7 ms·

Your ideal voting system is vulnerable to coercion ("log in and show me who you voted for or else") and phishing. Voting systems should provide confidence to v

Your ideal voting system is vulnerable to coercion ("log in and show me who you voted for or else") and phishing. Voting systems should provide confidence to voters that votes are counted correctly, but not permit anyone, including the voters themselves, to learn how they voted after the ballot is cast.

allworknoplay 8y ago
Yes, thank you. People frequently forget critical lessons from history :p
- bushin 8y ago
  like republicans are making US voting system horrible so that they could have a chance of winning, that lesson?
memory_grep 8y ago
Laws can prevent coercion, at least by major businesses, but another concern is people selling their votes on a black market. Still, to me, the benefits of an open and verifiable voting system would outweigh the downsides.
- macintux 8y ago
  I'll take a paper ballot system with electronic counting, thus something that can be verified, over something that leaves people afraid to vote because it's no longer truly anonymous. I've been around too many women in abusive relationships to feel comfortable with that approach.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  A simple secret ballot by paper is both open (anyone can observe the ballot casting and counting) and verifiable (the vote count can be repeated to confirm the totals). Voters don't need to be able to verify their vote post-election because a) they cast their ballot, so they can just remember who they voted for, and b) they can't change their decision, so there is no need to have a record of it.
fossuser 8y ago
I love voting by mail, but I don't understand how that's legal since you could just coerce someone that way? Force them to vote by mail, watch them fill out the ballot (or fill it out for them), and mail it in.
- macintux 8y ago
  Voting by mail is indeed vulnerable to fraud, as we saw in North Carolina last election.
  - bdamm 8y ago
    When thinking about voting by mail I wouldn't consider North Carolina's system as exemplar, since it is still primarily a polling-place election. Instead, look towards Washington, Oregon, and Colorado which are states where elections are entirely by mail. Evidence of coercion or fraud is low, and engagement is high.
    - macintux 8y ago
      How do we know how many spouses are (or simply feel) compelled to vote a certain way? I’m not saying fraud is rampant, but there’s no denying the fact that on the individual level fraud and coercion are much easier to achieve when voting is done outside the polling booth.
      - joveian 8y ago
        In many states it is possible to get an absentee ballot for any reason, which allows the same coersion potential but without the convenience of full vote by mail. Forcing voting in person also has a large effect on who actually votes (due to work or other issues getting in the way, which could also include coersion from a spouse who thought you might vote the wrong way or doesn't think you should be able to vote). Presumably people are checking if there are large swings in voting patterns when vote by mail is started that would indicate widespread coersion. Coersion can also be effective in practice even when the actual voting is done in secret. I wouldn't recommend vote by mail for Mexico, where there is widespread vote buying even with secret ballots, but for the US it seems to me that vote by mail is likely to be more representative and increase the chance that voters will research the candidates as they are voting. No system is perfect so it is a question of what tradeoffs seem to make the most sense for particular situations.
swalsh 8y ago
Fair enough, this idea came to me before 2016. Post 2016, in this world where people are ready to commit violence purely based off their judgement of your political beliefs, this is a legitimate concern.
