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Seattle-area voters to vote by smartphone in district election

146 points by perseusprime11 7y ago

deogeo 7y ago
In related news, Saudi Arabia hacked Bezos' phone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122779 Could a similar hack be done on a larger scale, and used to alter votes before they are sent, without changing the electronic signature? Lets assume no until proven otherwise. And if proven otherwise, lets assume it was an isolated incident, and it won't happen again after a "commitment to do better". Lets also assume Mr. Tusk's firm can be trusted - after all, why not put a private middle-man between voters and elections? As Mr. Tusk correctly points out, the only plausible explanation to resistance is wanting to suppress voters.
- flareback 7y ago
  This doesn't even need hacking. You just go on facebook and find someones name and birthday and vote as them.
  - extrapickles 7y ago
    Actually the voter database is public record[0], and it includes birthdays. This means that it would be easy to have 100% turnout in the first few seconds of the polls being open. [0]: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/vrdb/extract-requests.aspx https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/vrdb/extract-requests.aspx
mikece 7y ago
Making a big case about voter turnout not being as great as other countries is a red herring. We have it really, really good in this country. So good that, practically speaking, it doesn't matter who gets elected because things will continue to stay good. I read low voter turnout as an implicit vote of confidence in the system as a whole. You can be sure that if [stuff] was actually hitting the fan then everyone would show up to vote (and try to vote twice) to fix the horrible mess the city/state/country is in (whether in reality or perception). While I would agree there are definite issues with security, I really don't like the "print out the digital ballots" idea would rather see something block-chain based which is public and easy to audit. And I think it's unavoidable that some sort of biometric or other proof of identity will be required (take a selfie in order to vote!) before "voting with your phone" become commonly accepted.
- deogeo 7y ago
  Turnout can also be improved by voting on Sundays instead of work days. Yet they skipped that step and went right for electronic voting, that's nearly unanimously opposed by experts.
  - mikece 7y ago
    Even better: 11 day window for voting window, starting on a Friday and ending on a Monday. Two full weekends to vote, no excuses for not being able to make it. Some states already do this with "early voting" which starts up to two weeks before the actual election day. And if you could pre-print your completed ballot to be scanned (once your identity if verified per local requirements) then the process could be very, very fast and efficient.
    - deogeo 7y ago
      > And if you could pre-print your completed ballot Your printer will betray you by printing invisible identifying dots on your ballot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code
      - swebs 7y ago
        How would that betray you? They're supposed to verify that this ballot belongs to you in the first place.
        deogeo 7y ago
        I'm confused - wouldn't that mean the vote isn't secret?
        swebs 7y ago
        It won't go on record who you voted for, but someone at the office will have to confirm that you voted and enter in the vote. If mail-in ballots were completely anonymous, then someone could just print 10,000 copies and stuff the polls.
unethical_ban 7y ago
It sounded like a really silly verification system. Matching finger signatures on a smartphone with previous records? Perhaps the voters should get a set of one-time codes along with a PIN from the voting office, and use that to validate their vote.
- y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
  Yeah the PIN would have been a smart choice. They already have mail-in ballots which means they could just as easily be given a PIN on the ballot they already receive.
skue 7y ago
This is for a voluntary county board position without regulatory power that by statute needs to be elected by March when no one is paying attention. So someone decided to try this out. OTOH, the WA Sec. of State opposes mobile/online elections due to security concerns, as does her upcoming political opponent [1] and FWIW the Seattle Times recently wrote an Editorial also opposing the practice. [2] Bottom line, this hardly constitutes some trend that WA state is moving towards, just something set up by a county office that is otherwise drawing skepticism. [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/secretary-of-state-questions-online-mobile-voting-plan-in-king-county-race/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/secretary... [2] https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/resist-push-for-online-ballot-box/ https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/resist-push-...
- cafard 7y ago
  Thank you for the clarification.
- specialist 7y ago
  Oh boy. Thanks for links. I know, and have occasionally crossed swords with, most of the players mentioned. Our conservation districts fund their own elections. They don't have the budget to pay to be on the normal ballot. The only fix would be for state government to appropriate the money. People like Toby Nixon have floated this reform at various times the last 20 years. Otherwise, there's no push. Current WA SOS Wyman is ok, for a Republican. While she does nothing to expand the franchise, she does not share Sam Reed's, her predecessor and mentor, technophilia. KC Exec Constantine absolutely knows better. He played a role in both of my efforts to protect the secret ballot (prohibit voter id from being printed on ballot) and delaying a major risky overhaul of KC Elections in 2008. Constantine is a wicked smart politician. So I wonder what his angle here is. The automated signature verification has three show stopping flaws. High error rate, both positive and negative. Blackbox. Is another form of rent seeking by vendors; last time I checked, vender gets $0.10 per voter per election (not just per ballot cast). I'm very proud of Seattle Times' editorial board on this issue. They learned, matured, adapted. I spoke with them 10+ years ago about election integrity. They were wicked smart, painfully polite & earnest, respectfully disagreed. One of my best interactions as an activist. While I disagree with Seattle Times on most everything (else), they are a worthy opponent. I know nothing about the vendors mentioned, Tuck and Finney. I assume they're typical consulting bozos chasing sales and haven't really thought about the policies involved, and don't know enough to know they're bozos. Gael Tarleton would make a great SOS.
aazaa 7y ago
> King County voters will be able to use their name and birthdate to log in to a Web portal through the Internet browser on their phones, says Bryan Finney, the CEO of Democracy Live, the Seattle-based voting company providing the technology. Oh, really? > Once voters have completed their ballots, they must verify their submissions and then submit a signature on the touch screen of their device. Huh? > Finney says election officials in Washington are adept at signature verification because the state votes entirely by mail. ... Finney must have never had to sign on a phone screen with a finger while driving before. All of this digital theater of the absurd in a desperate attempt to engage people in the political process: > The board of supervisors election in the King Conservation District, for example, in past years has drawn less than 1% of the eligible population to the ballot box. People don't vote because they don't care. Not because they can't make it to the poling place. They don't care because they don't see anything at stake. There's no app for that.
- netsharc 7y ago
