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No system will ever be perfect, but it can be made harder to tamper with, like using voter-verifiable paper records with voting machines. The process of tamperi

by Tozen 4y ago

No system will ever be perfect, but it can be made harder to tamper with, like using voter-verifiable paper records with voting machines. The process of tampering can be made significantly to exponentially more difficult, if those in charge really want to safeguard democracy and fair elections. But part of the problem is, a significant number cares not for democracy nor fair elections, and simply want their person, group, or people to win and be in charge. Faulty and vulnerable systems are a way to get what they want.

LorenPechtel 4y ago
Yeah, I think electronic voting with voter-verified paper backups is the best we can do. That's what we use here--there's a long paper tape in the machine that your vote is printed on and you confirm it's right. Any attempt to mess with it would require tampering with both the machine and that long tape--can't splice in a part. And I don't think it's so much they want faulty systems, but rather that as usual with closed systems there simply is no incentive to do better.
- quantified 4y ago
  As long as the voter verifies what is on the tape. Otherwise, the voter and tape can have two different contents.
hakfoo 4y ago
What I don't get is the interest in complex tech products for complex tech products' sake. Any sort of "modern" voting device is going to have a higher barrier of entry. Even if you assume a completely non-adversarial environment, it's simply harder. How does your touchscreen machine work in a power outage? Will the minimally trained election staff bumble setup, causing long queues for the working machines? How much is the per-election cost of ownership, before it has to be replaced with a new model that doesn't run on WinXP? In my county, we use paper ballots with a "join the lines to select a candidate" model. The ballots can be scanned quickly to tally them-- the technology is basically a large-format version of the Scantron slips they've been using in schools for 40+ years. We had a comical "audit" which ended up blowing up in the instigators' face when even their chosen super-sketchy auditors couldn't find meaningful fraud. When this is the bar, what is the exact advantage being presented by these big ugly black-box voting machines? I never understood their appeal, especially to government bodies that are normally fairly risk-averse and perpetually underfunded. The other side of things is perceptual: the simpler and more tangible the system is, the easier it is for people to feel like they understand and trust it. This means any system-- whether it's the old lever machines or a touchscreen is always going to start at a disadvantage versus a manually-inscribed ballot.

by Tozen 4y ago

LorenPechtel 4y ago

Yeah, I think electronic voting with voter-verified paper backups is the best we can do. That's what we use here--there's a long paper tape in the machine that your vote is printed on and you confirm it's right. Any attempt to mess with it would require tampering with both the machine and that long tape--can't splice in a part. And I don't think it's so much they want faulty systems, but rather that as usual with closed systems there simply is no incentive to do better.

quantified 4y ago
As long as the voter verifies what is on the tape. Otherwise, the voter and tape can have two different contents.

hakfoo 4y ago

What I don't get is the interest in complex tech products for complex tech products' sake. Any sort of "modern" voting device is going to have a higher barrier of entry. Even if you assume a completely non-adversarial environment, it's simply harder. How does your touchscreen machine work in a power outage? Will the minimally trained election staff bumble setup, causing long queues for the working machines? How much is the per-election cost of ownership, before it has to be replaced with a new model that doesn't run on WinXP? In my county, we use paper ballots with a "join the lines to select a candidate" model. The ballots can be scanned quickly to tally them-- the technology is basically a large-format version of the Scantron slips they've been using in schools for 40+ years. We had a comical "audit" which ended up blowing up in the instigators' face when even their chosen super-sketchy auditors couldn't find meaningful fraud. When this is the bar, what is the exact advantage being presented by these big ugly black-box voting machines? I never understood their appeal, especially to government bodies that are normally fairly risk-averse and perpetually underfunded. The other side of things is perceptual: the simpler and more tangible the system is, the easier it is for people to feel like they understand and trust it. This means any system-- whether it's the old lever machines or a touchscreen is always going to start at a disadvantage versus a manually-inscribed ballot.