
Advocates say paper ballots are safest - marchenko
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-10/advocates-say-paper-ballots-are-safest
======
vowelless
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.

The downside risk of electronic voting is very high. It invariably leads to
centralization, meaning allows risk of amplified manipulation in presence of
hacks.

"Why can we have electronic banking, but not electronic voting, vowelless?”

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.

~~~
wool_gather
Totally agreed, but there's a variation on electronic voting I've heard
proposed that I think would be very, very helpful. Long story short, the
machine doesn't _record_ the vote, it just _produces the ballot_.

You enter all your choices on the machine, then the machine spits out a piece
of paper, and the paper itself is your voting record. You verify that it is
correct before it goes into the ballot box.

Nothing's perfect, but this doesn't seem to have any weaknesses that existing
paper ballots don't, and it gets rid of a few. It has potential to greatly
reduce ballot problems, both crap like hanging chads, "voter used an X mark
instead of filling in the circle", and real errors like overvoting. Software
shenanigans are almost pointless, because the piece of paper is the vote
record, and the voter checks it.*

Machines can also be more usable for people with input/output difficulties
(poor eyesight, motor control, whatever).

\---

*I say "almost" because we all know that plenty of people won't check it. Vision problems are also a concern here, but not any more so than with plain paper.

~~~
s3m4j
"Congratulations, you have invented the most expansive pencil"

In France we don't actually write anything. When we enter the room we're given
one paper per candidate with the name and logo printed clearly. Once in the
voting booth we put one or none in the enveloppe. That's it. Problem solved.

~~~
tehlike
How do you verify your vote is counted correctly and not made up? Having the
voting ledger would be cool - you could verify with the "transaction id" and
how it's recorded.

~~~
sitharus
Through process verification.

I don't know about other countries, but here in New Zealand elections are
monitored by the Electoral Commission who employ people to watch every step of
the process. In addition every political party is entitled to send scrutineers
to polling places and the count. The boxes are shown to the scrutineers who
verify it to be empty, then sealed. The boxes are never taken out of sight.
Every step of the process is under multiple eyes.

This seems to work well. It's possible to double vote by visiting multiple
stations but in practice this is rare. It does happen but the electoral
commission do analysis on the votes to ensure it didn't affect the outcome.
Those responsible are prosecuted.

------
fareesh
Can Americans explain why voter ID is seen to be disenfranchising or sometimes
inarticulately simplified as "racist"?

Voter ID is mandatory in so many parts of the world. What are the rest of us
missing?

Edit: Not that it matters, but I live in India, so "poor people can't get ID"
confuses me even further.

~~~
colemannugent
Surprised nobody's mentioned this yet: The most common form of ID in the US is
a driver's license. To get one you need to meet a bunch of requirements and
then take a driving test at a local branch of the Department of Motor Vehicles
(DMV). If you are ever looking for a great example of government inefficiency
it's the DMV offices [1]. All of them run horribly, most have massive wait
times for simple procedures, and the employees have a reputation for not
giving a shit. Not to say all of them run like this, but in California it's so
bad that the government officials have their own secret DMV office to avoid
waits [2].

If you were a poor person who really only has the value of their physical
labor to feed your family you might not want to waste spend hours and hours of
your incredibly (relatively) valuable time for something you can make do
without. Since these poor people are often minorities voter ID laws
disproportionately affect them.

The question of racism being a factor for supporters of voter ID is kinda
muddied. Voter ID laws seem to make a ton of sense on the surface, but a
little bit of knowledge about the American election system makes it clear that
voter fraud is really not a big problem. There's no doubt that racists would
support voter ID laws as they do suppress the election turnout of the poor,
but I haven't seen any evidence that racial factors contribute to the majority
of people's support for voter ID laws. Like every topic in US politics, it has
become hyper-polarized to the point where both sides talk past each other to
try to demonize their opponents.

[1]: [https://www.quora.com/Why-is-DMV-so-slow](https://www.quora.com/Why-is-
DMV-so-slow)

[2]: [https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-
aler...](https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-
alert/article216408570.html)

~~~
Redoubts
> The most common form of ID in the US is a driver's license.