  "Finney must have never had to sign on a phone screen with a finger while driving before." Why the "while driving" bit? Your argument was solid until you added these 2 words. Now you're saying "If it doesn't work while I'm busy operating a motor vehicle, I'm against it!"
  - all2 7y ago
    It is a common (though illegal) use case, so definitely worth considering as a worst case scenario.
- sornaensis 7y ago
  Wholeheartedly disagree-- if casting a ballot was as easy as sending a text instead of receiving and then mailing a letter or going to a polling location, I would predict much higher participation. People don't see it worth their time because a single vote really isn't worth anyone's time. Votes only matter as groups! So obviously you have to make it as braindead simple to vote as we have made everything else. What I do not see the purpose in, is complaining about or nay-saying these attempts. You're never going to convince someone that one vote is worth more than it is, which is what people really mean when they talk about 'engagement', because your vote on its own really just doesn't matter much and people intuitively get that. Reducing the cost of voting to match the actual value of a single vote is the best move we have IMO.
lgleason 7y ago
As a mobile developer I think this is a REALLY bad idea because of the security implications surrounding it.
- sdmike1 7y ago
  As a security guy I think this is a REALLY bad idea because of the security implications surrounding it.
  - flareback 7y ago
    As a citizen I think this is a REALLY bad idea because of the security implications surrounding it.
    - xena 7y ago
      I think this is a REALLY bad idea because of the security implications surrounding it.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      As a different citizen, I'm not too enthused about ballot secrecy. 100% of the security issues with online voting come from the ballot secrecy requirement, so it's hard to get worked up about this.
      - SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
        Um? if ballots aren't secret, then individual voters can be bribed to vote the "right" way or punished for voting the "wrong" way. Ballot secrecy is an absolute requirement.
      - deogeo 7y ago
        As long as you're not in 1950s US and vote for a socialist, or vote against the communist party in any eastern European country for much of the 20th century, or against Putin or the CCP, or vote conservative and have aspirations in academia [1], then yes, there is an extremely limited range of times, countries, and opinions, for which non-secret voting wouldn't be absolutely catastrophic. [1] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majority-on-campus-yes-were-biased/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majo... -- "One respondent wrote in that if department members “could figure out who was a conservative, they would be sure not to hire them.”"
tzs 7y ago
> King County voters will be able to use their name and birthdate to log in to a Web portal through the Internet browser on their phones, says Bryan Finney, the CEO of Democracy Live, the Seattle-based voting company providing the technology. If they mean that there is a public URL you go to, and then on the site only have to enter you birhdate and name to log in, and then you can vote--that can't be right. There's gotta be more than that. My guess is that what has been lost in the stories is how you get the URL. I'm guessing that they either email you the URL or they send physical mail which includes a QR code with the URL, and the URL contains some sort of unique per voter identifier (hopefully randomly generated anew for each election). When you go to vote the site knows who you are supposed to be from that identifier in the URL, and the name/birthdate is just for a consistency check.
- Spivak 7y ago
  > There's gotta be more than that. I mean I agree but this is how in-person voting works right now. The only "secret" information is my polling place but anyone who knows my name can figure that out since the voter records are public and includes my address.
  - tzs 7y ago
    In Washington state it wouldn't be quite that easy. You either have to show an acceptable photo ID to vote in person, or you have to sign a ballot declaration and then cast a provisional ballot which will be accepted if the signature on the declaration matches the signature on your registration record [1]. [1] https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=29A.40.160 https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=29A.40.160
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > If they mean that there is a public URL you go to, and then on the site only have to enter you birhdate and name to log in, and then you can vote--that can't be right. There's gotta be more than that. Of course there is. You also need a User-Agent that says you're a phone. And you can't set the evil bit. ;D
- filoleg 7y ago
slipheen 7y ago
Beyond the security implications (which are huge and ought to be a deal breaker on their own), this seems to have a huge problem in that it's not private. Your abusive spouse/boss/dealer could tell you that they want to see you use the app to vote their way, and there's not much to prevent it. While going to a local precinct is inconvenient, no one knows what you do once you walk in that booth. That's important to avoid coercion.
- lukifer 7y ago
  While I'm in total agreement, and think that this is likely a bad idea, doesn't the same problem exist with mail-in voting? An abusive party can hover over your shoulder while filling it out, and then walk you to the mailbox.
  - slipheen 7y ago
    Absolutely. IMO this exacerbates the existing problem. That said, if the app supported changing your vote later on, it could be preferable to the mail-in solution.
  - anon463637 7y ago
    There's no solving infrequent social problems with technology, only socio-politically. I'm sure it does happen to a few people, but it sounds extremely rare. At least a mail-in ballot usually has a "receipt," (that serial number thing that's torn off at the top/bottom) although it does little to show or prove a vote was counted, especially with the subjectiveness of interpreting handwritten marks. The bigger problem is electronic voting has no real records making it far easier to manipulate because there's nothing permanent to recount. I suggest that to solve the receipt issue, privacy, speed of counting and accuracy to the best degree available, it's best to: 0. Make voting day a national holiday. 1. Mail every voter a durable, physical RFID token (signed by a closely-held private key) that has an unique code that is not recorded who it is given to. If they haven't received one before voting in-person, they can receive a random token. 2. The voter is first checked to make sure they haven't yet voted by keeping a database of "has voted"... completely independent of actual votes. 3. The voter either drops-off the RFID in a container in a booth for their vote preference, or they mail it sealed in two envelopes (outer mailing info, inner vote preference). 4. Votes are counted both by weight and by RFID scanning (whole containers of votes are scanned in batch) for redundancy. 5. Voters can check online in real-time if their vote was counted by searching for the RFID code they used. 6. Recounts are a matter of mass-scanning large containers (with appropriate chain-of-custody) of votes. 7. Tokens are reused to reduce waste.
joshuaheard 7y ago
I don't understand why a bank's website is secure enough to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I can't cast a single vote online.
- coolspot 7y ago
  Because casting votes online makes it easy to start voting market where you get perks for voting in desired direction.
  - jedieaston 7y ago
    I could just as easily start a system right now where I'll send you $15 to get a absentee ballot, vote how I want, and take a picture of it with some kind of unique identifier (post it note with your username on it, for example) before mailing it in. It's possible that a much lower price would even work too, since if you were going to vote my way anyway, you'd do it for free. So I only have to convince the voters on the other side (and hope the electoral college doesn't override my proxy votes).
