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Why Electronic Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Ideaoting is a BAD Idea

Ya, having electronic machines registering votes is really stupid. If you get the results a few hours later on election night because the hand-counting took awhile, it's an irrelevantly small price to pay in order to avoid all the potential problems you can get from using a machine.
 
Sorry about the title. I don't know what happened.

So don't worry, I am not having a cerebral vascular accident.
Or... would I know if I did?
 
I would support electronic voting only if you fill the ballot out on paper and scan it in electronically to make a record of the ballot. Enure that the ballot has an ID number that is also scanned and ,as a mandatory procedure, each precinct should compare a small random sample of ballots to their electronic counterparts.
 
I'm beginning to think that despite the handicaps of electronic voting, the manual voting procedure is also problematic because it puts limits on how often and how accessible voting can be, thereby limiting democratic participation. Perhaps it would be a fair tradeoff to give up on privacy in exchange for, say, being able to vote or recall your representatives on a monthly basis from the convenience of your home.
 
So we're bright enough to break Apple encryption,but, if we apply bits to voting transgender people will be in very grade school girls bathroom?

Seriously?

Electronic voting is bad? The medium we use to move money is bad because some sonofobitch will jiggle the thing and we'll all be sold down the river Denile because we're helpless against those nerd types.

I sense a woo woo woo thread developing here.
 
fromderinside said:
So we're bright enough to break Apple encryption,but, if we apply bits to voting transgender people will be in very grade school girls bathroom?

Seriously?

Electronic voting is bad? The medium we use to move money is bad because some sonofobitch will jiggle the thing and we'll all be sold down the river Denile because we're helpless against those nerd types.

I sense a woo woo woo thread developing here.
Click to expand...

The issue is of verification. When you move money, there are separate systems involved and they can all be reconciled to guarantee that the amount being debited is the same as the amount being credited and, if that's not the case, it can be tracked exactly where a breakdown in the process occurred.

If 5% of Clinton votes get registered as Trump votes, however, there's no process to reconcile what was entered to what was recorded or to say where the breakdown in the process occurred. The methodology used to select our government should at least contain the same kinds of checks and balances that you'd find in a corner store's bookkeeping.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
fromderinside said:
So we're bright enough to break Apple encryption,but, if we apply bits to voting transgender people will be in very grade school girls bathroom?

Seriously?

Electronic voting is bad? The medium we use to move money is bad because some sonofobitch will jiggle the thing and we'll all be sold down the river Denile because we're helpless against those nerd types.

I sense a woo woo woo thread developing here.
Click to expand...

The issue is of verification. When you move money, there are separate systems involved and they can all be reconciled to guarantee that the amount being debited is the same as the amount being credited and, if that's not the case, it can be tracked exactly where a breakdown in the process occurred.

If 5% of Clinton votes get registered as Trump votes, however, there's no process to reconcile what was entered to what was recorded or to say where the breakdown in the process occurred. The methodology used to select our government should at least contain the same kinds of checks and balances that you'd find in a corner store's bookkeeping.
Click to expand...

So what we do is treat electronic voting just the same as we treat paper voting. I don't think so. Voters can and should get personal copies of what they voted.There should be ways to rectify such errors by process which is both simple and quick. Verification methods should be robust and not include include near sighted people who need extra light to verify votes.

In fact it seems the government should not be in the business of supplying computers at sites for voters unless voters don't have computers connected to the internet. All the voter does is check in and vote, then when votes are to be counted queries should made to the voter's computer to verify his vote. against the voter's verification routine.
 
Ya, that would be fine. What's needed is robust verification systems. They need to be able to track and verify the output of the program using something other than the program itself and reconcile it with the same numbers being counted by a different method.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Ya, that would be fine. What's needed is robust verification systems. They need to be able to track and verify the output of the program using something other than the program itself and reconcile it with the same numbers being counted by a different method.
Click to expand...
I find it incredible that America failed electronic voting. It shouldn't have been that hard.
 
fromderinside said:
So what we do is treat electronic voting just the same as we treat paper voting. I don't think so. Voters can and should get personal copies of what they voted.There should be ways to rectify such errors by process which is both simple and quick. Verification methods should be robust and not include include near sighted people who need extra light to verify votes.