- agentdrtran 8y ago
  as we all know, political violence and coercion did not exist before 2016
  - swalsh 8y ago
    Not what I said. It was not obviously a problem to me before the election.
mike741 8y ago
how does the current system, or any voting system, prevent coercion? If there's a gun to your head, or some other ultimatum, it seems far too late to be worrying about your vote being shared. Even if votes aren't all logged, you can still be tortured for the answer. I would much rather the country have an individual coercion problem than a mass voting fraud problem. "Voting systems should [...] not permit anyone, including the voters themselves, to learn how they voted" What could possibly be the benefit of that?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
  > how does the current system, or any voting system, prevent coercion? By only allowing you alone into the voting booth, not allowing you to show your ballot to anyone, collecting the ballots in a sealed ballot box that's located in public that anonymizes the votes > Even if votes aren't all logged, you can still be tortured for the answer. No, you can't if there is no way for you to prove how you voted. > I would much rather the country have an individual coercion problem than a mass voting fraud problem. Why would one have anything to do with the other? Also, one way to keep a country free from individual coercion problems is by having a reliable election process.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  Ok, you put a gun to my head and tell me to vote for Hillary. I go into the ballot box and vote for Trump. I come out and you ask me if I voted Hillary. I say yes, I voted for Hillary, of course. If there is no possible way for you or me to know (edit: prove) if I'm telling the truth, how is that worth your time and energy? It's not. The benefit of a secret ballot is that it greatly reduces, if not removes, the incentive for coercion.
  - hanniabu 8y ago
    Seems like burning an orchard for a few bad apples. It's this really that large of a concern vs voter fraud?
    - snowwrestler 8y ago
yazaddaruvala 8y ago
If you really want a secret voting system such that the voter can’t access their own history, then just do not offer the password option. Instead a unique private key is generated, but never distributed to the voter or any other party. - Key: Encrypted SSN - Value: Unencrypted Vote
- yazaddaruvala 8y ago
  However, I’d personally prefer a system that was fully public. Problems: Social Pressure, Violent/Non-Violent Coercion, Retaliation. Coercion could be a problem but with enough humans seems unlikely to be effective without the details of the conspiring entity to leak. If here are 10 jurors or a few judges coercion matters because it is easy to cover up. Coercion at scale has never occurred. Coercing any double digit percentage of 300 MM voters through violence or bribes or etc will leak based on the law of large numbers. Conspiracies stop being theories when they are validated by thousands/millions of people. Social pressure is a bit trickier. It does force any minority voice to reconsider their vote. However, this isn’t different from most of history where a violent or non-violent revolution occurs. Most people lie about their opinion officially but build consensus privately. Until a point where the scale tips and both opinions are appropriate and debatable. Retaliation is the biggest issue. But we already have some pretty good laws in place around discrimination based on politics. We can improve those, but also as a society we need to get better at debate without retaliation and hiding opinions doesn’t help that societal improvement.
  - jacques_chester 8y ago
    The ballot was not always secret. It was made secret because all the problems you say aren't important, were very important.
  - snowwrestler 8y ago
    Always fun to see how easy it is to design a system when one can just hand-wave away important constraints.