    - klank 7y ago
      What you describe is considered election fraud and is illegal in the US. see 18 U.S. Code § 597: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597
    - Klathmon 7y ago
      That technique leaves quite a lot of evidence around. Not only do you need every voter you buy the vote from to never speak up about it, but you also need to somehow hide all the mailing of absentee ballots, hide where you mail them back from, and your money needs to be clean and untraceable to yourself. AND all of that needs to happen right around election time. But hacking an electronic machine can be done by a few people making changes to a warehouse of voting machines by impersonating a janitor 2 years before the election. And that's not hypothetical, 100% of voting machines that have been in the hands of hackers have been exploited to change votes. I myself used to sneak into the room where they kept the voting machines in my high school when I was younger. "online" voting is even easier to hack. You could attack the users by buying a botnet and have it submit or change the votes on the client machines before they cast them, you could attack the servers via things like evil maid attacks on the server hardware, "normal" exploits on their software to gain access to the systems, even just paying the sysadmin that maintains it a few hundred million dollars to look the other way for a few days.
mrtweetyhack 7y ago
Say goodbye to politicians
legitster 7y ago
I want to point out that voting in Washington state is incredibly easy. They mail you a ballot, and a packet with detailed information on every single candidate and issue, and then you can drop your ballot just about anywhere - supermarket, mailbox, probably the street (who knows). It's probably the best voting system, hands down. I don't buy that a smartphone magically hits some convenience threshold that turns out voters.
- Spivak 7y ago
  I mean it would work for me. I typically vote by mail but if my phone popped a notification that was like "It's election day!" and let me vote it would be done less than 5m after the ping.
  - legitster 7y ago
    Voting without the information packet seems mind boggling to me. But then I realize that's how 99% of the world votes and I understand so much more now.
    - powowow 7y ago
      I love the way WA votes. I've lived in a half dozen US states, and it is by far the best experience. It makes it extremely easy to vote thoughtfully. No need for a smartphone. The information packet + drop box / postal vote is fantastic.
    - existencebox 7y ago
      What has candidly started to scare me, after a good # of years voting with the packet (and I assure you I _research_ far beyond what the packet contains) is the fact that I'm often Still Clueless at the end. A toy example is a recent tax levy for some hospital funding. While the packet contained some thousand-foot information on what it was for and amount/etc, there was NO breakdown as far as I could tell, even online, (certainly no objective/in depth/expert sourced) that actually tried to answer "what are the pros and cons? (this sometimes exists in the packet but often not for some of the more technical decisions) Is this a normal tax? Is the argument for or against disingenous? Are there better ways to source this revenue? Is there proper accountability and controls on utilization, and is the underlying legislation solid? Take the following not as tooting my horn but to give a point of perspective: I have multiple degrees (including advanced) in applied math and CS, and spend an inordinate amount of my time reading about politics, law, and history. I still feel ill-equipped to vote on many of these topics. It sometimes amazes me that the system is as functional as it is now, if even a portion of decisions are made in this fashion.
mslong 7y ago
Absolutely amazing that almost all techies in this thread are against this. Of course there is major security risks, and problems that have to be solved, but it is MASSIVELY outweighed by the fact that mobile voting would mean almost 100% voter turn out overnight if done on a national level. What are we at right now, 60% on average, maybe? Our nation's policies would change immediately with such a massive swing in voter turnout, with adjustments towards forward-thinking, liberal policies.
- chimeracoder 7y ago
  > Of course there is major security risks, and problems that have to be solved, but it is MASSIVELY outweighed by the fact that mobile voting would mean almost 100% voter turn out overnight if done on a national level Why not just allow everyone to vote online, with no registration? Just type in your full name and select a candidate, no email or password required. It'd guarantee 100% turnout - maybe even >100% turnout, if enough bots join the fun! The problem with digital voting is that it cannot be made sufficiently secure. It's not a matter of "there are problems we haven't solved yet", but rather "there are problems that we provably cannot solve".
  - mslong 7y ago
    Sorry, but explain to me how I'm able to submit my taxes securely every year online, or pay for my marketplace insurance securely every month, but voting on our own digital devices is somehow beyond reach of what we can technically fathom?
    - wool_gather 7y ago
      No one has an interest in impersonating you to pay your bills. Someone might have an interest in impersonating you to steal your tax refund -- these scams do happen. Impersonating a bunch of voters is potentially easier when you're just presenting yourself as a computer with an internet connection rather than a flesh-and-blood human body.
      - 7y ago
choward 7y ago
I still don't get what this has to do with smart phones. The article says you log in through a web based portal. They made a mention of phone apps though. I don't understand why voting would only be accessible by phone and not a normal computer.
mugwort13 7y ago
Welcome to the end of freedom
anon463637 7y ago
Voting by mobile is extremely problematic and shocking. 1. No paper record. 2. No privacy. A better way would be to use anonymous physical RFID pebbles that are placed in a container to indicate voting preference. Votes can be both weighed and scanned for counting redundancy very quickly. Mail-in voting would consist of mailing back the pebble chit in an outside return envelope with an inner vote envelope designating the preference; the outer envelope is removed and mixed with many others before sorting. Then later, no matter how a vote was cast, it's possible to find how a vote was counted (by the voter searching for the RFID code(s) they used) in real-time because all votes were mass-scanned in RFID containers... that is, there will be a number of large containers that contain all votes for a particular preference in a particular election. Subsequent elections reuse the RFIDs to eliminate waste. No hanging chads, no provisional ballots, no hacked voting machines and no voting by mobile.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Inner envelope would need to block RFID signals or votes could be lost based on preference.
_bxg1 7y ago
https://xkcd.com/2030/ https://xkcd.com/2030/
annoyingnoob 7y ago
Vote is the new app that makes voting easy. No more paper booklets full of legal mumbo jumbo. Just press the Vote button and Vote does the rest, done and done. Vote automates your votes by choosing the best candidates for you using SocialAI technology.
- dane-pgp 7y ago
  I guess you're being satirical, and maybe not everyone appreciates that, but you raise an interesting idea. Could AI (or rather, some simplistic machine learning algorithms) help to inform voters about which candidates share the same values as them, or what position on a ballot proposition they should take to be consistent with other views they have expressed? Of course, that might end up putting a lot of power into the hands of the people making the algorithms, but if the training data and source code were transparent, and the output of the algorithm included a human-readable explanation for its recommendation, then it might actually be a better system than people voting the way they are told to by the only newspaper or TV station that they read/watch. (People should still then go to a ballot box and cast their vote on paper, though). Here is a TED talk which introduces this idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyGWML6cI_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyGWML6cI_k
