3 ms·

What makes online voting so hard when we regularly trust online systems with our finances?

nuker 6y ago
Whats at stake. If bank hacked, bank/insurance cover losses. If presidential vote hacked, no one covers campaign costs, new election, and total chaos that ensued. And what if the hack was not detected? It has to be something based on blockchain, i guess.
aarong11 6y ago
There is a monetary incentive for the company running online systems such as banks to keep things secure(ish). They are made by mostly technically savvy people and in general are audited properly. Electronic voting goes to the lowest bidder. They have no incentive to keep things secure and test it properly as that would cost more and cut their middle line. It just needs to work and look secure.
- salawat 6y ago
  Don't think fiscal incentive assures good implementations. If it really did, places like Experian wouldn't keep getting caught with their pants down. It really just incentivizes hard to audit ones, and extensive legal engineering more often than not as the mathematics dictate. Sometimes it's cheaper to erect legal barriers than to actually dove the problem. This is what separates "business" from "academia", and unfortunately when the stakes are as high as politics, the business good enough solution leaves too much open to doubt for a healthy civic trust to form.
schwartzworld 6y ago
One big difference is that you are likely to actually notice an error your bank makes. You have a way of proving the mistake (for example the physical check you deposited online, or the email about the transaction). We don't even have a system in place in America to deal with an election whose results are deemed a mistake or hacked. Do we just have election day again? What if the error comes to light after the new administration has taken power?
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  Aren’t these all risks with paper voting too? There’s no way for us to verify the results in an open and transparent way.
  - schwartzworld 6y ago
    It's much harder to game the system with paper votes, and as a last resort manual recounts are possible. IMO, all votes should be scanned and uploaded publicly so that the records can be audited by anybody.
rbecker 6y ago
Good question. The answer is, because with finances, you can tell if you were hacked by the state of your account. With voting, hacked election results can look as convincing as real ones.

Whats at stake. If bank hacked, bank/insurance cover losses. If presidential vote hacked, no one covers campaign costs, new election, and total chaos that ensued. And what if the hack was not detected? It has to be something based on blockchain, i guess.

aarong11 6y ago

There is a monetary incentive for the company running online systems such as banks to keep things secure(ish). They are made by mostly technically savvy people and in general are audited properly. Electronic voting goes to the lowest bidder. They have no incentive to keep things secure and test it properly as that would cost more and cut their middle line. It just needs to work and look secure.

salawat 6y ago
Don't think fiscal incentive assures good implementations. If it really did, places like Experian wouldn't keep getting caught with their pants down. It really just incentivizes hard to audit ones, and extensive legal engineering more often than not as the mathematics dictate. Sometimes it's cheaper to erect legal barriers than to actually dove the problem. This is what separates "business" from "academia", and unfortunately when the stakes are as high as politics, the business good enough solution leaves too much open to doubt for a healthy civic trust to form.

schwartzworld 6y ago

One big difference is that you are likely to actually notice an error your bank makes. You have a way of proving the mistake (for example the physical check you deposited online, or the email about the transaction). We don't even have a system in place in America to deal with an election whose results are deemed a mistake or hacked. Do we just have election day again? What if the error comes to light after the new administration has taken power?

throwawaysea 6y ago
Aren’t these all risks with paper voting too? There’s no way for us to verify the results in an open and transparent way.
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  It's much harder to game the system with paper votes, and as a last resort manual recounts are possible. IMO, all votes should be scanned and uploaded publicly so that the records can be audited by anybody.

rbecker 6y ago

Good question. The answer is, because with finances, you can tell if you were hacked by the state of your account. With voting, hacked election results can look as convincing as real ones.