allworknoplay 8y ago

Yes, thank you. People frequently forget critical lessons from history :p

bushin 8y ago
like republicans are making US voting system horrible so that they could have a chance of winning, that lesson?

memory_grep 8y ago

Laws can prevent coercion, at least by major businesses, but another concern is people selling their votes on a black market. Still, to me, the benefits of an open and verifiable voting system would outweigh the downsides.

macintux 8y ago
I'll take a paper ballot system with electronic counting, thus something that can be verified, over something that leaves people afraid to vote because it's no longer truly anonymous. I've been around too many women in abusive relationships to feel comfortable with that approach.
snowwrestler 8y ago
A simple secret ballot by paper is both open (anyone can observe the ballot casting and counting) and verifiable (the vote count can be repeated to confirm the totals). Voters don't need to be able to verify their vote post-election because a) they cast their ballot, so they can just remember who they voted for, and b) they can't change their decision, so there is no need to have a record of it.

fossuser 8y ago

I love voting by mail, but I don't understand how that's legal since you could just coerce someone that way? Force them to vote by mail, watch them fill out the ballot (or fill it out for them), and mail it in.

macintux 8y ago
Voting by mail is indeed vulnerable to fraud, as we saw in North Carolina last election.
- bdamm 8y ago
  When thinking about voting by mail I wouldn't consider North Carolina's system as exemplar, since it is still primarily a polling-place election. Instead, look towards Washington, Oregon, and Colorado which are states where elections are entirely by mail. Evidence of coercion or fraud is low, and engagement is high.
  - macintux 8y ago
    How do we know how many spouses are (or simply feel) compelled to vote a certain way? I’m not saying fraud is rampant, but there’s no denying the fact that on the individual level fraud and coercion are much easier to achieve when voting is done outside the polling booth.
    - joveian 8y ago
      In many states it is possible to get an absentee ballot for any reason, which allows the same coersion potential but without the convenience of full vote by mail. Forcing voting in person also has a large effect on who actually votes (due to work or other issues getting in the way, which could also include coersion from a spouse who thought you might vote the wrong way or doesn't think you should be able to vote). Presumably people are checking if there are large swings in voting patterns when vote by mail is started that would indicate widespread coersion. Coersion can also be effective in practice even when the actual voting is done in secret. I wouldn't recommend vote by mail for Mexico, where there is widespread vote buying even with secret ballots, but for the US it seems to me that vote by mail is likely to be more representative and increase the chance that voters will research the candidates as they are voting. No system is perfect so it is a question of what tradeoffs seem to make the most sense for particular situations.

swalsh 8y ago

Fair enough, this idea came to me before 2016. Post 2016, in this world where people are ready to commit violence purely based off their judgement of your political beliefs, this is a legitimate concern.

agentdrtran 8y ago
as we all know, political violence and coercion did not exist before 2016
- swalsh 8y ago
  Not what I said. It was not obviously a problem to me before the election.

mike741 8y ago

how does the current system, or any voting system, prevent coercion? If there's a gun to your head, or some other ultimatum, it seems far too late to be worrying about your vote being shared. Even if votes aren't all logged, you can still be tortured for the answer. I would much rather the country have an individual coercion problem than a mass voting fraud problem. "Voting systems should [...] not permit anyone, including the voters themselves, to learn how they voted" What could possibly be the benefit of that?

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
> how does the current system, or any voting system, prevent coercion? By only allowing you alone into the voting booth, not allowing you to show your ballot to anyone, collecting the ballots in a sealed ballot box that's located in public that anonymizes the votes > Even if votes aren't all logged, you can still be tortured for the answer. No, you can't if there is no way for you to prove how you voted. > I would much rather the country have an individual coercion problem than a mass voting fraud problem. Why would one have anything to do with the other? Also, one way to keep a country free from individual coercion problems is by having a reliable election process.
snowwrestler 8y ago
Ok, you put a gun to my head and tell me to vote for Hillary. I go into the ballot box and vote for Trump. I come out and you ask me if I voted Hillary. I say yes, I voted for Hillary, of course. If there is no possible way for you or me to know (edit: prove) if I'm telling the truth, how is that worth your time and energy? It's not. The benefit of a secret ballot is that it greatly reduces, if not removes, the incentive for coercion.
- hanniabu 8y ago
  Seems like burning an orchard for a few bad apples. It's this really that large of a concern vs voter fraud?
  - snowwrestler 8y ago

yazaddaruvala 8y ago

If you really want a secret voting system such that the voter can’t access their own history, then just do not offer the password option. Instead a unique private key is generated, but never distributed to the voter or any other party. - Key: Encrypted SSN - Value: Unencrypted Vote

yazaddaruvala 8y ago
However, I’d personally prefer a system that was fully public. Problems: Social Pressure, Violent/Non-Violent Coercion, Retaliation. Coercion could be a problem but with enough humans seems unlikely to be effective without the details of the conspiring entity to leak. If here are 10 jurors or a few judges coercion matters because it is easy to cover up. Coercion at scale has never occurred. Coercing any double digit percentage of 300 MM voters through violence or bribes or etc will leak based on the law of large numbers. Conspiracies stop being theories when they are validated by thousands/millions of people. Social pressure is a bit trickier. It does force any minority voice to reconsider their vote. However, this isn’t different from most of history where a violent or non-violent revolution occurs. Most people lie about their opinion officially but build consensus privately. Until a point where the scale tips and both opinions are appropriate and debatable. Retaliation is the biggest issue. But we already have some pretty good laws in place around discrimination based on politics. We can improve those, but also as a society we need to get better at debate without retaliation and hiding opinions doesn’t help that societal improvement.
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  The ballot was not always secret. It was made secret because all the problems you say aren't important, were very important.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  Always fun to see how easy it is to design a system when one can just hand-wave away important constraints.