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> resistance to voter coercion and vote selling Thanks for mentioning that issue, it's something that I don't hear mentioned enough in online/distance voting d

by c7b 3y ago

> resistance to voter coercion and vote selling Thanks for mentioning that issue, it's something that I don't hear mentioned enough in online/distance voting debates (maybe it just means that I'm not involved enough, but anyway good to hear this mentioned). It's so critical and at the same time fairly orthogonal to all the encryption / zero-knowledge proofs / quantum resistance and other cool math that nerds love to nerd about.

amenghra 3y ago
note: there's e-voting where you go vote at a voting booth and enter your ballot in a machine (with the advantage that the votes can be tallied faster) and there's e-voting where you use your browser or an app on your phone to vote remotely. People tend to conflate these two things but they are quite different. Each one has their own set of problems/challenges. On top of the voting infrastructure itself, you also have to think about how to prevent people from being denied the right to vote, how to prevent issuing two votes, etc., etc. Voting infrastructure and logistics (whether electronic or not) can be very complex.
astrange 3y ago
There are downsides to being too against those things, because it'd ban at-home mail-in voting, and having that is worth a lot of downsides because it lets everyone actually look up what they're voting on. Not to mention, if everyone has to travel to vote, you're mostly going to get retirees and people with a lot of free time voting.
- idle76 3y ago
  Which is solvable by having enough voting stations spread out, and making voting day a national holiday or done on a sunday.
  - didntcheck 3y ago
    While I wouldn't object, it's not necessary. Voting in the UK is always on Thursdays IIRC, but there's lots of polling stations and they open early and close late. Queues are usually only a few minutes. However postal and proxy votes are still available
- pjc50 3y ago
  At-home mail-in voting is also where the biggest fraud risk is. One of the very rare UK electoral commission cases involved illegal registration and fraudulent postal ballots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlam_v_Rahman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlam_v_Rahman
- PeterisP 3y ago
  I do consider at-home mail-in voting as a bad risk - locally we have a solution that involves separate 'voting stations' (just as any other voting station, officials + observers from opposing parties monitoring) visiting the people who for various reasons are unable to come to vote, and collecting a secret ballot on-site from e.g. bed-ridden sick people; and special voting stations for people who can't leave - e.g. hospitals, prisons, army bases. Of course, that won't help if large numbers of people aren't coming to vote because e.g. the lines are too long or they have to work and can't get to vote, but then you should fix these problems directly. It is important that people are able to vote without being controlled by their family members or employers, so any unconstrained remote voting should be an exception that's minimized as much as possible.
  - snkline 3y ago
    Indeed. I supported the absentee voting push during the pandemic, but one thing a lot of my friends don't understand is my opposition to absentee voting being normalized going forward.
  - astrange 3y ago
    > Of course, that won't help if large numbers of people aren't coming to vote because e.g. the lines are too long or they have to work and can't get to vote, but then you should fix these problems directly. The issues are: 1. young people don't vote because they don't care, so it should help to make it easier for them. 2. once you're in the voting booth, it's too hard to remember who you decided to vote for when there's tens of choices and ballot props, like in California. Mail-in voting also helps prevent the issue of local governments trying to sneak stuff past the voters by having offseason elections for it. Machine politics has died off in most places, but it's still strong in New York for instance. If everyone gets a mail ballot they'll notice.

by c7b 3y ago

amenghra 3y ago

note: there's e-voting where you go vote at a voting booth and enter your ballot in a machine (with the advantage that the votes can be tallied faster) and there's e-voting where you use your browser or an app on your phone to vote remotely. People tend to conflate these two things but they are quite different. Each one has their own set of problems/challenges. On top of the voting infrastructure itself, you also have to think about how to prevent people from being denied the right to vote, how to prevent issuing two votes, etc., etc. Voting infrastructure and logistics (whether electronic or not) can be very complex.

astrange 3y ago

There are downsides to being too against those things, because it'd ban at-home mail-in voting, and having that is worth a lot of downsides because it lets everyone actually look up what they're voting on. Not to mention, if everyone has to travel to vote, you're mostly going to get retirees and people with a lot of free time voting.

idle76 3y ago
Which is solvable by having enough voting stations spread out, and making voting day a national holiday or done on a sunday.
- didntcheck 3y ago
  While I wouldn't object, it's not necessary. Voting in the UK is always on Thursdays IIRC, but there's lots of polling stations and they open early and close late. Queues are usually only a few minutes. However postal and proxy votes are still available
pjc50 3y ago
At-home mail-in voting is also where the biggest fraud risk is. One of the very rare UK electoral commission cases involved illegal registration and fraudulent postal ballots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlam_v_Rahman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlam_v_Rahman
PeterisP 3y ago
I do consider at-home mail-in voting as a bad risk - locally we have a solution that involves separate 'voting stations' (just as any other voting station, officials + observers from opposing parties monitoring) visiting the people who for various reasons are unable to come to vote, and collecting a secret ballot on-site from e.g. bed-ridden sick people; and special voting stations for people who can't leave - e.g. hospitals, prisons, army bases. Of course, that won't help if large numbers of people aren't coming to vote because e.g. the lines are too long or they have to work and can't get to vote, but then you should fix these problems directly. It is important that people are able to vote without being controlled by their family members or employers, so any unconstrained remote voting should be an exception that's minimized as much as possible.
- snkline 3y ago
  Indeed. I supported the absentee voting push during the pandemic, but one thing a lot of my friends don't understand is my opposition to absentee voting being normalized going forward.
- astrange 3y ago
  > Of course, that won't help if large numbers of people aren't coming to vote because e.g. the lines are too long or they have to work and can't get to vote, but then you should fix these problems directly. The issues are: 1. young people don't vote because they don't care, so it should help to make it easier for them. 2. once you're in the voting booth, it's too hard to remember who you decided to vote for when there's tens of choices and ballot props, like in California. Mail-in voting also helps prevent the issue of local governments trying to sneak stuff past the voters by having offseason elections for it. Machine politics has died off in most places, but it's still strong in New York for instance. If everyone gets a mail ballot they'll notice.