  - annoyingnoob 7y ago
    That sounds super scary to me. I mean where do you get the information that informs expressions you might make on the internet? Is it those same newspapers and TV stations? Other places where you self-selected to go? If so, whats the difference between going with the source(s) vs going with your expressions? I'll agree that voting should be on paper. I'm not ready to boil it all down to something like a dating app.
- fg6hr 7y ago
  If I was an evil dictator trying to win elections, this is exactly how I'd appeal to the clueless majority.
cwkoss 7y ago
I hope someone hacks the vote to make Mickey Mouse or some other stupid name win. Phone voting is a cybersecurity nightmare.
- filoleg 7y ago
  Why would someone need to do any "hacking", if the only thing needed to vote is name and date of birth. Someone could easily aggregate all that data and write a short python script to do all the voting on everyone else's behalf. Not advocating for anyone to do so, as this is extremely illegal, but imo whoever signed off on this kind of online voting system is an even bigger criminal in my eyes. EDIT: upon reading further comments, I discovered that voter registration records in WA are officially public, and they include names and DOB (among other things). I am speechless.
  - cwkoss 7y ago
    Under US law 'unauthorized access of a computer system' is hacking, so writing someone elses name and DOB would qualify as 'hacking' in the legal sense.
    - filoleg 7y ago
      My bad, I guess I misunderstood what you were saying. I was just trying to make a point that there is no usual "evil hackers trying to break into our systems" kind of situation. It's like stealing someone's car by simply entering the wide open door and turning the keys someone left in the ignition.
- dane-pgp 7y ago
  Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 votes that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.
macspoofing 7y ago
I like the pageantry and ceremony of paper ballots at specific voting locations followed by manual paper ballot counting. I know in principle it's easy to automate this away by introducing online voting and other things ... I think those things will further alienate people from their local communities and society at large. Keep paper ballots because they are inefficient.
- plopz 7y ago
  The problem is then what do you do with low voter turnout? The article says that this election has in previous years resulted in <1% of eligible voters. That is clearly untenable.
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    >The problem is then what do you do with low voter turnout? What's the problem with low voter turnout? If someone doesn't feel like voting, they should have that right. A non-vote is a vote of confidence that you are OK with any choice. In fact, high voter turnout is usually indicative of major societal divisions or issues (case in point, the upcoming national election will probably have HIGH voter turnout as anti-Trump and pro-Trump people will turn out in droves). > The article says that this election has in previous years resulted in <1% of eligible voters. That is clearly untenable. Why is it untenable? What is the harm? The alternative is you force people to vote, and they'll vote by choosing a name randomly from a list.
    - AcerbicZero 7y ago
      You're looking at it backwards. Democracy draws its power from the "consent of the governed", not from the complacency of the subjects. Remember the whole "taxation without representation" thing back when this democracy thing was getting started? Government is a tool of the people, and if the people chose to not engage in the process, the government has no legitimate claim by which it can act on the people's behalf. The government doesn't ask for your consent, it assumes it, and the only method by which you can directly withhold consent is to refuse to participate in their political process. Low voter turnout is an indicator of an illegitimate government, which no longer has the consent of the people to continue governing them (At least in a democracy). *Edit: If people chose to not vote (or engage in other political actions) the question should be "do we need this part of the government" not "how do we get more people to vote in this part of the government"
Ohn0 7y ago
Why is this an app? Why not web?
- filoleg 7y ago
  It is web. They might call it an app or something, but it is web. I tried voting yesterday using their website on my laptop, everything was fine.
- Biganon 7y ago
  Today I spent quite some time looking for the mobile app created by my town to allow people to anonymously denounce street harassment and catcalling when they see it. Then I found out it's just a website, and they call that "an app" for some reason.
mhh__ 7y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI hopefully they don't prove Tom Scott right.
m0zg 7y ago
This is idiotic beyond belief. Unless you have a verifiable, re-countable paper trail, elections can be made to go whichever way the person running the elections wants them to go. It's as simple as that. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. I vote in WA and most people on the ballot seem profoundly unqualified for the positions they're running for. For me it basically boils down to picking the person with the most robust education credentials, unless they're a commie, in which case I pick the next best thing. It's pretty bad. If I were hiring for myself, I wouldn't hire most of these people.
cookie_monsta 7y ago
Being that the main driver behind this seems to be voter turnout, I have some suggestions: 1) Stop making all these penny ante jobs elected positions. These people are bureaucrats. Let them apply for their jobs like every other bureaucrat. If 99% of voters are saying they de facto don't care, maybe you should take the message. 2) For jobs that do matter, make voting compulsory. Bonus point: have elections on the weekends when people actually have time to vote. Very few people need two days to drive their buggy in from the farm anymore ffs.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Compulsory voting only makes sense if you allow "I don't know" as an answer. There's no value in demanding an answer for me when I know I don't have an informed answer to give.
  - cookie_monsta 7y ago
    Compulsory voting tends to mean that you're required to put a ballot into a box. You can fill it out properly, draw a smiley face on it or leave it blank. Nobody's checking your work.
joejerryronnie 7y ago
Me and 10,000 of my bots would like to participate in this election.
- fg6hr 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure there is a competing botnet that would be happy to override votes of your botnet. If online votes are counted only once, then what matters is which botnet is faster and has a better link to the voting servers. High Frequency Voting, in other words.
  - joejerryronnie 7y ago
    Haha, you’re right! So, as always, it boils down to an arms race between the two sides. So keep an eye on who's leasing office space near the voting server data centers.
humble_engineer 7y ago
I like the idea of paid volunteers going around with an iPad and helping homeless people high on meth register/vote in 15 minutes! This sounds great! Of course they will be told to vote for policies that help them live healthier, comfier lives...on the streets.
diebeforei485 7y ago
I think that everything except federal elections should be done by smartphone (or mail-in for those who don't have a smartphone). There is minimal risk that Russia cares about who serves on your local school board.

