a reliable weapon. How do you know if the final count is complete? Do you track down every voter? These things sound expensive enough to simply not happen. Instead one side detects enough anomaly for a court to intervene, and the court considers blunt options or leaving the results as-is. For things like Bush v Gore the court is under enormous pressure to act quickly and perfectly, and they voted along party lines.

specialist 8y ago
The gold standard for election integrity is the Australian ballot (private voting, public counting), where ballots are issued & cast at poll sites, and tabulated on site when the polls close. In my jurisdiction, trust is built on mutual distrust. Every receipt, seal, report, lock had to be handled and signed off by members of opposing parties. Sure, it's possible to corrupt poll site based elections. But you have to corrupt many sites. You'd also have to corrupt upstream and downstream actors as well. Super unlikely to go unnoticed.