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Here's the problems such a system would create. - Voting in private on a phone app. The opportunity for coercion is huge. The brilliant thing about putting a c

Here's the problems such a system would create. - Voting in private on a phone app. The opportunity for coercion is huge. The brilliant thing about putting a cross on paper in a booth on your own and dropping into a box, is no-one knows how you voted - so no comeback. - Anything in software has the opportunity for a large scale attack. The incentive for doing such attacks is large. Look at all the energy put into gerrymandering etc today - Why risk it? - the ability to do a sensible audit is beyond most people - auditing a pile of paper is easy - anyone can participate. Software you'd need to trust a small priesthood - that's not democracy, and it's totally dangerous ( forget algorithms, the weak points are people ). I'd also question your premise that low voter turn out is largely due to inconvenience. Sure for some, but I'd argue lack of participation is largely riven by other factors - like nobody worth voting for.... Finally paper system is easily adaptable - want a box for write ins? Move to single transferable vote? Just print different paper and people doing the counting can adjust - no software re-writes.

EGreg 7y ago
- Voting in private on a phone app. The opportunity for coercion is huge. The brilliant thing about putting a cross on paper in a booth on your own and dropping into a box, is no-one knows how you voted - so no comeback. How is that true, when I just posted that voter database have been leaked https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-voter-records-from-19-states-sold-on-hacking-forum/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-voter-records-from-19-state... and they contain (per Wikipedia): Personal data frequently included in a voter database: Voting history (including federal, sub-national, primary, municipal, or special election voting history) Name Physical address Mailing address Phone number Party membership or affiliation Absentee or military voter designations Source of voter registration, i.e., DMV/MVA, Public Assistance Office, etc. Ethnicity or emerges race hypothesis Gender Birth date or age range https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_database https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_database Not only that, but some states consider this public information!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- the_snooze 7y ago
  Election back-end security is important. However, that has little to do directly with the discussion at hand about voting security.
  - EGreg 7y ago
    It means people know how you voted and also your identity
    - the_snooze 7y ago
      All it means people know that you voted. Party registration isn't destiny. Maryland has a ton of registered Democrats but Republican Governor Larry Hogan is pretty popular there. West Virginia has a lot of ancestral Democrats, but it's a far cry from being competitive at the presidential level, though Democratic Senator Joe Manchin manages to survive.
      - EGreg 7y ago
        Well you can simply outlaw/fine the kind of threats or rewards that you mentioned. And before you ask how one would prove it, it is more provable than sexual harassment or advancement for sexual favors, since it involves proof.
        the_snooze 7y ago
        Outlawing that sort of behavior isn’t mutually exclusive of building sensible election systems that maintain ballot secrecy. It’s really unclear what you’re arguing for when you keep jumping around various aspects of elections (and sexual harassment?) in a totally incoherent manner.
- jeltz 7y ago
  I assume the voting history is only if they voted or not, which is sensitive for sure, but not that vital since with paper ballots you can put in an invalid vote or a vote for another candidate if coerced and there would be no way to check what you voted. With an app it would be possible to force people to prove what they voted for.
  - EGreg 7y ago
    I don’t understand how being able to prove who you voted for is going to lead to more negative than positive. Can you walk me through how, realistically, a large scale voter coersion operation would even work? If you know how a district voted, why not coerce the entire district? After all, if you have access to unlimited coersion powers, you’d be wasting them on a couple individuals. I say if someone has the power to coerce others to that extent, we have bigger problems in our democracy. They can, for example, coerce members of the opposing party to stay home and not vote. In short, I think this is a fantasy problem. There are far easier ways to fake a vote (like this: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/06/gop-was-upset-about-election-fraud-before-it-threatened-their-candidate/ https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/06/gop-was-...) and the app would prevent those.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - the_snooze 7y ago
      "All employees who submit proof of their casted ballot for X will receive a $50 gift card. Employees who fail to do so may see a reduction in hours."
      - EGreg 7y ago
        “All registered Democrats who submit proof they voted will receive $50 gift card” “All registered Republican voters who submit proof they were home that day will receive $50 cards”
- vangelis 7y ago
  You'd get better rates buying this information directly from the state. The most additional information you can glean from this is what primary a person voted in anyways. These are just participation history and registration information. Do explain how I can figure out which candidate someone voted for in the general from this information?

EGreg 7y ago

- Voting in private on a phone app. The opportunity for coercion is huge. The brilliant thing about putting a cross on paper in a booth on your own and dropping into a box, is no-one knows how you voted - so no comeback. How is that true, when I just posted that voter database have been leaked https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-voter-records-from-19-states-sold-on-hacking-forum/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-voter-records-from-19-state... and they contain (per Wikipedia): Personal data frequently included in a voter database: Voting history (including federal, sub-national, primary, municipal, or special election voting history) Name Physical address Mailing address Phone number Party membership or affiliation Absentee or military voter designations Source of voter registration, i.e., DMV/MVA, Public Assistance Office, etc. Ethnicity or emerges race hypothesis Gender Birth date or age range https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_database https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_database Not only that, but some states consider this public information!

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
the_snooze 7y ago
Election back-end security is important. However, that has little to do directly with the discussion at hand about voting security.
- EGreg 7y ago
  It means people know how you voted and also your identity
  - the_snooze 7y ago
    All it means people know that you voted. Party registration isn't destiny. Maryland has a ton of registered Democrats but Republican Governor Larry Hogan is pretty popular there. West Virginia has a lot of ancestral Democrats, but it's a far cry from being competitive at the presidential level, though Democratic Senator Joe Manchin manages to survive.
    - EGreg 7y ago
      Well you can simply outlaw/fine the kind of threats or rewards that you mentioned. And before you ask how one would prove it, it is more provable than sexual harassment or advancement for sexual favors, since it involves proof.
      - the_snooze 7y ago
        Outlawing that sort of behavior isn’t mutually exclusive of building sensible election systems that maintain ballot secrecy. It’s really unclear what you’re arguing for when you keep jumping around various aspects of elections (and sexual harassment?) in a totally incoherent manner.
jeltz 7y ago
I assume the voting history is only if they voted or not, which is sensitive for sure, but not that vital since with paper ballots you can put in an invalid vote or a vote for another candidate if coerced and there would be no way to check what you voted. With an app it would be possible to force people to prove what they voted for.
- EGreg 7y ago
  I don’t understand how being able to prove who you voted for is going to lead to more negative than positive. Can you walk me through how, realistically, a large scale voter coersion operation would even work? If you know how a district voted, why not coerce the entire district? After all, if you have access to unlimited coersion powers, you’d be wasting them on a couple individuals. I say if someone has the power to coerce others to that extent, we have bigger problems in our democracy. They can, for example, coerce members of the opposing party to stay home and not vote. In short, I think this is a fantasy problem. There are far easier ways to fake a vote (like this: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/06/gop-was-upset-about-election-fraud-before-it-threatened-their-candidate/ https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/06/gop-was-...) and the app would prevent those.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - the_snooze 7y ago
    "All employees who submit proof of their casted ballot for X will receive a $50 gift card. Employees who fail to do so may see a reduction in hours."
    - EGreg 7y ago
      “All registered Democrats who submit proof they voted will receive $50 gift card” “All registered Republican voters who submit proof they were home that day will receive $50 cards”
vangelis 7y ago
You'd get better rates buying this information directly from the state. The most additional information you can glean from this is what primary a person voted in anyways. These are just participation history and registration information. Do explain how I can figure out which candidate someone voted for in the general from this information?