3 ms·

The real issue here is not if voting machines are the perfect solution, it is about what is the better solution. And if anyone knows voter fraud in Brazil, thes

The real issue here is not if voting machines are the perfect solution, it is about what is the better solution. And if anyone knows voter fraud in Brazil, these machines are a lot better than the manual system. At least it demands the people committing the fraud to be a lot smarter than they used to be in manual counting.

a1a 13y ago
I have no knowledge what so ever about voter fraud in Brazil, but I am pretty certain it cannot be worse than using voting machines (See: http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/voting/SealsOnVotingMachines.pdf http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/voting/SealsOnVotingMachi...). I think there is many things in this world that "needs a chip", voting is however not one of them.
- diego_moita 13y ago
  This is the 3rd world, things work different in here, this is a 180 million people country with mandatory vote. Before voting machines elections would take almost a month to have their results computed. During all this time the ballots were subject to be stolen, inflated or replaced. This was very common in Brazil up until the late 80's. Stories like this are much more uncommon today.
  - a-priori 13y ago
    In Canada, we do elections by paper ballot. Yet, somehow, preliminary results are available on election election. That's when the winners are known for virtually every riding and therefore the prime minister is known as well. The final, validated results are available seven days later. I believe that Elections Canada is legally obliged to fulfill that seven day deadline: no more, no less. Mind you, we have a population of 35 million people. But the size of the population doesn't matter: vote counting is an embarrassingly parallel problem. The only explanation for election results taking a month is corruption, plain and simple. And voting machines will not solve that. Election fraud is a human problem and requires a human solution, not a technological one. If a nation cannot properly administer their own elections, then the people should insist that a third party (e.g. the UN) monitor them.
  - dserodio 13y ago
    Yeah, but the stories may be much more uncommon not because it's safer, but because electronic fraud is much easier to conceal then physical fraud.
  - jeltz 13y ago
    If you allow people a month to count the votes anything could happen to them. In Sweden we count them in a couple of hours to get a preliminary result and then count them again the next day to get a final result. The Swedish votes do not pass through many hands before being counted and always during the counting there are plenty of eyes watching them. The exception in Sweden is pre-election day votes which quite easily could quite easily be tampered with if we were more corrupt. The only reason I can see why counting the votes could take a month is to make it easier to rig the election. There is no technical reason for it.
jeltz 13y ago
What kind of fraud was committed with the manual counting? Here in Sweden I would be more worried about electronic voting than the current manual counting, but social pressures vary across cultures. EDIT: There have been both allegations and convictions of election fraud in Sweden, but never anything related to the counting of votes.
- diego_moita 13y ago
  > What kind of fraud was committed with the manual counting? Here in Sweden Trust me, your country is very different from the rest of the world and I mean that in a good sense (such as a parameter of good governance). This a country with more than 180 million people and mandatory vote, elections here are massive. Every time someone touches a vote there is a chance for it to be defrauded or replaced. In the past, stories of lost and inflated ballots and replaced votes where trivial. Because a lot of the voters are poor another trick was to give to the voter an already marked vote and demand the original valid one back so the candidate could buy a vote in a election.
  - jeltz 13y ago
    I still wonder if most of these problems could not be fixed by changing the manual system. > Because a lot of the voters are poor another trick was to give to the voter an already marked vote and demand the original valid one back so the candidate could buy a vote in a election. For example wouldn't it be trivial to make this impossible? Simply make sure people can get more than one paper and there would be no original vote that could be used as proof. They would have to have a guy standing there watching you which would work with voting machines too.

a1a 13y ago

I have no knowledge what so ever about voter fraud in Brazil, but I am pretty certain it cannot be worse than using voting machines (See: http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/voting/SealsOnVotingMachines.pdf http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/voting/SealsOnVotingMachi...). I think there is many things in this world that "needs a chip", voting is however not one of them.

diego_moita 13y ago
This is the 3rd world, things work different in here, this is a 180 million people country with mandatory vote. Before voting machines elections would take almost a month to have their results computed. During all this time the ballots were subject to be stolen, inflated or replaced. This was very common in Brazil up until the late 80's. Stories like this are much more uncommon today.
- a-priori 13y ago
  In Canada, we do elections by paper ballot. Yet, somehow, preliminary results are available on election election. That's when the winners are known for virtually every riding and therefore the prime minister is known as well. The final, validated results are available seven days later. I believe that Elections Canada is legally obliged to fulfill that seven day deadline: no more, no less. Mind you, we have a population of 35 million people. But the size of the population doesn't matter: vote counting is an embarrassingly parallel problem. The only explanation for election results taking a month is corruption, plain and simple. And voting machines will not solve that. Election fraud is a human problem and requires a human solution, not a technological one. If a nation cannot properly administer their own elections, then the people should insist that a third party (e.g. the UN) monitor them.
- dserodio 13y ago
  Yeah, but the stories may be much more uncommon not because it's safer, but because electronic fraud is much easier to conceal then physical fraud.
- jeltz 13y ago
  If you allow people a month to count the votes anything could happen to them. In Sweden we count them in a couple of hours to get a preliminary result and then count them again the next day to get a final result. The Swedish votes do not pass through many hands before being counted and always during the counting there are plenty of eyes watching them. The exception in Sweden is pre-election day votes which quite easily could quite easily be tampered with if we were more corrupt. The only reason I can see why counting the votes could take a month is to make it easier to rig the election. There is no technical reason for it.

jeltz 13y ago

What kind of fraud was committed with the manual counting? Here in Sweden I would be more worried about electronic voting than the current manual counting, but social pressures vary across cultures. EDIT: There have been both allegations and convictions of election fraud in Sweden, but never anything related to the counting of votes.

diego_moita 13y ago
> What kind of fraud was committed with the manual counting? Here in Sweden Trust me, your country is very different from the rest of the world and I mean that in a good sense (such as a parameter of good governance). This a country with more than 180 million people and mandatory vote, elections here are massive. Every time someone touches a vote there is a chance for it to be defrauded or replaced. In the past, stories of lost and inflated ballots and replaced votes where trivial. Because a lot of the voters are poor another trick was to give to the voter an already marked vote and demand the original valid one back so the candidate could buy a vote in a election.
- jeltz 13y ago
  I still wonder if most of these problems could not be fixed by changing the manual system. > Because a lot of the voters are poor another trick was to give to the voter an already marked vote and demand the original valid one back so the candidate could buy a vote in a election. For example wouldn't it be trivial to make this impossible? Simply make sure people can get more than one paper and there would be no original vote that could be used as proof. They would have to have a guy standing there watching you which would work with voting machines too.