In fact it seems the government should not be in the business of supplying computers at sites for voters unless voters don't have computers connected to the internet. All the voter does is check in and vote, then when votes are to be counted queries should made to the voter's computer to verify his vote. against the voter's verification routine.
Click to expand...

Absolutely not. Voting should be immune to coercion and bribery and that necessitates not being able to prove to a coercer how you voted.
 
Jayjay said:
I'm beginning to think that despite the handicaps of electronic voting, the manual voting procedure is also problematic because it puts limits on how often and how accessible voting can be, thereby limiting democratic participation. Perhaps it would be a fair tradeoff to give up on privacy in exchange for, say, being able to vote or recall your representatives on a monthly basis from the convenience of your home.
Click to expand...

There is already FAR too much voting in the US system; and too much in many other OECD systems. Any system that discourages the creation of still more voting opportunities is a very good thing.

Too much voting leads moderate voters to stop bothering to participate, and gives the playing field over to the extremists and enthusiasts. These are NOT the people who should be dominating the political process. Voting should be infrequent and important. Vote once every four years for a President and for some representatives and senators. But don't vote every single year; and don't vote for Police Chiefs, County Clerks, Judges, Municipal Waste Disposal Clerks, Dog-Catchers and other assorted quasi-governmental posts. Civil servants should be appointed based on qualifications and merit, not popularity contests. Why bother to elect representatives at all, if you are not going to let them represent the public by making such appointments? And primaries? Voting to decide who you can vote for? Why not vote to determine who is allowed to run in the Primary? And how do you decide on the pool of candidate for that ballot - I know, lets have a vote!
 
Blahface said:
I would support electronic voting only if you fill the ballot out on paper and scan it in electronically to make a record of the ballot. Enure that the ballot has an ID number that is also scanned and ,as a mandatory procedure, each precinct should compare a small random sample of ballots to their electronic counterparts.
Click to expand...

The point is, according to the video, is that the means to guarantee its safety are equivalent to pencil-and-paper voting, which makes it the same thing but more complicated and expensive to arrive at the same degree of safety as voting on paper with a pencil.
 
How about using robots to sort out and count the paper ballots? The reason why electronic ballot is faster is because it forces the voter to enter data in a computer-friendly format, but with advances in robotics and machine learning I think it would be perfectly feasible to build robots that can sort out pieces of paper from the ballot box, read them and tell where the crosses are or if the ballot is invalid. Human observers could take random samples to ensure that the results are consistent and of course the ballots would be preserved for possible human recount.
 
Blahface said:
fromderinside said:
So what we do is treat electronic voting just the same as we treat paper voting. I don't think so. Voters can and should get personal copies of what they voted.There should be ways to rectify such errors by process which is both simple and quick. Verification methods should be robust and not include include near sighted people who need extra light to verify votes.

In fact it seems the government should not be in the business of supplying computers at sites for voters unless voters don't have computers connected to the internet. All the voter does is check in and vote, then when votes are to be counted queries should made to the voter's computer to verify his vote. against the voter's verification routine.
Click to expand...

Absolutely not. Voting should be immune to coercion and bribery and that necessitates not being able to prove to a coercer how you voted.
Click to expand...

I presume you understood that the copy was made with your printed from software on your machine with the only link with the government being the number you were in the vote count.
 
fromderinside said:
Blahface said:
Absolutely not. Voting should be immune to coercion and bribery and that necessitates not being able to prove to a coercer how you voted.
Click to expand...

I presume you understood that the copy was made with your printed from software on your machine with the only link with the government being the number you were in the vote count.
Click to expand...

How would that achieve the stated purpose of making it impossible for you to prove to a nefarious third party how you voted?
 
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