5 ms·

Couldn't largely distributed digital systems also be designed? I think we should all sit down and define what the requirements of a secure vote are, regardless

by mNovak 6y ago

Couldn't largely distributed digital systems also be designed? I think we should all sit down and define what the requirements of a secure vote are, regardless of taken in person or otherwise. I see nothing inherently secure about physical paper as the voting medium. Whatever is written on that paper or how it's handled better also be provably secure somehow.

anoncake 6y ago
Paper is provably secure as long as every step happens in public (which also means no voting by mail).
- jquery 6y ago
  Indeed. That is why I oppose mail in voting. It’s going to lead to civil unrest no matter who wins in November.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    My state has been voting by mail for over thirty years with no problems. Absentee ballots are not new. This FUD will be what leads to unrest, please stop spreading it.
    - jquery 6y ago
      We will likely have civil unrest. Don’t take my word for it. Here’s someone with access to much better data than me: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/09/04/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-warns-of-violence-or-civil-unrest-after-election/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/09/04/faceboo... Putting your head in the sand won’t make it go away. Mail-in is a bad fucking idea. Trump suggested a way for his supporters to make sure their vote was counted and Twitter took the tweets down as “election manipulation”. Umm, what? So do mail-in ballots allow double voting or not? Twitter has also said they will remove any Tweets by trump if he claims victory “too early”. So that’s where we are now, huh? If Democrats were so damn confident they could win fair and square, why introduce this wild card? Changing to mail-in at the 13th hour is not the same as continuing a 30-year tradition. Besides, as others have pointed out, it has led to nakedly corrupt elections in other states (Washington state in 2004). Whenever you introduce the possibility of people being able to ballot harvest or “lose ballots” and those same people are taught that they are stopping literally Hitler it’s no surprise they do what they do. This whole last-minute rush for mail-in ballots stinks to high heaven and even if you think your side will benefit from it, we all lose when trust in our democracy is undermined. So no, I won’t just kindly shut up and let Democrats steal the election. Or Republicans for that matter. We should all be observing the ballot counting process but this god damn mail-in process means we can’t audit the process. That should scare you. If it doesn’t, you are way too naive.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    Taking this seriously (which might be a bad idea), what level of mail in voting do you oppose? Are you 100% against it? What happens if someone will be out of their town/state/country for a few weeks around the election? Should they be able to vote by mail? What about students who are registered to vote at their parents address but live elsewhere? How about people who are sick and cannot safely make it to a polling station? How many of these sorts of cases are you OK with? Less than 1% of the total votes? 10%? 50%?
    - jquery 6y ago
      I’m ok with absentee ballots, as long as they arrive before Election Day. I’m not ok with unsolicited mail-in ballots trickling in after Election Day which is what we are going to get. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/09/04/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-warns-of-violence-or-civil-unrest-after-election/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/09/04/faceboo... Hell, just look at the article. It acknowledges the high costs of mail-in voting. Then engages in classic double-think to defend it: >“Trump has repeatedly baselessly claimed mail-in voting will lead to a “rigged” election—despite mail-in voter fraud being extremely rare—and decried the fact that the vote could take longer to count, saying the nation “must know election results on the night of the election.” >Facebook blocked videos of Trump encouraging North Carolina voters to vote twice—which election officials warned would be a felony—Thursday, but has not taken action on the president’s Facebook post making similar comments.