3 ms·

Not just those impressions, but those realities. The trust model for paper ballots and observed human counting is so superior to any proposed or implemented el

Not just those impressions, but those realities. The trust model for paper ballots and observed human counting is so superior to any proposed or implemented electronic voting that it's madness to downgrade to electronic.

b112 3y ago
I agree completely, but find that my argument is easier to explain to literally everyone, where as describing trust models is harder to explain to many, and invites debate from others.
gus_massa 3y ago
I prefer "mixed" > "paper" > "electronic", but a few year ago we had elections with only "paper" in our national soccer association: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_Football_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_Football_Association > With 75 presidents of different Argentine clubs voting, on election day something went wrong when the final count resulted in a draw of 38 to 38 (76 votes in total). The explanation given was that one of the electors put a double vote and that mistake was not reported. As a result, the executive committee decided to postpone the election.
- b112 3y ago
  As with anything, paper voting must be done correctly. There are literally hundreds of years of tweaking, bugfixing if you will, of process and method around paper voting. Proper paper voting cannot be gamed by ballot stuffing. Voting paper has serial numbers, is guarded like a currency during creation, and like currency during transfer, has checks and bounds at both ends, is counted by representatives of all parties, the list is endless. For example in Canada you vote, fold the form shut from prying eyes, take it to the lady with the ballot box (usually a retired person), and she detaches the two parts of the card, one she keeps, the other you deposit into the sealed ballot box under her watchful eye. There is no chance to stuff anything extra, again members of all political parties are present, and any trickery is made doubly difficult by unknown serial number ranges at the voting station. A serial number you are assigned when your voting card is taken off of the randomized stack. I assure you any "but... what about..." has been thought of, and any security hole you perceive is likely just me missing facts.
  - gus_massa 3y ago
    Here the ballots are printed in normal paper. Each party prints their own, and the goverment send them to the polling stations. But other parties may steal the ballots from the voting booth, so each party must print additional ballots to replace them, just in case. There is a plan to make a single ballot printed by the goverment, but the local county chiefs don't like it becuase it avoids a lot of dirty tricks. (The elections are quite fair anyway. The petty cheating just changes very little globaly. I don't agree with cheating, but I can't fix it.) Some parties distribute their ballot before the election to avoid the missing ballots problem. Some local county chief ever distribute their own local ballot with the national ballot of the opposing party if people want to vote a combination. Some people distribute old ballots to that are invalid to void the votes of confused persons of the other party. In some places, the rabbit hole is deeper than you think.
    - b112 3y ago
      I don't know what to say, exceptn such rampant fraud and miscreantic activity is the problem. And that has nothing to do with paper ballots. Here, you'd end up in jail for those things, and trickery wouldn't get you out of it. And you'd get caught too, because members of your own party would turn you in.
      - gus_massa 3y ago
        Sadly, I have a higher threshold for "rampant".
- mulmen 3y ago
  No design is resistant to incompetent implementation.
  - gus_massa 3y ago
    I'm not sure what happened, they never released an official explanation. (It may have been just cheating, but my conspiracy theory is that it may have been a truce between the two factions to get a few more days to negociate.)

b112 3y ago

I agree completely, but find that my argument is easier to explain to literally everyone, where as describing trust models is harder to explain to many, and invites debate from others.

gus_massa 3y ago

I prefer "mixed" > "paper" > "electronic", but a few year ago we had elections with only "paper" in our national soccer association: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_Football_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_Football_Association > With 75 presidents of different Argentine clubs voting, on election day something went wrong when the final count resulted in a draw of 38 to 38 (76 votes in total). The explanation given was that one of the electors put a double vote and that mistake was not reported. As a result, the executive committee decided to postpone the election.

b112 3y ago
As with anything, paper voting must be done correctly. There are literally hundreds of years of tweaking, bugfixing if you will, of process and method around paper voting. Proper paper voting cannot be gamed by ballot stuffing. Voting paper has serial numbers, is guarded like a currency during creation, and like currency during transfer, has checks and bounds at both ends, is counted by representatives of all parties, the list is endless. For example in Canada you vote, fold the form shut from prying eyes, take it to the lady with the ballot box (usually a retired person), and she detaches the two parts of the card, one she keeps, the other you deposit into the sealed ballot box under her watchful eye. There is no chance to stuff anything extra, again members of all political parties are present, and any trickery is made doubly difficult by unknown serial number ranges at the voting station. A serial number you are assigned when your voting card is taken off of the randomized stack. I assure you any "but... what about..." has been thought of, and any security hole you perceive is likely just me missing facts.
- gus_massa 3y ago
  Here the ballots are printed in normal paper. Each party prints their own, and the goverment send them to the polling stations. But other parties may steal the ballots from the voting booth, so each party must print additional ballots to replace them, just in case. There is a plan to make a single ballot printed by the goverment, but the local county chiefs don't like it becuase it avoids a lot of dirty tricks. (The elections are quite fair anyway. The petty cheating just changes very little globaly. I don't agree with cheating, but I can't fix it.) Some parties distribute their ballot before the election to avoid the missing ballots problem. Some local county chief ever distribute their own local ballot with the national ballot of the opposing party if people want to vote a combination. Some people distribute old ballots to that are invalid to void the votes of confused persons of the other party. In some places, the rabbit hole is deeper than you think.
  - b112 3y ago
    I don't know what to say, exceptn such rampant fraud and miscreantic activity is the problem. And that has nothing to do with paper ballots. Here, you'd end up in jail for those things, and trickery wouldn't get you out of it. And you'd get caught too, because members of your own party would turn you in.
    - gus_massa 3y ago
      Sadly, I have a higher threshold for "rampant".
mulmen 3y ago
No design is resistant to incompetent implementation.
- gus_massa 3y ago
  I'm not sure what happened, they never released an official explanation. (It may have been just cheating, but my conspiracy theory is that it may have been a truce between the two factions to get a few more days to negociate.)