
The Dangers of Moving All of Democracy Online - ajaviaad
https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-dangers-of-moving-all-of-democracy-online/
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BostonFern
"Until we can secure digital voting systems, we shouldn't use them."

Someone, please remind me again, why do we need digital voting systems? For
the convenience of getting the results a couple of hours earlier? To save the
climate? To eliminate recounts? Because using paper ballots feels too archaic
for our high-tech modern society?

People tend to speak about electronic voting as a settled matter. I must have
missed the debate.

~~~
quicklime
Because it would increase turnout!

I'm against digital voting systems for security reasons too, but
hypothetically if that problem were solved, the increased turnout would be a
good thing.

~~~
JulianMorrison
Would it?

The groups that have trouble turning out - because they're poor, working two
jobs, got no car, got poor public transport because they live in the bad side
of town, they speak a minority language - those are the same groups that are
likely to find digital stuff inaccessible.

~~~
quicklime
I don't think it would solve the problem for everyone in those groups, but it
would for some. I'd be very surprised if it didn't move the needle.

Also, there's another group that seems to have trouble turning out, and finds
digital stuff perfectly accessible: young people.

~~~
BostonFern
Strengthening voter enfranchisement is a commendable cause, but moving from
accessible to effortless in order to cater to people reasonably able but
insufficiently motivated is an awful reason to jeopardize the stakes of not
just electronic but outright online voting.

~~~
watwut
Is it jeopardizing voting process if college students wont have unnecessary
obstacles to voting?

[https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/states-make-
harder...](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/states-make-harder-
college-students-vote-69319276)

~~~
BostonFern
If polling stations are not in fact accessible, then the criticism doesn't
apply: strengthening voter enfranchisement is commendable.

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jerkstate
In-person and mail-in voting, at least in the USA, is already quite insecure.
Its amazing to me that with all the consternation about Russian bots
influencing our elections we would even consider moving them online without
strongly bolstering the level of identity verification. However, the argument
has been that authenticating voter identity is racist and disenfranchises poor
voters. I dont see how these two thoughts can possibly be resolved in a way
that gives everyone confidence in the election outcome, so trying to do seems
like a recipe for violent protests. I am not looking forward to the aftermath
of this election if the voting mechanisms are changed.

~~~
snarf21
Yes, in person and main in voting are insecure. The thing they are though is
secure at _SCALE_. If you hack a digital system, it is trivial to cast
thousands or millions of votes. If is very very hard to mobilize the same
number of humans and go to the polls with someone else's name. Especially, if
they have already voted. The same with paper; the scheme is revealed quickly
when 10K mail in votes show up for voters who already voted and in one big
batch of mail. It is easy to detect. Digitally, you can hide behind VPNs, etc.
and we'd have to build systems to detect fraud here that we don't have.
Additionally, it is easier to hack the backend and just manipulate the
database for some system that was likely outsourced to a company on a
government kickback.

~~~
jerkstate
If you had 20 agents each in 20 cities, dropping off, say, 20 ballots per day
each in 20 different mailboxes for 20 days, thats 20^5 or 3.2 million votes
with 400 agents. That certainly seems plausable for a state actor or large NGO
and seems difficult to detect. The difficulty would be either "harvesting" the
unfilled ballots undetected or reproducing ones with the correct digital
signature (I assume the barcodes on the mail-in ballots are unique, securely
generated, and authenticate the recipient), which again would not be
implausable for a state actor or large NGO with agents in the right place, the
biggest saving grace being that different states have different systems.
However, with national popular vote, you just need to crack 1 state system to
skew the popular vote.

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jordanpg
> easy to destabilize public confidence in voting outcomes

The last few years of politics in the US has highlighted for me how brittle
electoral democracy really is, and how important the public's presumption of
fair elections is to the system functioning.

Those of us who work in the software industry and know how the sausage is made
should consider using our voices and experience to share with family and
friends just how buggy software is in the real world, and how inevitable
problems are, both due to malice and simple mistakes.

