There is absolutely no need to have electronic voting machines. Votes happen months before one needs to take office. Counting of paper ballots is an easy and solved problem. No need to try to optimize speed of counting for elections. It's not a big enough issue. Paper ballots are also decentralized and thus, much harder to manipulate.<p>The downside risk of electronic voting is very high. It invariably leads to centralization, meaning allows risk of amplified manipulation in presence of hacks.<p>"Why can we have electronic banking, but not electronic voting, vowelless?”<p>For one, elections cannot be insured like your bank transactions can. Loosing money can be devastating, but the Republican system with democratic voting is much more important than the banking system.
Can Americans explain why voter ID is seen to be disenfranchising or sometimes inarticulately simplified as "racist"?<p>Voter ID is mandatory in so many parts of the world. What are the rest of us missing?<p>Edit: Not that it matters, but I live in India, so "poor people can't get ID" confuses me even further.
After the Bush vs. Gore election problems in 2000, I recall a paper here on HN of a study of different voting mechanisms. I think it was an MIT study - if anybody knows the paper, please post.<p>Anyway the conclusion was that all systems have some non-zero error rate, but the most reliable was paper ballots with optical readers. Ability to audit was important too.<p>So this paper was discussed here and I thought it might make some impact on the voting systems in the US. After all, I thought, here we had a credible study, the merits were being discussed, and so on.<p>Of course what happened was that my state (PA) adopted all electronic systems, with poor audit trail, etc. I don't think any legislature anywhere made a good faith effort to weigh the possible options in a rational way. I think the vendors came in, gave a presentation, and the everybody went with their gut feel.
Not only should we not use electronic voting machines, we should not use electronic vote <i>counting</i> machines.<p>Paper ballots counted by electronic means should be just as suspect, as whoever hacks the counting machine could set vote totals to be just shy of the limit required to initiate a manual recount.<p>All votes should be counted by hand.
The 3 important aspects of a legitimate vote are:<p>1) Secret<p>2) Unique: one vote per citizen and all votes are worth the same.<p>3) Universal: no citizens should be prevented from voting.<p>-<p>The US doesn't consistently follow these:<p>- A citizen from state A is worth more than a citizen from state B because of the electoral college.<p>- A citizen can register to vote in multiple states.<p>- DNC superdelegates are worth more votes in primaries.<p>- Right to take time off to vote.<p>- Geographic location of polling places.<p>... and a large list of irregularities.
Paper ballots might work best in the west, but in some developing countries ballot stuffing remains a big problem. In these countries I feel VVPAT is a better solution.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter-verified_paper_audit_trail" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter-verified_paper_audit_t...</a>
Paper ballots are safest, but not perfectly safe. The voting system is routinely hacked in a lot of countries, e.g. in the
US:<p>- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering</a><p>Russia:<p>- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_instances_of_ballot_box_stuffing" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_instances_of_ballot_bo...</a><p>- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting</a><p>Ultimately if the people in power do not respect the democratic process, they can and will hack the voting and vote count process.<p>In addition to that modern democracies suffer from selection bias. The persons you can vote for are often a hand or self selected group of people which will not threaten the existing oligarchy.<p>The only voting system I know that would be free of all these problems is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition</a> . Because the greek understood already 2500 years ago:<p>"It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election." (Aristotle, Politics 4.1294be)
Yes, and the only way to break the paper ballot method is fake ballots introduced physically into election sites. However, I predict this is much harder stunt to get away with the rise of social media. If anything, going with paper ballots reduces the attack vectors and the speed at which it's executed on a legitimate process.
CMV: I think we should be able to vote electronically with the same convenience that we do online shopping not to make it easier to count the votes but rather to increase turnout numbers. 50-60% - is that better for representative democracy or 90%? The counterpoint of decentralization - there is a single point where final counts happen. So who is to say that final single point isn't manipulatable?
Change My Mind: Washington State's vote by mail is the best system in the world.<p>Ballots and guides are mailed out 2 to 4 weeks before voting day. All voters need to do is fill out their ballot at their leisure and put it in a mailbox or ballot drop box before the end of election day.<p>I see no compelling reason to prefer any other system in existence.
Why not have both as an audit system? Electronic voting for instant tabulation. It prints out a voter verifiable ballot receipt that goes into a ballot box. If the electronic count and the paper count don’t match, some error or fraudulent activity has occurred.
Why is any technology of any kind required? Surely all that is needed is for the voters to make indelible marks on pieces of paper and for another person to tally those marks.
Pencils are safer than pens. I really like the British voting process, not just because I grew up with it but because we can point to what about it makes so much sense.