It's the most common, but not the only one. You can just show up and ask for a
plain ID, and avoid all that. And I kinda have to wonder how people get their
I-9 filled out without any form of ID. You generally need an ID just to work
in this country.

~~~
TomMckenny
There are states where you have to show a utility bill to get one of these.

~~~
debacle
You just need to show proof of residence, of which a utility bill is one
example.

~~~
CPLX
Which means you have to be in a stable living situation.

~~~
pas
What kind of ID homeless people can get then? Can they vote? Register to vote?

------
Isamu
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.

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.

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.

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.

~~~
Shivetya
well if anything it shows that you cannot trust paper ballots or that in a
close contest no one will. electronic voting will work provided you can take a
record of your vote, say a bar code, and scan it and verify your vote was
recorded properly. so give them a paper copy with their votes printed out and
a code they can scan either at home, their phone, any government facility,
that says - yeah it counted.

when it comes to bulk counting the electronic version is used or a printout of
every single bar code value is mass scanned back in.

how else can you have a paper ballot that cannot be altered?

~~~
jacques_chester
> _how else can you have a paper ballot that cannot be altered?_

With simple, boring techniques requiring the presence of multiple scrutineers
appointed by different candidates. The process relies on mutual suspicion to
detect problems at every step.

In an Australian election, all ballot boxes are numbered. The seals are also
numbered. When a ballot box is assembled, the seal numbers and box number are
logged, signed by the senior Electoral Officer present and countersigned by at
least two scrutineers appointed by different candidates.

Ballots are not numbered, but are counted as they are dispensed. Each is
initialled by the official who hands it to the voter. This process is
observable by scrutineers.

When time comes to count, the box numbers are cross-checked with the logs,
again under scrutineers. When the ballots are hand-counted, it happens with
scrutineers watching. When the tallies are made, it happens with scrutineers
present.

When any of the scrutineers disagrees with some aspect of the process, they
can appeal to the electoral commission. If they're dissatisfied, the matter
can be taken to the Court of Disputed Returns.

So far as I am aware, only once, in over a _century_ of Australian elections,
have ballot boxes been lost. That election was voided and rerun from scratch.

Paper works. You just need to see how other people are already using it
successfully.

------
pmoriarty
Not only should we not use electronic voting machines, we should not use
electronic vote _counting_ machines.

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.

All votes should be counted by hand.

~~~
Isamu
Hand counting is another source of error or corruption though.

I like the idea of optical scanning with random audits. That is you'll scan
them, then keep them locked up together with subtotals for each box. You can
audit that the subtotals add up, and then randomly pick boxes to hand count.
You can then verify that the votes in the box match the subtotals for that
box.

~~~
pjmorris
> Hand counting is another source of error or corruption though.

Hand counting, in public, at the voting site, puts the count in view of all
interested parties. Any errors or corruption are the results of the collected
views of those present. Electronic counting, in any form, adds to that the
views of whomever builds, delivers, and collects the electronic count.

------
partycoder
The 3 important aspects of a legitimate vote are:

1) Secret

2) Unique: one vote per citizen and all votes are worth the same.

3) Universal: no citizens should be prevented from voting.

-

The US doesn't consistently follow these:

\- A citizen from state A is worth more than a citizen from state B because of
the electoral college.

\- A citizen can register to vote in multiple states.

\- DNC superdelegates are worth more votes in primaries.

\- Right to take time off to vote.

\- Geographic location of polling places.

... and a large list of irregularities.

~~~
owl_paste
You should really research the electoral college instead of just assuming it's
unfair. There is a reason for it. You may disagree, but it's not just an
obvious flaw or oversight. It was intentional.

Edit: to the downvoters, your downvotes won't magically and retroactively
count as votes in the 2016 election. Why not participate in the discussion
instead of the incivility? Or, you know, hypocritically participate in the HN
equivalent of the Electoral College, those with downvoting ability.

