7 ms·

No matter how open the code is. It is extremly hard, if not impossible, to ensure this code is running on the actual systems. E-voting sounds intersting in the

No matter how open the code is. It is extremly hard, if not impossible, to ensure this code is running on the actual systems. E-voting sounds intersting in theory, but in practice it is basically not worth the trouble. It is way more complex than a regular system with ballots and the only gain is that the results can be published sooner.

relix 13y ago
I don't agree with that last sentence though. It's not more complex because you don't need to spread booths all around the country, get volunteers to sit a whole day at the booths, secure the ballots, count the ballots, recount the ballots, etc... It takes a lot of logistics to do papervoting and it's probably more expensive too, compared to a centralized datacenter. They probably still have booths for people without computers, but they surely need less. Also, if voting is not compulsory, there's a lot less friction to actually go vote from the comfort of your home, whenever you want, than there is to get to a booth and stand in a queue on voting day, it would surely result in a higher turnout.
- DanBC 13y ago
  The UK has had problems with fathers using the votes of everyone in their family via postal voting. I'd be interested to see if electronic voting fixes that, or makes it worse.
  - relix 13y ago
    It fixes it somewhat, depending how far the person will go to claim those votes: iirc you get a week to vote, and the last vote you make counts. So even though your father might stand next to you and watch as you vote for his candidate, you can always recast your vote later. This doesn't solve the problem in case the person keeps an eye on you from the time you voted until the deadline, or steals your ID card until after the deadline.
    - Already__Taken 13y ago
      You can build in some tolerances of this to the system like you say cast vote at any time however surely at some point these people must call the police about their situation. Technology can't fix this issue it can only kid of accomodate it.
  - lazyjones 13y ago
    Austria allegedly has a problem with nursing homes getting many (mail) votes for the parties who have political influence on staff decisions. I can imagine that there are similar problems everywhere, but electronic votes might cause much bigger issues because it's too easy for ruling parties to manipulate the central systems where votes are stores/counted (they were planned to be deployed in the interior ministry here, the one held by Ernst Strasser [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Strasser#2011_cash_for_influence_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Strasser#2011_cash_for_i...] for 4 years).
ProblemFactory 13y ago
The main gain is that people can vote from home, from abroad, or from work. Which increases turnout (especially among young and busy people). However, I'm not sure if the risks are worth that convenience.
halviti 13y ago
(1) Even the simplest paper ballots are already counted by computer (central tabulators). Central tabulators that run on insecure computers and do all of their math using the most rudimentary microsoft access databases (no password protection, little user control, remote access via dial-up modem). (2) Slot machines are already protecting millions upon millions of dollars from countless people who would love to be able to modify those machines' behavior. (3) A backup-paper trail would reduce error and allow for recounts. You vote, a receipt gets printed, you confirm that the printed paper represents your vote, and you're done. (The paper stays with the election commission)
- josephlord 13y ago
  1) Maybe in some jurisdictions but not in others. For the most part in the UK we have rooms of people counting and bundling papers. 2) Yes but the people who control those machines don't want to modify them (they want some winners for publicity but mostly losers and they are preconfigured for profit without modification). 3) If the receipt indicates your vote this opens the voter to bribery or coercion. If it doesn't how does it confirm that you vote was correctly recorded. Even if it does indicate your vote it is still non-trivial to confirm the validity of the election from it. You basically need to publish all the votes (with receipt numbers) and anyone whose vote doesn't match their receipt could flag it as rigged. This doesn't do anything to prevent digital ballot stuffing though.
- vidarh 13y ago
  > (2) Slot machines are already protecting millions upon millions of dollars from countless people who would love to be able to modify those machines' behavior. There difference is motivation. If a slot machine pays out too much, the company that makes them won't get any more business. If a voting machine favours certain candidates, those candidates benefit from letting that continue (if they weren't instigating it to begin with) and often they might have been the ones in power when they voting machines in question where chosen. > (3) A backup-paper trail would reduce error and allow for recounts. You vote, a receipt gets printed, you confirm that the printed paper represents your vote, and you're done. (The paper stays with the election commission) This I agree with, and it would satisfy most concerns with electronic voting if you combined it with paper recounts of some random districts and, say, and districts with small margins or unusually large shifts. Focusing all that much on the security of the voting machines is a sideshow, IMHO. You need some level of security, but pretty much any security mechanism you introduce will be inferior to recounts based on receipts collected using tried and true methods of paper, sealed boxes and independent observers. Focusing on a solid recount solution that includes rules for when to trigger automatic manual paper recounts won't just catch malevolent interference with machines but also reduce the chance of problems due to bugs, hardware and software failures and all kinds of other problems. But of course it'll cost more than switching to a purely electronic system, and that extra money won't go in vendors pockets.
oneandoneis2 13y ago
Actually, E-voting could revolutionalize politics. Right now, we have to have presidents, prime ministers, even kings; making all the big decisions for us because that was the only practical way. E-voting makes it possible for the population to be consulted on any major decision. This, IMHO, is the reason it's so unpopular amongst politicians. Right now in the UK, for instance, MPs get to vote on their own salary increases. Wouldn't it be nice if they were obliged to ask the voters instead? Recent years have seen several unpopular wars begun by Western countries - if political leaders had been unable to start those wars unless they'd had majority approval from their populace, the world might well be a more peaceful place right now. E-voting is something with a lot of promise. But if diminishes the power of the people who would have to implement it. So don't expect to see it widespread any time soon.
- orf 13y ago
  Consulting everyone on every major decision isn't the best way to make decisions (who says the majority is right?). Most people wouldn't understand the issues they are voting on and would be heavily swayed by the media.
  - xyzzy123 13y ago
    Agreed. There are interesting intermediate forms of representative democracy though. Most forms of voting are actually delegation and it would be nice to be able to do that in a more nuanced way than "kick the bums out, and empower other bums with basically the exact same views"
  - yaddayadda 13y ago
    Once there is an easy online system in place then alternatives to an all or nothing vote could be established. For example, you may vote for a representative every X years and this representative would vote for you when you opted not to. Over the course of X years there are hundreds of votes, but you are passionate about 20 of them. You could directly cast a vote on those 20 issues, but your representative would cast votes, as a proxy, for the rest of the issues.