In related news, Saudi Arabia hacked Bezos' phone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122779 Could a similar hack be done on a larger scale, and used to alter votes before they are sent, without changing the electronic signature? Lets assume no until proven otherwise. And if proven otherwise, lets assume it was an isolated incident, and it won't happen again after a "commitment to do better". Lets also assume Mr. Tusk's firm can be trusted - after all, why not put a private middle-man between voters and elections? As Mr. Tusk correctly points out, the only plausible explanation to resistance is wanting to suppress voters.

flareback 7y ago
This doesn't even need hacking. You just go on facebook and find someones name and birthday and vote as them.
- extrapickles 7y ago
  Actually the voter database is public record[0], and it includes birthdays. This means that it would be easy to have 100% turnout in the first few seconds of the polls being open. [0]: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/vrdb/extract-requests.aspx https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/vrdb/extract-requests.aspx

mikece 7y ago

Making a big case about voter turnout not being as great as other countries is a red herring. We have it really, really good in this country. So good that, practically speaking, it doesn't matter who gets elected because things will continue to stay good. I read low voter turnout as an implicit vote of confidence in the system as a whole. You can be sure that if [stuff] was actually hitting the fan then everyone would show up to vote (and try to vote twice) to fix the horrible mess the city/state/country is in (whether in reality or perception). While I would agree there are definite issues with security, I really don't like the "print out the digital ballots" idea would rather see something block-chain based which is public and easy to audit. And I think it's unavoidable that some sort of biometric or other proof of identity will be required (take a selfie in order to vote!) before "voting with your phone" become commonly accepted.

deogeo 7y ago
Turnout can also be improved by voting on Sundays instead of work days. Yet they skipped that step and went right for electronic voting, that's nearly unanimously opposed by experts.
- mikece 7y ago
  Even better: 11 day window for voting window, starting on a Friday and ending on a Monday. Two full weekends to vote, no excuses for not being able to make it. Some states already do this with "early voting" which starts up to two weeks before the actual election day. And if you could pre-print your completed ballot to be scanned (once your identity if verified per local requirements) then the process could be very, very fast and efficient.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    > And if you could pre-print your completed ballot Your printer will betray you by printing invisible identifying dots on your ballot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code
    - swebs 7y ago
      How would that betray you? They're supposed to verify that this ballot belongs to you in the first place.
      - deogeo 7y ago
        I'm confused - wouldn't that mean the vote isn't secret?
        swebs 7y ago
        It won't go on record who you voted for, but someone at the office will have to confirm that you voted and enter in the vote. If mail-in ballots were completely anonymous, then someone could just print 10,000 copies and stuff the polls.

unethical_ban 7y ago

It sounded like a really silly verification system. Matching finger signatures on a smartphone with previous records? Perhaps the voters should get a set of one-time codes along with a PIN from the voting office, and use that to validate their vote.

y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
Yeah the PIN would have been a smart choice. They already have mail-in ballots which means they could just as easily be given a PIN on the ballot they already receive.

skue 7y ago

This is for a voluntary county board position without regulatory power that by statute needs to be elected by March when no one is paying attention. So someone decided to try this out. OTOH, the WA Sec. of State opposes mobile/online elections due to security concerns, as does her upcoming political opponent [1] and FWIW the Seattle Times recently wrote an Editorial also opposing the practice. [2] Bottom line, this hardly constitutes some trend that WA state is moving towards, just something set up by a county office that is otherwise drawing skepticism. [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/secretary-of-state-questions-online-mobile-voting-plan-in-king-county-race/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/secretary... [2] https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/resist-push-for-online-ballot-box/ https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/resist-push-...

cafard 7y ago
Thank you for the clarification.
specialist 7y ago
Oh boy. Thanks for links. I know, and have occasionally crossed swords with, most of the players mentioned. Our conservation districts fund their own elections. They don't have the budget to pay to be on the normal ballot. The only fix would be for state government to appropriate the money. People like Toby Nixon have floated this reform at various times the last 20 years. Otherwise, there's no push. Current WA SOS Wyman is ok, for a Republican. While she does nothing to expand the franchise, she does not share Sam Reed's, her predecessor and mentor, technophilia. KC Exec Constantine absolutely knows better. He played a role in both of my efforts to protect the secret ballot (prohibit voter id from being printed on ballot) and delaying a major risky overhaul of KC Elections in 2008. Constantine is a wicked smart politician. So I wonder what his angle here is. The automated signature verification has three show stopping flaws. High error rate, both positive and negative. Blackbox. Is another form of rent seeking by vendors; last time I checked, vender gets $0.10 per voter per election (not just per ballot cast). I'm very proud of Seattle Times' editorial board on this issue. They learned, matured, adapted. I spoke with them 10+ years ago about election integrity. They were wicked smart, painfully polite & earnest, respectfully disagreed. One of my best interactions as an activist. While I disagree with Seattle Times on most everything (else), they are a worthy opponent. I know nothing about the vendors mentioned, Tuck and Finney. I assume they're typical consulting bozos chasing sales and haven't really thought about the policies involved, and don't know enough to know they're bozos. Gael Tarleton would make a great SOS.

aazaa 7y ago

> King County voters will be able to use their name and birthdate to log in to a Web portal through the Internet browser on their phones, says Bryan Finney, the CEO of Democracy Live, the Seattle-based voting company providing the technology. Oh, really? > Once voters have completed their ballots, they must verify their submissions and then submit a signature on the touch screen of their device. Huh? > Finney says election officials in Washington are adept at signature verification because the state votes entirely by mail. ... Finney must have never had to sign on a phone screen with a finger while driving before. All of this digital theater of the absurd in a desperate attempt to engage people in the political process: > The board of supervisors election in the King Conservation District, for example, in past years has drawn less than 1% of the eligible population to the ballot box. People don't vote because they don't care. Not because they can't make it to the poling place. They don't care because they don't see anything at stake. There's no app for that.

