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Paper voting ensures privacy and voter verification, something even the best electronic solutions can't properly handle. No thanks, I can actually show up and v

by qsort 5y ago

Paper voting ensures privacy and voter verification, something even the best electronic solutions can't properly handle. No thanks, I can actually show up and vote once every few years.

touisteur 5y ago
I agree. I don't understand the argument of reducing cost of elections and scaling. The current paper system in place in most works (at least in European countries where I've witnessed the process) and doesn't need to scale more. If actors in a democracy can't afford such a system, and the occasional (once, twice a year) walk to the voting place, 15 minutes wait and fellow-citizen interaction, can't we accept they don't care for voting and participating and stop listening? I'm all for accommodation of special cases (people with reduced mobility or unability to be in contact with other people) but we already have the necessary systems in place (mail-in or vote delegation). Literally one of the last places I'd check for change or optimization. It works, leave it alone, I'll happily pay the 3 or 10eur a year.
- throwaway48375 5y ago
  American here and I have had to wait >2 hours to vote multiple times. In the worst instance someone tried to illegally close the polling place even though people were still lined up outside. This is in clear violation of state law. So long as you are lined up to vote before the polling place closes they have to take your vote. To the sheriff's department credit (they are generally terrible) the deputy who responded refused to make people leave and told the worker they had to stay open. When I lived in a more rural area of the same county I would just walk in and vote within a couple minutes. I'm sure it isn't broken by design though.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - monetus 5y ago
    live in a metropolis? -also american but in a midsized city and ~15 minutes is more than the average wait.
    - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
      What that means is that you don't live in a city in a republican state. For the past couple decades, the GOP has gotten increasingly brazen about reducing the number of polling places for the people they don't want to vote.
      - monetus 5y ago
        Tennessee. I think I might incredibly be in a low traffic part of town despite it being a huge commercial sector with surrounding suburbs.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    > American here and I have had to wait >2 hours to vote multiple times. That doesn't have to be the case though, that's a political decision to staff voting booths like that. It's also trivial to fix.
  - PoignardAzur 5y ago
    The American voting system seems broken in many ways that have not much to do using paper. Elections taking place on tuesdays instead of weekends for some reason, low polling-places-per-voters ratio (though numbers are hard to find), ballots with multiple non-trivial questions, etc. Before turning to voting machines, there's a lot that could be changed at every level. Moving Election Day to weekends would be a good start.
    - toyg 5y ago
      The American voting system is broken by design. There used to be reasons and conventions, and there is a somewhat excessive regard for states rights, but you could build a system that keeps that regard while being sane and fair. The fact that the US political classes would rather focus on gerrymandering instead, tells you all that you need to know about motives.
    - touisteur 5y ago
      I don't even understand the concept of voting on workdays. WTF. This is a sacred thing! Especially if you want citizens of all horizons participating (and I want people from all sides to check on each other - without being too disruptive by default... I mean there's a process for reporting and all - doing it on a weekend is a minimum. See, no need for fancy tech. Paid officials and unpaid volunteers manning everything.
- mariusor 5y ago
  > I don't understand the argument of reducing cost of elections and scaling. How about if we could scale ballots to such an extent that a citizen can vote from wherever/whenever on all issues they're interested in[1], not just a head of state election every X years? Wouldn't that be a more democratic process ? I believe it would, and that paper ballots won't get us there. [1] A current instance of this is the Swiss voting system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland
  - touisteur 5y ago
    Well, I live in a representative democracy, and it mostly works. I don't think the vote is only way to express political power, just the most 'sacred' and extreme of all. The one of removing your ruler (or ruling party) from power. And making people vote on issues they're interested in just makes me think only extremes will be heard and counted, and I would have to give my opinion on a bunch of things I don't really care about, or am not quite competent enough. To me, the democratic vote should be a precious rare thing, to elect a representative or a bunch of them, and trust them to do a non-too-shitty job of it. Referendums, IMO are among the worst democratic moments in my republic, and I feel my concitoyens (from talking to some, and reading what they say in polls or public forums) don't really vote on the specific subject but on a global policy rant. It's a place to vent, not to decide ; when your elected ruler throws up his hands and gives you back the wheel at the last moment, with little context, FSD-style.
    - ilammy 5y ago
      > I don't think the vote is only way to express political power, just the most 'sacred' and extreme of all. The one of removing your ruler (or ruling party) from power. Indeed, the voting is less about getting people you want to have power, but more about preventing people you don't want from getting power (or retaining the power). Votes don't directly affect the actual policy decisions that representatives make afterwards, you're not legally bound to fulfill your campaign promises. What voting process does instead is telling the society, ‘See, the elected officials are not massively hated by the people, no need for a concern’. The thing about representative democracy is that your representative is still your representative even if you didn't vote for them.
charcircuit 5y ago
>Paper voting ensures privacy So do ZKP based voting systems. >voter verification What do you mean by this? If you mean signatures you can have people sign their signature on their phone or desktop. >I can actually show up and vote once every few years This is a lot of friction which prevents many people from voting.
- gjulianm 5y ago
  > So do ZKP based voting systems. Assuming no vulnerabilities on the ZKP system, a perfect implementation and no information leak from other sources. > What do you mean by this? I assume that ensuring that the person voting is who they claim they are. If someone steals the certificates of that person, they could impersonate them. > This is a lot of friction which prevents many people from voting. In Spain (and I guess in a lot of other countries) voting in-person means walking to the closest polling center (99% of the time it's less than 10 minute walk) on a Sunday, picking up the paper, doing the queue (maybe another 10 minutes) and walking out. The alternative is mail-in voting, which usually takes a few minutes of walking to the closest post-office, signing some documents and waiting for the ballot to come. Compare that with getting the certificates, storing them securely, downloading the program to do the voting, installing it, praying it works, then using the program and cast the vote. Think of all the people who aren't good with computers, and how easy would it be for them to do all those steps correctly. In the ideal case I agree that electronic voting systems would be better. But the world is not ideal, quite a lot of things can go wrong with them because of their complexity and detecting those issues will be difficult. On the other hand, paper voting is fairly simple, the number of things that can go wrong is low and easy to detect by anyone.
  - codedokode 5y ago
    Government-issued certificates for electronic voting are a terrible solution because it is trivial to generate millions of certificates for fictious voters and vote in their name.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Friction to prevent people from voting is a US phenomenon where voting participation (i.e. turning up and declaring something, even if it is an abstention) is not considered a legal obligation - and thus, the lack of participation is not viewed as a possible attempt to interfere with democracy.