relix 13y ago

I don't agree with that last sentence though. It's not more complex because you don't need to spread booths all around the country, get volunteers to sit a whole day at the booths, secure the ballots, count the ballots, recount the ballots, etc... It takes a lot of logistics to do papervoting and it's probably more expensive too, compared to a centralized datacenter. They probably still have booths for people without computers, but they surely need less. Also, if voting is not compulsory, there's a lot less friction to actually go vote from the comfort of your home, whenever you want, than there is to get to a booth and stand in a queue on voting day, it would surely result in a higher turnout.

DanBC 13y ago
The UK has had problems with fathers using the votes of everyone in their family via postal voting. I'd be interested to see if electronic voting fixes that, or makes it worse.
- relix 13y ago
  It fixes it somewhat, depending how far the person will go to claim those votes: iirc you get a week to vote, and the last vote you make counts. So even though your father might stand next to you and watch as you vote for his candidate, you can always recast your vote later. This doesn't solve the problem in case the person keeps an eye on you from the time you voted until the deadline, or steals your ID card until after the deadline.
  - Already__Taken 13y ago
    You can build in some tolerances of this to the system like you say cast vote at any time however surely at some point these people must call the police about their situation. Technology can't fix this issue it can only kid of accomodate it.
- lazyjones 13y ago
  Austria allegedly has a problem with nursing homes getting many (mail) votes for the parties who have political influence on staff decisions. I can imagine that there are similar problems everywhere, but electronic votes might cause much bigger issues because it's too easy for ruling parties to manipulate the central systems where votes are stores/counted (they were planned to be deployed in the interior ministry here, the one held by Ernst Strasser [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Strasser#2011_cash_for_influence_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Strasser#2011_cash_for_i...] for 4 years).