netsharc 7y ago
"Finney must have never had to sign on a phone screen with a finger while driving before." Why the "while driving" bit? Your argument was solid until you added these 2 words. Now you're saying "If it doesn't work while I'm busy operating a motor vehicle, I'm against it!"
- all2 7y ago
  It is a common (though illegal) use case, so definitely worth considering as a worst case scenario.
sornaensis 7y ago
Wholeheartedly disagree-- if casting a ballot was as easy as sending a text instead of receiving and then mailing a letter or going to a polling location, I would predict much higher participation. People don't see it worth their time because a single vote really isn't worth anyone's time. Votes only matter as groups! So obviously you have to make it as braindead simple to vote as we have made everything else. What I do not see the purpose in, is complaining about or nay-saying these attempts. You're never going to convince someone that one vote is worth more than it is, which is what people really mean when they talk about 'engagement', because your vote on its own really just doesn't matter much and people intuitively get that. Reducing the cost of voting to match the actual value of a single vote is the best move we have IMO.

lgleason 7y ago

As a mobile developer I think this is a REALLY bad idea because of the security implications surrounding it.

sdmike1 7y ago
As a security guy I think this is a REALLY bad idea because of the security implications surrounding it.
- flareback 7y ago
  As a citizen I think this is a REALLY bad idea because of the security implications surrounding it.
  - xena 7y ago
    I think this is a REALLY bad idea because of the security implications surrounding it.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    As a different citizen, I'm not too enthused about ballot secrecy. 100% of the security issues with online voting come from the ballot secrecy requirement, so it's hard to get worked up about this.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
      Um? if ballots aren't secret, then individual voters can be bribed to vote the "right" way or punished for voting the "wrong" way. Ballot secrecy is an absolute requirement.
    - deogeo 7y ago
      As long as you're not in 1950s US and vote for a socialist, or vote against the communist party in any eastern European country for much of the 20th century, or against Putin or the CCP, or vote conservative and have aspirations in academia [1], then yes, there is an extremely limited range of times, countries, and opinions, for which non-secret voting wouldn't be absolutely catastrophic. [1] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majority-on-campus-yes-were-biased/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majo... -- "One respondent wrote in that if department members “could figure out who was a conservative, they would be sure not to hire them.”"

tzs 7y ago

> King County voters will be able to use their name and birthdate to log in to a Web portal through the Internet browser on their phones, says Bryan Finney, the CEO of Democracy Live, the Seattle-based voting company providing the technology. If they mean that there is a public URL you go to, and then on the site only have to enter you birhdate and name to log in, and then you can vote--that can't be right. There's gotta be more than that. My guess is that what has been lost in the stories is how you get the URL. I'm guessing that they either email you the URL or they send physical mail which includes a QR code with the URL, and the URL contains some sort of unique per voter identifier (hopefully randomly generated anew for each election). When you go to vote the site knows who you are supposed to be from that identifier in the URL, and the name/birthdate is just for a consistency check.

Spivak 7y ago
> There's gotta be more than that. I mean I agree but this is how in-person voting works right now. The only "secret" information is my polling place but anyone who knows my name can figure that out since the voter records are public and includes my address.
- tzs 7y ago
  In Washington state it wouldn't be quite that easy. You either have to show an acceptable photo ID to vote in person, or you have to sign a ballot declaration and then cast a provisional ballot which will be accepted if the signature on the declaration matches the signature on your registration record [1]. [1] https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=29A.40.160 https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=29A.40.160
thaumasiotes 7y ago
> If they mean that there is a public URL you go to, and then on the site only have to enter you birhdate and name to log in, and then you can vote--that can't be right. There's gotta be more than that. Of course there is. You also need a User-Agent that says you're a phone. And you can't set the evil bit. ;D
filoleg 7y ago

slipheen 7y ago

Beyond the security implications (which are huge and ought to be a deal breaker on their own), this seems to have a huge problem in that it's not private. Your abusive spouse/boss/dealer could tell you that they want to see you use the app to vote their way, and there's not much to prevent it. While going to a local precinct is inconvenient, no one knows what you do once you walk in that booth. That's important to avoid coercion.

lukifer 7y ago
While I'm in total agreement, and think that this is likely a bad idea, doesn't the same problem exist with mail-in voting? An abusive party can hover over your shoulder while filling it out, and then walk you to the mailbox.
- slipheen 7y ago
  Absolutely. IMO this exacerbates the existing problem. That said, if the app supported changing your vote later on, it could be preferable to the mail-in solution.
- anon463637 7y ago
  There's no solving infrequent social problems with technology, only socio-politically. I'm sure it does happen to a few people, but it sounds extremely rare. At least a mail-in ballot usually has a "receipt," (that serial number thing that's torn off at the top/bottom) although it does little to show or prove a vote was counted, especially with the subjectiveness of interpreting handwritten marks. The bigger problem is electronic voting has no real records making it far easier to manipulate because there's nothing permanent to recount. I suggest that to solve the receipt issue, privacy, speed of counting and accuracy to the best degree available, it's best to: 0. Make voting day a national holiday. 1. Mail every voter a durable, physical RFID token (signed by a closely-held private key) that has an unique code that is not recorded who it is given to. If they haven't received one before voting in-person, they can receive a random token. 2. The voter is first checked to make sure they haven't yet voted by keeping a database of "has voted"... completely independent of actual votes. 3. The voter either drops-off the RFID in a container in a booth for their vote preference, or they mail it sealed in two envelopes (outer mailing info, inner vote preference). 4. Votes are counted both by weight and by RFID scanning (whole containers of votes are scanned in batch) for redundancy. 5. Voters can check online in real-time if their vote was counted by searching for the RFID code they used. 6. Recounts are a matter of mass-scanning large containers (with appropriate chain-of-custody) of votes. 7. Tokens are reused to reduce waste.

joshuaheard 7y ago

I don't understand why a bank's website is secure enough to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I can't cast a single vote online.

