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Voting is not a monolithic process. It's actually a combination of 3 things: - How votes are cast - How votes are counted - How votes are custodied In order
by elbasti 8mo ago
Voting is not a monolithic process. It's actually a combination of 3 things:
- How votes are cast
- How votes are counted
- How votes are custodied
In order for an election to be trusted, all three steps must be transparent and auditable.
Electronic voting makes all three steps almost absolutely opaque.
Here's how Mexico solves this. We may have many problems, but "people trust the vote count" is not one of them:
1. Everyone votes, on paper, in their local polling station. The polling station is manned by volunteers from the neighborhood, and all political parties have an observer at the station.
2. Once the polling station closes, votes are counted in the station, by the neighborhood volunteers, and the counts are observed by the political party observers.
3. Vote counts are then sent electronically to a central system. They are also written on paper and the paper is displayed outside the poll both for a week.
The central system does the total count, but the results from each poll station are downloadable (to verify that the net count matches), and every poll station's results are queryable (so any voter can compare the vote counts displayed on paper outside the station to the online results).
Because the counting is distributed, results are available night-of in most cases.
Elections like this can be gamed, but the gaming becomes an exercise in coercing people to vote counter to their preference, not "hacking" the system.
**
Edit: Some people are confused about what I mean by "coerced." Coerced in this case means "forced to vote in some way."
The typical way this is done is as follows:
- The "coercer" obtains a blank ballot (for example, by entering the ballot box and hiding the ballot away).
- The blank ballot is then filled out in some way outside the poll station.
- A person is given the pre-filled ballot and threatened to cast it, which they will prove by returning a blank ballot.
- Rinse and repeat.
This mode of cheating is called the "revolving door" for obvious reasons.
- nonethewiser 8mo ago>Elections like this can be gamed, but the gaming becomes an exercise in coercing people to vote counter to their preference, not "hacking" the system. If that's gaming the system, what even is the point of voting?
- idiotsecant 8mo agoAre you suggesting that voting is pointless because some people can be convinced to vote for stupid things?
- ggggffggggg 8mo agoI think the point is that’s not “gaming” that’s just how voting works. Gaming would be getting your preference by voting against it.
- capitanazo77 8mo agoYeah. The weakness in any democracy are “populist” Robin Hood politicians.
- __MatrixMan__ 8mo agoPeople can be taught to recognize when they're being duped. This may be a bit tinfoil hatty of me, but I think the whole anti-woke thing is a ploy to interfere with that kind of education.
- hackyhacky 8mo ago> If that's gaming the system, what even is the point of voting? Good point. Let's just get rid of voting and go back to "divine right of kings", at least until they develop a cure for human gullibility.
- elbasti 8mo agoThe key word is coereced (as in, forced, not convinced).
- nonethewiser 8mo agoOK, I accept that distinction. I interpreted it more as "they were shown what I consider to be disinformation and found it convincing."
- hintymad 8mo agoWhat I failed to understand is why only in the US the voting procedure is so controversial. Want paper vote? That's racism. Want counting in a day? That's xenophobia. Want to limit certain time window for counting? That's definitely racism. It's funny that the US criticized that EU countries were getting less democratic. Well, at least those countries have a much more sane voting process.
- drBonkers 8mo agoThese objections to secure voting always smell the same as “privacy and encryption bad, must protect children!”
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- popalchemist 8mo agoAre you American? Are you white? There are historical factors that contribute to those things you brought up. American minorities are disproportionately affected by things like limited hours, for example. You'd know that if you were an American POC.
- pxc 8mo agoGP has also taken these issues and personalized them. They're about impact and access, not whether the person raising the idea is racist or a xenophobe or whatever.
- blharr 8mo agoI don't understand the critique. Nobody has ever made these claims. I don't mean this as an ad hominem, but was this comment generated with AI or something?
- elbasti 8mo agoYou'll find those claims in sibling comments to yours, so they are clearly pretty real! (At the time of writing this comment there's a sibling claiming that the comment cannot possibly understand this POV because they are not "an American POC.")
- cogman10 8mo agoHow we do it in Idaho, which I think is pretty much the ideal level. 1. Everyone votes on paper. 2. An electronic tallying machine tallies the vote. 3. Vote counts are sent to a central system, IDK if it's electronic or not. 4. Candidates can challenge and start a hand recount at anytime. I think this combo is pretty close to the ideal. The actual ballots are easy to audit. Discrepancies can be challenged. And the machine doing the tallying isn't connected to the internet, it's just a counting tool that gets the job done fast. For people with disabilities, poll workers can come in and help with the vote.
- nwellinghoff 8mo agoYou can achieve the same thing with electronic voting. Just because its electronic does not mean you do away with the “layers”
- LelouBil 8mo agoThat's pretty much the same in France
- derektank 8mo agoIf you’re willing to do away with the secret ballot, you can eliminate a lot of the need for transparency in the mechanics. If people are able to check their own vote for discrepancies and speak to others to confirm their validity, you only really need to confirm that the final vote count is tabulated correctly (which again, is relatively easy to independently verify).
- hackyhacky 8mo ago> If you’re willing to do away with the secret ballot We're not willing to do that. No modern democracy has public ballots. The reason is simple: secret ballots make it effectively impossible to buy votes, as there's no way to prove how any person actually voted.
- beached_whale 8mo agoNot just buy vote, coerce votes
- derektank 8mo agoI would simply say speak for yourself. You’re making a choice between making it impossible to buy votes and impossible to verify votes. Both come with tradeoffs that can be mitigated, whether that be investigating and prosecuting attempts at bribery in one case or maintaining a strict chain of custody in the other. The decision ultimately comes down to a judgement call on regarding your priorities. I don’t think eliminating the secret ballot should be dismissed out of hand, given most voting was conducted without it prior to the late 19th century.