“ Well which is it? Does mail-in lead to fraud or not? Trump’s allegations are apparently “baseless” but at the same time he got muzzled when he suggested his voters make sure their vote was counted. This is a fucking circus.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
        "muzzled" ... the president of the united states of america was "muzzled" because FB blocked videos of him? are you serious?
- mulmen 6y ago
  I fill out my paper ballot in my kitchen then put it in a tamper evident envelope and stick it in my mailbox or personally drop it off at a designated location where any member of the public can watch. The ballot has a removable serial number on it which is detached before returning the envelope. I can use this to look up the status of my ballot online and see that it was counted. What part of this process is not secure?
  - edbob 6y ago
    The part where envelopes are mailed out en masse and are therefore trivial for fraudsters to obtain[0], and the complementary part where the envelopes are not properly delivered and are just dumped somewhere[1]. [0] https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/political-insider-explains-voter-fraud-with-mail-in-ballots/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/political-insider-explains-vot... [1] https://newjerseyglobe.com/local/postal-service-finds-some-paterson-vbm-ballots-not-placed-in-mailboxes/ https://newjerseyglobe.com/local/postal-service-finds-some-p...
    - mulmen 6y ago
      If I don't receive my ballot I can simply request a new one which invalidates the old envelope and ballot.
      - edbob 6y ago
        That only stops fraud if everyone knows how to and takes the time to do it. What about the tens of thousands of dead people still registered to vote[0]? How do they request a new envelope? Do you have any answers for my 3 sourced statements other than naked assertions? [0] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/more-than-20-000-dead-registered-voters-could-receive-mail-in-ballots-in-california-court-brief https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/more-than-20-000-dea...
        mulmen 6y ago
        California has ~39,500,000 residents. 23,000 is 0.058% of the population.
dividuum 6y ago
> Couldn't largely distributed digital systems also be designed? Probably, but it would probably be so complex that only a small subset of the population is able to understand how it works. For a vote that’s accepted by the general population you want a process that’s as simple as possible. Everyone understands how paper works. > Whatever is written on that paper or how it's handled better also be provably secure somehow. Here that’s largely solved by having lots of volunteers that do the counting. It should be pretty hard to compromise that.
- mNovak 6y ago
  I'm not super convinced that the public really demands to understand the whole system, as long as it's perceived to 'work' and isn't confusing in itself. As others have pointed out, we all use myriad important systems that we hardly understand. The volunteers bit and generally very human process of counting votes actually seems like a huge attack surface for anyone to 'miscount' votes they don't like. Theoretically everyone's work can be double checked, but does this actually happen outside a recount? It's a huge amount of work in the first place, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't the resources for it. What I'll give in-person voting is the human autonomy bit. In principle someone is physically looking at me and my ID, and I go into the booth alone. Even mail-in doesn't accomplish this one.