by qsort 5y ago

Paper voting ensures privacy and voter verification, something even the best electronic solutions can't properly handle. No thanks, I can actually show up and vote once every few years.

touisteur 5y ago

I agree. I don't understand the argument of reducing cost of elections and scaling. The current paper system in place in most works (at least in European countries where I've witnessed the process) and doesn't need to scale more. If actors in a democracy can't afford such a system, and the occasional (once, twice a year) walk to the voting place, 15 minutes wait and fellow-citizen interaction, can't we accept they don't care for voting and participating and stop listening? I'm all for accommodation of special cases (people with reduced mobility or unability to be in contact with other people) but we already have the necessary systems in place (mail-in or vote delegation). Literally one of the last places I'd check for change or optimization. It works, leave it alone, I'll happily pay the 3 or 10eur a year.

throwaway48375 5y ago
American here and I have had to wait >2 hours to vote multiple times. In the worst instance someone tried to illegally close the polling place even though people were still lined up outside. This is in clear violation of state law. So long as you are lined up to vote before the polling place closes they have to take your vote. To the sheriff's department credit (they are generally terrible) the deputy who responded refused to make people leave and told the worker they had to stay open. When I lived in a more rural area of the same county I would just walk in and vote within a couple minutes. I'm sure it isn't broken by design though.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- monetus 5y ago
  live in a metropolis? -also american but in a midsized city and ~15 minutes is more than the average wait.
  - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
    What that means is that you don't live in a city in a republican state. For the past couple decades, the GOP has gotten increasingly brazen about reducing the number of polling places for the people they don't want to vote.
    - monetus 5y ago
      Tennessee. I think I might incredibly be in a low traffic part of town despite it being a huge commercial sector with surrounding suburbs.
- iso1210 5y ago
  > American here and I have had to wait >2 hours to vote multiple times. That doesn't have to be the case though, that's a political decision to staff voting booths like that. It's also trivial to fix.
- PoignardAzur 5y ago
  The American voting system seems broken in many ways that have not much to do using paper. Elections taking place on tuesdays instead of weekends for some reason, low polling-places-per-voters ratio (though numbers are hard to find), ballots with multiple non-trivial questions, etc. Before turning to voting machines, there's a lot that could be changed at every level. Moving Election Day to weekends would be a good start.
  - toyg 5y ago
    The American voting system is broken by design. There used to be reasons and conventions, and there is a somewhat excessive regard for states rights, but you could build a system that keeps that regard while being sane and fair. The fact that the US political classes would rather focus on gerrymandering instead, tells you all that you need to know about motives.
  - touisteur 5y ago
    I don't even understand the concept of voting on workdays. WTF. This is a sacred thing! Especially if you want citizens of all horizons participating (and I want people from all sides to check on each other - without being too disruptive by default... I mean there's a process for reporting and all - doing it on a weekend is a minimum. See, no need for fancy tech. Paid officials and unpaid volunteers manning everything.
mariusor 5y ago
> I don't understand the argument of reducing cost of elections and scaling. How about if we could scale ballots to such an extent that a citizen can vote from wherever/whenever on all issues they're interested in[1], not just a head of state election every X years? Wouldn't that be a more democratic process ? I believe it would, and that paper ballots won't get us there. [1] A current instance of this is the Swiss voting system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland
- touisteur 5y ago
  Well, I live in a representative democracy, and it mostly works. I don't think the vote is only way to express political power, just the most 'sacred' and extreme of all. The one of removing your ruler (or ruling party) from power. And making people vote on issues they're interested in just makes me think only extremes will be heard and counted, and I would have to give my opinion on a bunch of things I don't really care about, or am not quite competent enough. To me, the democratic vote should be a precious rare thing, to elect a representative or a bunch of them, and trust them to do a non-too-shitty job of it. Referendums, IMO are among the worst democratic moments in my republic, and I feel my concitoyens (from talking to some, and reading what they say in polls or public forums) don't really vote on the specific subject but on a global policy rant. It's a place to vent, not to decide ; when your elected ruler throws up his hands and gives you back the wheel at the last moment, with little context, FSD-style.
  - ilammy 5y ago
    > I don't think the vote is only way to express political power, just the most 'sacred' and extreme of all. The one of removing your ruler (or ruling party) from power. Indeed, the voting is less about getting people you want to have power, but more about preventing people you don't want from getting power (or retaining the power). Votes don't directly affect the actual policy decisions that representatives make afterwards, you're not legally bound to fulfill your campaign promises. What voting process does instead is telling the society, ‘See, the elected officials are not massively hated by the people, no need for a concern’. The thing about representative democracy is that your representative is still your representative even if you didn't vote for them.

charcircuit 5y ago

>Paper voting ensures privacy So do ZKP based voting systems. >voter verification What do you mean by this? If you mean signatures you can have people sign their signature on their phone or desktop. >I can actually show up and vote once every few years This is a lot of friction which prevents many people from voting.

gjulianm 5y ago
> So do ZKP based voting systems. Assuming no vulnerabilities on the ZKP system, a perfect implementation and no information leak from other sources. > What do you mean by this? I assume that ensuring that the person voting is who they claim they are. If someone steals the certificates of that person, they could impersonate them. > This is a lot of friction which prevents many people from voting. In Spain (and I guess in a lot of other countries) voting in-person means walking to the closest polling center (99% of the time it's less than 10 minute walk) on a Sunday, picking up the paper, doing the queue (maybe another 10 minutes) and walking out. The alternative is mail-in voting, which usually takes a few minutes of walking to the closest post-office, signing some documents and waiting for the ballot to come. Compare that with getting the certificates, storing them securely, downloading the program to do the voting, installing it, praying it works, then using the program and cast the vote. Think of all the people who aren't good with computers, and how easy would it be for them to do all those steps correctly. In the ideal case I agree that electronic voting systems would be better. But the world is not ideal, quite a lot of things can go wrong with them because of their complexity and detecting those issues will be difficult. On the other hand, paper voting is fairly simple, the number of things that can go wrong is low and easy to detect by anyone.
- codedokode 5y ago
  Government-issued certificates for electronic voting are a terrible solution because it is trivial to generate millions of certificates for fictious voters and vote in their name.
XorNot 5y ago
Friction to prevent people from voting is a US phenomenon where voting participation (i.e. turning up and declaring something, even if it is an abstention) is not considered a legal obligation - and thus, the lack of participation is not viewed as a possible attempt to interfere with democracy.