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eVoting cannot be understood and audited by normal citizens, not even by nerdy ones. It's just good for the trash.
by zoobab 7mo ago
eVoting cannot be understood and audited by normal citizens, not even by nerdy ones. It's just good for the trash.
- palata 7mo agoAlso e-voting can be hacked (I guess they vote from their computer/smartphone, which can be hacked from the other side of the world). The last place you want to care about phishing, IMO, is voting. Good luck hacking in-person voting or even "physical" mail voting from the other side of the world.
- phoronixrly 7mo agoRegular ballot voting can also be hacked and on a scale. Making ballots invalid while counting them, or modifying them in some form or other, intentionally writing wrong values in the counting protocols... And of course controlled vote or paid vote... E-voting can and has also led to exposing voting fraud -- see Venezuella.
- another-dave 7mo agobut it's done in public where anyone observing the count can see that the people counting don't have any pencils etc in their hand
- tribaal 7mo agoExactly - it's done in public, and not centrally. Any citizen can go and check how it's done in their own Geminde.
- palata 7mo agoYeah but it cannot be hacked from the other side of the world. I think it's a different kind of threat. If an attacker from somewhere else in the world want to tamper with their votes, they have to get Swiss people to modify the ballots, or get their agent to learn Swiss-German, good luck with that :D.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- atoav 7mo agoIt is not even about understanding. It is about how easy it is to distrust it. Contrary to what nerds think, the goal of elections isn't to get bulletproof results by mathematical standards. The goal is to create agreeable consent among those who voted. A good election system is one where even sworn enemies can begrudgingly agree on the result. A paper ballot system has the advantage that it can be monitored by any group that has members which have mastered the skill of object permanence and don't lie. That is not everybody, but it is much better than any hypothetical digital system
- phoronixrly 7mo agoHow about a machine voting system with paper fallback. You as a voter can review the paper protocol from your vote. If there is distrust, the justice system can review the paper trail as well.
- rwmj 7mo agoI don't understand the reason for electronic voting. The UK manages to tally up paper votes overnight, even from far-flung Scottish islands. Electronic voting is literally solving a problem that nobody has.
- 85392_school 7mo agoThe UK is the world's 22nd most populated and 78th largest country.
- rwmj 7mo agoUK population density (people/sq km) is 289 and Switzerland's is 228, so not very different. Plus Switzerland is fully connected, there are no remote islands. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by...
- themafia 7mo agoSo more populated countries have more potential poll workers to choose from. Isn't this a linear relationship? What does size have to do with anything?
- phoronixrly 7mo agoThe ballot voting process is also misunderstood by regular citizens, even nerdy ones. From experience, even by voting officials.
- tribaal 7mo agoAs a Swiss citizen I strongly disagree. Most people capable of reading and basic maths (addition!) can understand the counting of our paper ballots. My kids understand how this works since they are like 5. Any citizen can go and check how votes are counted in their Geminde. Any citizen can check what is reported in the federal tally. I did several times. It's not rocket science.
- 1718627440 7mo ago> basic maths (addition!) Technically you don't even need that, you just need to be able to count, i.e. find the successor to a given number.
- brainwad 7mo agoThe rules for deciding the winners in proportional parliamentary elections are quite a bit more complex than that...
- 1718627440 7mo agoTrue.