
Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines - janober
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/08/virginia-dre-voting-machines-hack
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a_humean
In the UK I walk into my local primary school/church/community hall (no more
than a 5-10 min walk away), utter my name and address as identification (no
other ID needed), and use a pencil to write a big 'X' against my preferences
on a piece of paper I was handed when I entered the polling station.

There are multiple local party volunteers (I was one in the last election)
from all the major parties at all stages of the process watching the flow of
paper ballots from the sealed black collection bins to the voting halls where
local council officals that volunteered, with paltry compensation, to a 12-18
hour shift to collect and count the vote. Some local councils take pride in
being amoung the first to report their results, and there is a side
competition to see who reports first.

We usually know the broad outcome of the election by the early hours of the
next morning, with a handful of recounts in tight races going into the next
couple of days.

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yomly
What's your point? That it's easily socially engineered?

That it is archaic, inefficient and a waste of human time?

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skywhopper
Efficiency is not and should not be the primary concern in a democratic vote.
Rather, accuracy and verifiability are far more important. Very little human
time is wasted on paper-based elections, but even if it took a relatively
large amount of human time to implement an accurate, verifiable voting system,
it would be well worth it.

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gameshot911
Is not accuracy inherent in efficiency? A system that is efficient but not
accurate isn't efficient at all.

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terravion
Good on Virginia. When I voted there they had pretty modern and well run
machines in my county with some sort of printout to confirm that you vote was
cast. Voting is a messy process, but really important, and really important to
have the counting be transparent and beyond reproach.

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irishasaurus
Paper receipts are crucial to voting.

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stenius
I don't think you should leave with any proof of who you voted for. I'm
worried that it could be used by people to influence elections by paying for
receipts from certain candidates or by punishing people who are not able to
produce the correct receipt.

I think we should return back to paper ballots. When there are witnesses to
elections, I don't think any of them are qualified to judge if an election has
been done in a honest fashion. This would require experts on the voting
equipment where they can guarantee that it has not been tampered with and that
is too high a burden and something that complex can not be trusted.

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jlgaddis
> _I don 't think you should leave with any proof of who you voted for._

I don't think you should leave without (at least _seeing_ ) proof that your
votes were properly and accurately recorded.

If that means that you have to be given a "receipt" with the names of those
you voted for on it, well, so be it. It isn't like your name and/or any other
personally identifiable information would be on it -- just the minimal details
needed to achieve the singlemost important purpose: verification.

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stenius
That doesn't solve my concern. If your boss at work tells you to go vote and
then demands you show your receipt when you get back it wont matter that your
name isn't on it. You would be pressure to vote how they told you to.

The proof would be a paper ballot that you turn in. Your actual vote.

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space_fountain
These machines, generally print out a receipt. Show it to you and store it in
a bin so that it can in theory be counted.

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umanwizard
Why the fuck do we need to vote on machines, anyway? I don't understand this.

Many other countries use paper ballots, including highly developed ones (e.g.,
France, UK...)

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jlgaddis
Because we're becoming lazier with each passing day?

I do think we need paper -- a "hard copy" \-- at some level, whether for the
ballot itself or just a verifiable audit trail. I think 100% electronic voting
would be fine so long as there's an audit trail that matches the
(electronically) talkied results perfectly. I don't think dealing with
millions of paper ballots would be any more advantageous than that -- you'd
have to distribute and collect them (although that would happen at the
centralized polling places), a few people would have to hand tally them (to
ensure everyone's numbers match up), and then securely store them (via very
strict "physical security" procedures/protocols) until, at some later point,
they can be properly destroyed.

Logistically, electronic voting with a paper audit trail would be much easier,
would require fewer people (i.e., election workers -- who are already in short
supply), would give us results much quicker, and would be easier to
verify/authenticate later (in the event of disputes).

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umanwizard
Yeah sure there are some rube goldberg schemes you can concoct like printing a
hard copy or whatever, where electronic voting might be secure.

But... why? What is the point of adding all this complexity? What problem is
electronic voting solving?

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jlgaddis
Sorry, after posting my comment, I went back and elaborated a bit and just so
happened to address the questions you asked in the meantime.

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umanwizard
> Logistically, electronic voting with a paper audit trail would be much
> easier,

Putting a piece of paper in a box is something everyone understands how to do,
even elderly people who have never touched a computer -- how is electronic
voting easier?

> would require fewer people (i.e., election workers -- who are already in
> short supply)

They are? I can't believe it would be more expensive to hire a few more
election workers for one day than we're paying for these machines.

> would give us results much quicker,

France uses paper ballots and results are known within hours.

> and would be easier to verify/authenticate later (in the event of disputes).

This is not realistic. We are never going to go back and change an election
result whether or not records of the votes were saved. Cf. Florida 2000.

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stenius
Even with electric voting, there are 2 witnesses who's duties are to just
watch the election IIRC. FYI: I've done this before and got paid about $10 an
hour to do it several years ago while I was in college.

Part of the witness duties should be making sure the votes for that polling
location are counted accurately and there is no way to do that with electric
voting systems. It's just a black box you have to trust.

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beastcoast
In WA we have absentee ballots which is really the best of all worlds. You
fill it in, sign it and mail it back. Couldn't be easier and you don't have to
worry about polling locations. They are also hardcore about checking your
signature; If it doesn't match your voter registration the ballot isn't
counted and you get a letter in the mail.

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umanwizard
The problem with this system is that it's possible to prove to someone else
who you voted for.

Voting needs plausible deniability so you can't be coerced or bribed into
voting for a particular candidate as was alleged to happen in the Balkans many
times:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_train](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_train)

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loudouncodes
I live in Loudoun County, va, and we've always had the option of using paper
with an electronic scanner. There have been touch screen voting machines in
the last couple of elections, but I didn't use them,

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dpacmittal
I think blockchain is a perfect application for voting machines. Blockchain is
public, immutable, cryptographic. Every voter can vote and then verify their
vote was actually registered and was untampered via a web platform or
something.

The network can be run by the public. Ofcourse there is risk associated with
the 51% attack, but it's still a more transparent process than what we have
today.

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vkou
Making everyone's voting record public is just about the worst possible idea
for a voting system.

Secret ballot is a feature, not a bug. It protects you from coercion and
retaliation.

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NicoJuicy
The wallet owner is secret, but can be checked by the owner and by the
government

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hacst
You must not be able to prove who you voted for. Otherwise you are still at
risk of retaliation, coercion and can sell your vote. For the very same
reasons the government must not be able to know who you voted for either.

Secret paper ballots really deserve more credit. The tech might be old but it
gets the essential features right.