by mNovak 6y ago

anoncake 6y ago

Paper is provably secure as long as every step happens in public (which also means no voting by mail).

jquery 6y ago
Indeed. That is why I oppose mail in voting. It’s going to lead to civil unrest no matter who wins in November.
- mulmen 6y ago
  My state has been voting by mail for over thirty years with no problems. Absentee ballots are not new. This FUD will be what leads to unrest, please stop spreading it.
  - jquery 6y ago
    We will likely have civil unrest. Don’t take my word for it. Here’s someone with access to much better data than me: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/09/04/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-warns-of-violence-or-civil-unrest-after-election/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/09/04/faceboo... Putting your head in the sand won’t make it go away. Mail-in is a bad fucking idea. Trump suggested a way for his supporters to make sure their vote was counted and Twitter took the tweets down as “election manipulation”. Umm, what? So do mail-in ballots allow double voting or not? Twitter has also said they will remove any Tweets by trump if he claims victory “too early”. So that’s where we are now, huh? If Democrats were so damn confident they could win fair and square, why introduce this wild card? Changing to mail-in at the 13th hour is not the same as continuing a 30-year tradition. Besides, as others have pointed out, it has led to nakedly corrupt elections in other states (Washington state in 2004). Whenever you introduce the possibility of people being able to ballot harvest or “lose ballots” and those same people are taught that they are stopping literally Hitler it’s no surprise they do what they do. This whole last-minute rush for mail-in ballots stinks to high heaven and even if you think your side will benefit from it, we all lose when trust in our democracy is undermined. So no, I won’t just kindly shut up and let Democrats steal the election. Or Republicans for that matter. We should all be observing the ballot counting process but this god damn mail-in process means we can’t audit the process. That should scare you. If it doesn’t, you are way too naive.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  Taking this seriously (which might be a bad idea), what level of mail in voting do you oppose? Are you 100% against it? What happens if someone will be out of their town/state/country for a few weeks around the election? Should they be able to vote by mail? What about students who are registered to vote at their parents address but live elsewhere? How about people who are sick and cannot safely make it to a polling station? How many of these sorts of cases are you OK with? Less than 1% of the total votes? 10%? 50%?
  - jquery 6y ago
    I’m ok with absentee ballots, as long as they arrive before Election Day. I’m not ok with unsolicited mail-in ballots trickling in after Election Day which is what we are going to get. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/09/04/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-warns-of-violence-or-civil-unrest-after-election/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/09/04/faceboo... Hell, just look at the article. It acknowledges the high costs of mail-in voting. Then engages in classic double-think to defend it: >“Trump has repeatedly baselessly claimed mail-in voting will lead to a “rigged” election—despite mail-in voter fraud being extremely rare—and decried the fact that the vote could take longer to count, saying the nation “must know election results on the night of the election.” >Facebook blocked videos of Trump encouraging North Carolina voters to vote twice—which election officials warned would be a felony—Thursday, but has not taken action on the president’s Facebook post making similar comments.“ Well which is it? Does mail-in lead to fraud or not? Trump’s allegations are apparently “baseless” but at the same time he got muzzled when he suggested his voters make sure their vote was counted. This is a fucking circus.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
      "muzzled" ... the president of the united states of america was "muzzled" because FB blocked videos of him? are you serious?
mulmen 6y ago
I fill out my paper ballot in my kitchen then put it in a tamper evident envelope and stick it in my mailbox or personally drop it off at a designated location where any member of the public can watch. The ballot has a removable serial number on it which is detached before returning the envelope. I can use this to look up the status of my ballot online and see that it was counted. What part of this process is not secure?
- edbob 6y ago
  The part where envelopes are mailed out en masse and are therefore trivial for fraudsters to obtain[0], and the complementary part where the envelopes are not properly delivered and are just dumped somewhere[1]. [0] https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/political-insider-explains-voter-fraud-with-mail-in-ballots/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/political-insider-explains-vot... [1] https://newjerseyglobe.com/local/postal-service-finds-some-paterson-vbm-ballots-not-placed-in-mailboxes/ https://newjerseyglobe.com/local/postal-service-finds-some-p...
  - mulmen 6y ago
    If I don't receive my ballot I can simply request a new one which invalidates the old envelope and ballot.
    - edbob 6y ago
      That only stops fraud if everyone knows how to and takes the time to do it. What about the tens of thousands of dead people still registered to vote[0]? How do they request a new envelope? Do you have any answers for my 3 sourced statements other than naked assertions? [0] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/more-than-20-000-dead-registered-voters-could-receive-mail-in-ballots-in-california-court-brief https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/more-than-20-000-dea...
      - mulmen 6y ago
        California has ~39,500,000 residents. 23,000 is 0.058% of the population.

dividuum 6y ago

> Couldn't largely distributed digital systems also be designed? Probably, but it would probably be so complex that only a small subset of the population is able to understand how it works. For a vote that’s accepted by the general population you want a process that’s as simple as possible. Everyone understands how paper works. > Whatever is written on that paper or how it's handled better also be provably secure somehow. Here that’s largely solved by having lots of volunteers that do the counting. It should be pretty hard to compromise that.

mNovak 6y ago
I'm not super convinced that the public really demands to understand the whole system, as long as it's perceived to 'work' and isn't confusing in itself. As others have pointed out, we all use myriad important systems that we hardly understand. The volunteers bit and generally very human process of counting votes actually seems like a huge attack surface for anyone to 'miscount' votes they don't like. Theoretically everyone's work can be double checked, but does this actually happen outside a recount? It's a huge amount of work in the first place, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't the resources for it. What I'll give in-person voting is the human autonomy bit. In principle someone is physically looking at me and my ID, and I go into the booth alone. Even mail-in doesn't accomplish this one.