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When people buy stuff on Amazon they can verify that they received the goods. They can't verify their vote was counted correctly.
by anoncake 6y ago
When people buy stuff on Amazon they can verify that they received the goods. They can't verify their vote was counted correctly.
- lhorie 6y agoReceiving your goods doesn't guarantee you weren't a victim of a scam or id theft. Package theft is also a thing, etc. Similarly, You can't verify a paper ballot was counted correctly (see recounts and how the numbers don't match). Yet we're ok with these systems. Clearly infallibility isn't a prerequisite for trust. Besides, as I mentioned elsewhere, auditable e-voting systems do exist and have been used in various parts of the world.
- pessimizer 6y ago> Receiving your goods doesn't guarantee you weren't a victim of a scam or id theft. No it doesn't. People are frequently victims of scams and id theft because of the trust necessary to use online systems. This is something that is important to avoid in voting, or else your country collapses.
- lhorie 6y agoSure. My argument is that it takes more than even people losing money (a pretty high bar already IMHO) for the trust in a system to be eroded beyond the point of outright distrust. For better or for worse, familiarity and trust correlate strongly, but technical security and trust don't correlate much (see people ignoring security warnings because kitten photos) Take, for example, elections in Brazil. They've been electronic for decades and people trust its accuracy. There hasn't been a single known case of tampering even though the country has a notoriously corrupt political landscape (see every scandal and impeachment since the 80s) I would even bet money that if the US rolled out nationwide e-voting somehow, within 5 election cycles the majority of americans would say they trust it in polls. Based on familiarity alone.