~~~
MereInterest
I'd be interested to hear what you say what the original reason is, as I've
heard several. Not one of them is at all useful in the modern day.

1) To appease slave-owning states, by allowing slaves to be counted toward the
allocation of representatives and electoral votes. No longer relevant after
Civil War.

2) To prevent demagogues from gaining popular support. Assumes that electors
will meet and decide on a candidate when the electoral college votes, rather
than being bound ahead of time. Clearly, did not do this job in 2016.

3) To keep small states from being overwhelmed by large states. Assumes that
loyalty and identity are primarily to a state (e.g Virginian) rather than to
the country (American). Furthermore, causes undo emphasis on swing states,
which are primarily based on how much urban/rural area falls within the state
borders.

I have not heard any reasons to dissuade me from the belief that the electoral
college is a vestigial organization that no longer serves any purpose.

Edit: Also, your entire comment is a form of personal attack that does not
give any argument. At most, you imply that an argument for the existence of
the electoral college exists, but give no support for its existence. If you
are going to say that a reason exists, at least give a one sentence
description, or a link to what you believe that reason to be. As it is, you
are disingenuously setting yourself up to say, in effect, "Well, none of those
reasons are the one that I was thinking of. I'm keeping the real reason for
myself, but feel free to continue guessing while I act like I have the
superior position."

~~~
owl_paste
It's 3) To keep small states from being overwhelmed by large states. Assumes
that loyalty and identity are primarily to a state (e.g Virginian) rather than
to the country (American). Furthermore, causes undo emphasis on swing states,
which are primarily based on how much urban/rural area falls within the state
borders.

It's similar to the idea that each that each state gets the same number of
senators. There's a balance between state governance and federal governance,
such that you can live in a state more attuned to your preferences. Regardless
of your political ideals, this plays out in your favor (I guarantee it, unless
you're oddly attracted to the simultaneously bland and chaotic politics of the
federal).

As for the claim of undue emphasis on swing states, I'd say then it's working
as expected by even allowing swing states to have a chance against California.
So I guess we come to our fundamental disagreement: should the majority always
be able to railroad all dissenters? The Founding Fathers thought about the
same question and figured, no, the majority is not always to be trusted.

To give just a bit more context still, I'm vehemently opposed to Trump for a
number of reasons, but by no means see the Democratic party as putting up many
good candidates. I just can't stand by their platform on many things. But my
point is that while I would have liked, say, Rubio as president, the majority
of Republicans selected Trump. The majority did something I really disliked.

The Electoral College is there to have some kind of counterbalance to
oppressive majority. Whether it's truly effective is a matter for another,
more detailed debate. All I asked in my original comment is that people not
dismiss it as ill-thought-out, unfair or archaic without giving it some
thought.

Edit in response to your edit: obviously I'm not disingenuously writing some
alternative argument. I wrote this before your edit.

~~~
pseudalopex
Do you think the framers of the Constitution intended the House to have one
representative for every 750,000 people?

You didn't simply ask people to give it some thought. You implied the person
you were addressing hadn't. Then you reacted to the resulting downvotes by
calling them uncivil and hypocritical and snarking about the 2016 election.
You went on to imply that your opponent wants "to railroad all dissenters",
which is hardly a charitable interpretation.

------
chaitanya
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.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter-
verified_paper_audit_t...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter-
verified_paper_audit_trail)

------
madeofpalk
Please, no one mention blockchain.

~~~
Havoc
haha that was actually my first thought.

The whole cryptocurrency stuff seems pretty shady but there are select
applications where blockchain is ideally suited & this seems like one of them.

i.e. All those independent election monitors can set up their own node etc

~~~
henrikschroder
Stop thinking like an engineer.

The most important feature of elections is that everyone in society can take
part of the process, understand the process, and (locally) verify that the
elections are fair.

Technology just introduces black boxes that citizens are somehow expected to
trust, because something something cryptography something blockchain.