ProblemFactory 13y ago

The main gain is that people can vote from home, from abroad, or from work. Which increases turnout (especially among young and busy people). However, I'm not sure if the risks are worth that convenience.

halviti 13y ago

(1) Even the simplest paper ballots are already counted by computer (central tabulators). Central tabulators that run on insecure computers and do all of their math using the most rudimentary microsoft access databases (no password protection, little user control, remote access via dial-up modem). (2) Slot machines are already protecting millions upon millions of dollars from countless people who would love to be able to modify those machines' behavior. (3) A backup-paper trail would reduce error and allow for recounts. You vote, a receipt gets printed, you confirm that the printed paper represents your vote, and you're done. (The paper stays with the election commission)

josephlord 13y ago
1) Maybe in some jurisdictions but not in others. For the most part in the UK we have rooms of people counting and bundling papers. 2) Yes but the people who control those machines don't want to modify them (they want some winners for publicity but mostly losers and they are preconfigured for profit without modification). 3) If the receipt indicates your vote this opens the voter to bribery or coercion. If it doesn't how does it confirm that you vote was correctly recorded. Even if it does indicate your vote it is still non-trivial to confirm the validity of the election from it. You basically need to publish all the votes (with receipt numbers) and anyone whose vote doesn't match their receipt could flag it as rigged. This doesn't do anything to prevent digital ballot stuffing though.
vidarh 13y ago
> (2) Slot machines are already protecting millions upon millions of dollars from countless people who would love to be able to modify those machines' behavior. There difference is motivation. If a slot machine pays out too much, the company that makes them won't get any more business. If a voting machine favours certain candidates, those candidates benefit from letting that continue (if they weren't instigating it to begin with) and often they might have been the ones in power when they voting machines in question where chosen. > (3) A backup-paper trail would reduce error and allow for recounts. You vote, a receipt gets printed, you confirm that the printed paper represents your vote, and you're done. (The paper stays with the election commission) This I agree with, and it would satisfy most concerns with electronic voting if you combined it with paper recounts of some random districts and, say, and districts with small margins or unusually large shifts. Focusing all that much on the security of the voting machines is a sideshow, IMHO. You need some level of security, but pretty much any security mechanism you introduce will be inferior to recounts based on receipts collected using tried and true methods of paper, sealed boxes and independent observers. Focusing on a solid recount solution that includes rules for when to trigger automatic manual paper recounts won't just catch malevolent interference with machines but also reduce the chance of problems due to bugs, hardware and software failures and all kinds of other problems. But of course it'll cost more than switching to a purely electronic system, and that extra money won't go in vendors pockets.

oneandoneis2 13y ago

Actually, E-voting could revolutionalize politics. Right now, we have to have presidents, prime ministers, even kings; making all the big decisions for us because that was the only practical way. E-voting makes it possible for the population to be consulted on any major decision. This, IMHO, is the reason it's so unpopular amongst politicians. Right now in the UK, for instance, MPs get to vote on their own salary increases. Wouldn't it be nice if they were obliged to ask the voters instead? Recent years have seen several unpopular wars begun by Western countries - if political leaders had been unable to start those wars unless they'd had majority approval from their populace, the world might well be a more peaceful place right now. E-voting is something with a lot of promise. But if diminishes the power of the people who would have to implement it. So don't expect to see it widespread any time soon.

orf 13y ago
Consulting everyone on every major decision isn't the best way to make decisions (who says the majority is right?). Most people wouldn't understand the issues they are voting on and would be heavily swayed by the media.
- xyzzy123 13y ago
  Agreed. There are interesting intermediate forms of representative democracy though. Most forms of voting are actually delegation and it would be nice to be able to do that in a more nuanced way than "kick the bums out, and empower other bums with basically the exact same views"
- yaddayadda 13y ago
  Once there is an easy online system in place then alternatives to an all or nothing vote could be established. For example, you may vote for a representative every X years and this representative would vote for you when you opted not to. Over the course of X years there are hundreds of votes, but you are passionate about 20 of them. You could directly cast a vote on those 20 issues, but your representative would cast votes, as a proxy, for the rest of the issues.