4 ms·

Let's also stop using electronic techonology for banking and do it manually because it's harder to commit actions at scale with physical bank notes. This is a

Let's also stop using electronic techonology for banking and do it manually because it's harder to commit actions at scale with physical bank notes. This is a non sequitur, if we use it for banking (which is much more critical than voting), why is it a problem if we use electronic technology for voting? Estonia has it and it's working well so far. Brazil has a complete different system and it's much more auditable and less prone to manipulation and vote output alteration from human error. Edit: conclusion of the article is "lets switch back to paper because this system uses the internet". well, do you know that you can still have a 100% electronic voting system that - brace yourselves - don't use the internet? Take a look at Brazil's electronic ballots for example. They aren't connected to the internet at all, everything is stored locally on a memory card that is collected by the authorities at the end of the voting period, then sent to Brasilia for counting at a special room where the machines that read the cards don't have access to the internet.

iinnPP 3y ago
When politicians can clean out your bank account for protesting, or simply sending money to a protest fundraiser, your vote matters more. Canada.
dns_snek 3y ago
> if we use it for banking (which is much more critical than voting), why is it a problem if we use electronic technology for voting? If a bank makes a significant mistake, the average person WILL notice and the bank can resolve it through extensive audit logs and other records. This isn't the case with voting where any audit logs are purposefully anonymized. The average person can't identify electronic voting fraud or even honest mistakes/bugs while anyone can be present during ballot counts, re-counts and add up the numbers as long as they have a calculator. A process as fundamental as voting should be completely transparent, simple to understand for the average person and shouldn't require blind trust in "experts" and institutions.
the_snooze 3y ago
>This is a non sequitur, if we use it for banking (which is much more critical than voting), why is it a problem if we use electronic technology for voting? Banking as a use-case is far more fault-tolerant than elections. Bad transactions can be reversed and redone. You can insure transactions, and all parties involved have visibility into the amounts, senders, and recipients. Elections are one-off events involving secret ballots. You can't have a do-over without throwing the whole system into question. You can't take out insurance for elections.
almatabata 3y ago
When you replace an existing technology you have to ask yourself the question what do i gain by replacing it and what do i lose? In this case if you go with these voting machines you lose the ease of auditing in my opinion. Usually in democracies parties can send out representatives to each voting area so they can check that the process gets followed. But if you stand next to the machine you do not know if it does the job properly. This lack of easy transparency means that people will never trust it. Not matter how much cryptography and security you put in it, people will never ever trust this output because of the endless ways it can go wrong without anyone ever knowing.

iinnPP 3y ago

When politicians can clean out your bank account for protesting, or simply sending money to a protest fundraiser, your vote matters more. Canada.

dns_snek 3y ago

> if we use it for banking (which is much more critical than voting), why is it a problem if we use electronic technology for voting? If a bank makes a significant mistake, the average person WILL notice and the bank can resolve it through extensive audit logs and other records. This isn't the case with voting where any audit logs are purposefully anonymized. The average person can't identify electronic voting fraud or even honest mistakes/bugs while anyone can be present during ballot counts, re-counts and add up the numbers as long as they have a calculator. A process as fundamental as voting should be completely transparent, simple to understand for the average person and shouldn't require blind trust in "experts" and institutions.

the_snooze 3y ago

>This is a non sequitur, if we use it for banking (which is much more critical than voting), why is it a problem if we use electronic technology for voting? Banking as a use-case is far more fault-tolerant than elections. Bad transactions can be reversed and redone. You can insure transactions, and all parties involved have visibility into the amounts, senders, and recipients. Elections are one-off events involving secret ballots. You can't have a do-over without throwing the whole system into question. You can't take out insurance for elections.

almatabata 3y ago

When you replace an existing technology you have to ask yourself the question what do i gain by replacing it and what do i lose? In this case if you go with these voting machines you lose the ease of auditing in my opinion. Usually in democracies parties can send out representatives to each voting area so they can check that the process gets followed. But if you stand next to the machine you do not know if it does the job properly. This lack of easy transparency means that people will never trust it. Not matter how much cryptography and security you put in it, people will never ever trust this output because of the endless ways it can go wrong without anyone ever knowing.