No, that's not good enough.

~~~
Havoc
>Technology just introduces black boxes that citizens are somehow expected to
trust

oh please. People trust the lock sign on HTTPS all day without understanding
it. (or mastercard or the bridge they drive over or well anything).

Avoiding superior technological solutions just because the man on the street
doesn't understand them is a bad approach. If society did that we'd still be
in the 1800s.

~~~
ninkendo
> oh please. People trust the lock sign on HTTPS all day without understanding
> it

Yes, and the internet is an absolute cesspool when it comes to security. Do we
really want to hold up the _internet_ as a shining success that we should be
applying to probably the most important institution we have?

------
amai
Paper ballots are safest, but not perfectly safe. The voting system is
routinely hacked in a lot of countries, e.g. in the US:

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering)

Russia:

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_instances_of_ballot_bo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_instances_of_ballot_box_stuffing)

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting)

Ultimately if the people in power do not respect the democratic process, they
can and will hack the voting and vote count process.

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.

The only voting system I know that would be free of all these problems is
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition)
. Because the greek understood already 2500 years ago:

"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)

------
tzhenghao
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.

~~~
rossdavidh
Plus, if you want to intrude physically into election sites, which can and has
happened in the U.S., at least you have to have a lot of people involved in
order to do it on a large scale (increasing the chances of getting caught).
Electronic voting machines could potentially be compromised in many places by
a relatively small group of people, some of whom might not even be in the
country.

------
_Codemonkeyism
We should only change vote tech to make it more secure not more efficient.

~~~
ethbro
Congratulations! We've managed to develop a completely secure voting device,
with a formally verified codebase. The machines cost USD$150,000.

Due to the cost, we will be able to deploy two machines at a single voting
site in your county.

Please ensure you arrive with enough time, as lines are expected.

~~~
KSteffensen
That's nice. You have fun with that. We'll keep our $300k and our paper
ballots. No lines are expected as we've tried this before and know more or
less how many will show up.

~~~
wool_gather
The parent's `sarcasm` tags were apparently swallowed in HTML sanitization. :)
It was _meant_ to sound like a horrible idea.

~~~
ethbro
Apparently the modest nature of my proposal wasnt clear enough. I forget to
really punch sarcasm in text.

My point: cost is always a consideration. And in voting, has a direct
correlation to such issues as deployment and voter ability to... well, vote.

------
pi-squared
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?

~~~
freddie_mercury
Echoing the other comment about Sweden: The last Australian election had 91%
turnout, which was the lowest since 1926. It is possible to have high turnout
without computers.

You could, for instance, not have elections on a weekday as a start.

------
forrestthewoods
Change My Mind: Washington State's vote by mail is the best system in the
world.

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.

I see no compelling reason to prefer any other system in existence.

~~~
henrikschroder
It allows vote coercion, I can threaten you to vote a certain way and watch
you drop off the ballot, and there's no way for you to change your vote later.

Having monitored physical polling stations where people vote in secret removes
this opportunity, because I can only see _that_ you voted, but not what you
voted for.

~~~
forrestthewoods
That's a theoretical problem. And one that doesn't scale. You wouldn't be able
to realistically intimidate 10,000 people and watch each one drop their ballot
into a box.

In practice I don't think there are even fringe accusations of it being a
problem.

> Having monitored physical polling stations where people vote in secret
> removes this opportunity

It reduces, but does not remove, the opportunity.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case)

~~~
ufo
It isn't a theoretical threat.

Before 1932, the vote in Brazil was not secret. It resulted in widespread
voter coercion and bribery, a system we used to call "halter voting". The
"colonel" (powerful landowner or authority figure) would use the threat of
violence to force those in his electoral "corral" to vote as he pleased.

------
gahikr
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.

------
kwhitefoot
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.

------
tobylane
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.

------
agrinman
xkcd agrees: [https://xkcd.com/2030/](https://xkcd.com/2030/)