coolspot 7y ago
Because casting votes online makes it easy to start voting market where you get perks for voting in desired direction.
- jedieaston 7y ago
  I could just as easily start a system right now where I'll send you $15 to get a absentee ballot, vote how I want, and take a picture of it with some kind of unique identifier (post it note with your username on it, for example) before mailing it in. It's possible that a much lower price would even work too, since if you were going to vote my way anyway, you'd do it for free. So I only have to convince the voters on the other side (and hope the electoral college doesn't override my proxy votes).
  - klank 7y ago
    What you describe is considered election fraud and is illegal in the US. see 18 U.S. Code § 597: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597
  - Klathmon 7y ago
    That technique leaves quite a lot of evidence around. Not only do you need every voter you buy the vote from to never speak up about it, but you also need to somehow hide all the mailing of absentee ballots, hide where you mail them back from, and your money needs to be clean and untraceable to yourself. AND all of that needs to happen right around election time. But hacking an electronic machine can be done by a few people making changes to a warehouse of voting machines by impersonating a janitor 2 years before the election. And that's not hypothetical, 100% of voting machines that have been in the hands of hackers have been exploited to change votes. I myself used to sneak into the room where they kept the voting machines in my high school when I was younger. "online" voting is even easier to hack. You could attack the users by buying a botnet and have it submit or change the votes on the client machines before they cast them, you could attack the servers via things like evil maid attacks on the server hardware, "normal" exploits on their software to gain access to the systems, even just paying the sysadmin that maintains it a few hundred million dollars to look the other way for a few days.

mrtweetyhack 7y ago

Say goodbye to politicians

legitster 7y ago

I want to point out that voting in Washington state is incredibly easy. They mail you a ballot, and a packet with detailed information on every single candidate and issue, and then you can drop your ballot just about anywhere - supermarket, mailbox, probably the street (who knows). It's probably the best voting system, hands down. I don't buy that a smartphone magically hits some convenience threshold that turns out voters.

Spivak 7y ago
I mean it would work for me. I typically vote by mail but if my phone popped a notification that was like "It's election day!" and let me vote it would be done less than 5m after the ping.
- legitster 7y ago
  Voting without the information packet seems mind boggling to me. But then I realize that's how 99% of the world votes and I understand so much more now.
  - powowow 7y ago
    I love the way WA votes. I've lived in a half dozen US states, and it is by far the best experience. It makes it extremely easy to vote thoughtfully. No need for a smartphone. The information packet + drop box / postal vote is fantastic.
  - existencebox 7y ago
    What has candidly started to scare me, after a good # of years voting with the packet (and I assure you I _research_ far beyond what the packet contains) is the fact that I'm often Still Clueless at the end. A toy example is a recent tax levy for some hospital funding. While the packet contained some thousand-foot information on what it was for and amount/etc, there was NO breakdown as far as I could tell, even online, (certainly no objective/in depth/expert sourced) that actually tried to answer "what are the pros and cons? (this sometimes exists in the packet but often not for some of the more technical decisions) Is this a normal tax? Is the argument for or against disingenous? Are there better ways to source this revenue? Is there proper accountability and controls on utilization, and is the underlying legislation solid? Take the following not as tooting my horn but to give a point of perspective: I have multiple degrees (including advanced) in applied math and CS, and spend an inordinate amount of my time reading about politics, law, and history. I still feel ill-equipped to vote on many of these topics. It sometimes amazes me that the system is as functional as it is now, if even a portion of decisions are made in this fashion.

mslong 7y ago

Absolutely amazing that almost all techies in this thread are against this. Of course there is major security risks, and problems that have to be solved, but it is MASSIVELY outweighed by the fact that mobile voting would mean almost 100% voter turn out overnight if done on a national level. What are we at right now, 60% on average, maybe? Our nation's policies would change immediately with such a massive swing in voter turnout, with adjustments towards forward-thinking, liberal policies.

chimeracoder 7y ago
> Of course there is major security risks, and problems that have to be solved, but it is MASSIVELY outweighed by the fact that mobile voting would mean almost 100% voter turn out overnight if done on a national level Why not just allow everyone to vote online, with no registration? Just type in your full name and select a candidate, no email or password required. It'd guarantee 100% turnout - maybe even >100% turnout, if enough bots join the fun! The problem with digital voting is that it cannot be made sufficiently secure. It's not a matter of "there are problems we haven't solved yet", but rather "there are problems that we provably cannot solve".
- mslong 7y ago
  Sorry, but explain to me how I'm able to submit my taxes securely every year online, or pay for my marketplace insurance securely every month, but voting on our own digital devices is somehow beyond reach of what we can technically fathom?
  - wool_gather 7y ago
    No one has an interest in impersonating you to pay your bills. Someone might have an interest in impersonating you to steal your tax refund -- these scams do happen. Impersonating a bunch of voters is potentially easier when you're just presenting yourself as a computer with an internet connection rather than a flesh-and-blood human body.
    - 7y ago

choward 7y ago

I still don't get what this has to do with smart phones. The article says you log in through a web based portal. They made a mention of phone apps though. I don't understand why voting would only be accessible by phone and not a normal computer.

mugwort13 7y ago

Welcome to the end of freedom

anon463637 7y ago

Voting by mobile is extremely problematic and shocking. 1. No paper record. 2. No privacy. A better way would be to use anonymous physical RFID pebbles that are placed in a container to indicate voting preference. Votes can be both weighed and scanned for counting redundancy very quickly. Mail-in voting would consist of mailing back the pebble chit in an outside return envelope with an inner vote envelope designating the preference; the outer envelope is removed and mixed with many others before sorting. Then later, no matter how a vote was cast, it's possible to find how a vote was counted (by the voter searching for the RFID code(s) they used) in real-time because all votes were mass-scanned in RFID containers... that is, there will be a number of large containers that contain all votes for a particular preference in a particular election. Subsequent elections reuse the RFIDs to eliminate waste. No hanging chads, no provisional ballots, no hacked voting machines and no voting by mobile.

cwkoss 7y ago
Inner envelope would need to block RFID signals or votes could be lost based on preference.

_bxg1 7y ago

https://xkcd.com/2030/ https://xkcd.com/2030/

annoyingnoob 7y ago

Vote is the new app that makes voting easy. No more paper booklets full of legal mumbo jumbo. Just press the Vote button and Vote does the rest, done and done. Vote automates your votes by choosing the best candidates for you using SocialAI technology.

dane-pgp 7y ago
I guess you're being satirical, and maybe not everyone appreciates that, but you raise an interesting idea. Could AI (or rather, some simplistic machine learning algorithms) help to inform voters about which candidates share the same values as them, or what position on a ballot proposition they should take to be consistent with other views they have expressed? Of course, that might end up putting a lot of power into the hands of the people making the algorithms, but if the training data and source code were transparent, and the output of the algorithm included a human-readable explanation for its recommendation, then it might actually be a better system than people voting the way they are told to by the only newspaper or TV station that they read/watch. (People should still then go to a ballot box and cast their vote on paper, though). Here is a TED talk which introduces this idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyGWML6cI_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyGWML6cI_k
- annoyingnoob 7y ago
  That sounds super scary to me. I mean where do you get the information that informs expressions you might make on the internet? Is it those same newspapers and TV stations? Other places where you self-selected to go? If so, whats the difference between going with the source(s) vs going with your expressions? I'll agree that voting should be on paper. I'm not ready to boil it all down to something like a dating app.
fg6hr 7y ago
If I was an evil dictator trying to win elections, this is exactly how I'd appeal to the clueless majority.

cwkoss 7y ago

I hope someone hacks the vote to make Mickey Mouse or some other stupid name win. Phone voting is a cybersecurity nightmare.

filoleg 7y ago
Why would someone need to do any "hacking", if the only thing needed to vote is name and date of birth. Someone could easily aggregate all that data and write a short python script to do all the voting on everyone else's behalf. Not advocating for anyone to do so, as this is extremely illegal, but imo whoever signed off on this kind of online voting system is an even bigger criminal in my eyes. EDIT: upon reading further comments, I discovered that voter registration records in WA are officially public, and they include names and DOB (among other things). I am speechless.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Under US law 'unauthorized access of a computer system' is hacking, so writing someone elses name and DOB would qualify as 'hacking' in the legal sense.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    My bad, I guess I misunderstood what you were saying. I was just trying to make a point that there is no usual "evil hackers trying to break into our systems" kind of situation. It's like stealing someone's car by simply entering the wide open door and turning the keys someone left in the ignition.
dane-pgp 7y ago
Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 votes that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.

macspoofing 7y ago

I like the pageantry and ceremony of paper ballots at specific voting locations followed by manual paper ballot counting. I know in principle it's easy to automate this away by introducing online voting and other things ... I think those things will further alienate people from their local communities and society at large. Keep paper ballots because they are inefficient.

plopz 7y ago
The problem is then what do you do with low voter turnout? The article says that this election has in previous years resulted in <1% of eligible voters. That is clearly untenable.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  >The problem is then what do you do with low voter turnout? What's the problem with low voter turnout? If someone doesn't feel like voting, they should have that right. A non-vote is a vote of confidence that you are OK with any choice. In fact, high voter turnout is usually indicative of major societal divisions or issues (case in point, the upcoming national election will probably have HIGH voter turnout as anti-Trump and pro-Trump people will turn out in droves). > The article says that this election has in previous years resulted in <1% of eligible voters. That is clearly untenable. Why is it untenable? What is the harm? The alternative is you force people to vote, and they'll vote by choosing a name randomly from a list.
  - AcerbicZero 7y ago
    You're looking at it backwards. Democracy draws its power from the "consent of the governed", not from the complacency of the subjects. Remember the whole "taxation without representation" thing back when this democracy thing was getting started? Government is a tool of the people, and if the people chose to not engage in the process, the government has no legitimate claim by which it can act on the people's behalf. The government doesn't ask for your consent, it assumes it, and the only method by which you can directly withhold consent is to refuse to participate in their political process. Low voter turnout is an indicator of an illegitimate government, which no longer has the consent of the people to continue governing them (At least in a democracy). *Edit: If people chose to not vote (or engage in other political actions) the question should be "do we need this part of the government" not "how do we get more people to vote in this part of the government"

Ohn0 7y ago

Why is this an app? Why not web?

filoleg 7y ago
It is web. They might call it an app or something, but it is web. I tried voting yesterday using their website on my laptop, everything was fine.
Biganon 7y ago
Today I spent quite some time looking for the mobile app created by my town to allow people to anonymously denounce street harassment and catcalling when they see it. Then I found out it's just a website, and they call that "an app" for some reason.

mhh__ 7y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI hopefully they don't prove Tom Scott right.

m0zg 7y ago

This is idiotic beyond belief. Unless you have a verifiable, re-countable paper trail, elections can be made to go whichever way the person running the elections wants them to go. It's as simple as that. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. I vote in WA and most people on the ballot seem profoundly unqualified for the positions they're running for. For me it basically boils down to picking the person with the most robust education credentials, unless they're a commie, in which case I pick the next best thing. It's pretty bad. If I were hiring for myself, I wouldn't hire most of these people.

cookie_monsta 7y ago

Being that the main driver behind this seems to be voter turnout, I have some suggestions: 1) Stop making all these penny ante jobs elected positions. These people are bureaucrats. Let them apply for their jobs like every other bureaucrat. If 99% of voters are saying they de facto don't care, maybe you should take the message. 2) For jobs that do matter, make voting compulsory. Bonus point: have elections on the weekends when people actually have time to vote. Very few people need two days to drive their buggy in from the farm anymore ffs.

catalogia 7y ago
Compulsory voting only makes sense if you allow "I don't know" as an answer. There's no value in demanding an answer for me when I know I don't have an informed answer to give.
- cookie_monsta 7y ago
  Compulsory voting tends to mean that you're required to put a ballot into a box. You can fill it out properly, draw a smiley face on it or leave it blank. Nobody's checking your work.

joejerryronnie 7y ago

Me and 10,000 of my bots would like to participate in this election.

fg6hr 7y ago
I'm pretty sure there is a competing botnet that would be happy to override votes of your botnet. If online votes are counted only once, then what matters is which botnet is faster and has a better link to the voting servers. High Frequency Voting, in other words.
- joejerryronnie 7y ago
  Haha, you’re right! So, as always, it boils down to an arms race between the two sides. So keep an eye on who's leasing office space near the voting server data centers.

humble_engineer 7y ago

I like the idea of paid volunteers going around with an iPad and helping homeless people high on meth register/vote in 15 minutes! This sounds great! Of course they will be told to vote for policies that help them live healthier, comfier lives...on the streets.

diebeforei485 7y ago

I think that everything except federal elections should be done by smartphone (or mail-in for those who don't have a smartphone). There is minimal risk that Russia cares about who serves on your local school board.