I traveled my state advocating open source software. I called it "citizen owned software). It's a slum dunk with voters (tax payers). And it's how things used to be.

The gatekeepers (blockers) are the election admins who outsource to their cronies. They even invent make-work just to have more cheddar for their cronies. Like signature verification and ballot tracking.

Returning to paper ballots means less cheddar for cronies. Happily there's a workaround. Postal balloting (close the poll sites)!

Ballots are digitally scanned as they're received at central count. So it has all the downsides of the touchscreens with all new vulnerabilities (undetectable alterations, signature mismatches, preview election counts, voter coercion...). But voters get the comfort of paper and it keeps the cheddar flowing for the cronies.

Problems with paper voting:

  - Fraud
  - Counting time
  - Margin of error

  - Hacking
  - Cost
  - Programming bugs
  - Machine error
  - Scalability

  - Some states use mailed paper ballots
  - Some states use paper-free voting
  - Some states use a mixture of electronic and paper voting

This[1] testimony from 2001 includes a good history of the voting process and the reasons why it is handled the way it is. The parent[2] directory contains 16 years of commentary articles.

[1] http://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/congress.html [2] http://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/index.html [3] http://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/PutinTrump.sht...

- Change - Privatization - Centralization - Digitization

We geeks focus mostly on the voting computers. We need to focus more on stability and the appropriations process.

I remember this in San Francisco in 2001,

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Scavenged-ballot-box-...

Saying we should ignore US elections as an example is totally ridiculous.

The US fails to do this and then has a problem counting fast enough. We should ignore the fact that the US is incapable of running proper elections since we have plenty of examples across the world of well run elections.

>failed to complete counting their votes in time for an election to be called for a particular candidate

This is another example of not running a proper election. If you haven't counted the vote the election is not over. There is no such thing as "not calling in time". In time for what? The news cycle?

I'm not even sure what “failed to complete counting their votes in time for an election to be called for a particular candidate”; are election results perishable such that of a count takes too long it no longer counts? Specific examples of the phenomenon you are discussing would perhaps be useful.

Isn't there a logical fallacy named for nitpicking (concern trolling) while ignoring the whole picture?

My comment was merely in support of that.

With regard to machines, many machines have recorded thousands of extra votes. Some machines run out of memory, and end up losing thousands of votes (those machines did not have paper trails). There's been plenty of problems with these machines - ones that can be fixed. But the fact that every precinct decides independently what to do and how to do it, there is absolutely no way (in the US) to provide a uniform solution to the problems of paperless voting.

This would mean there is a digital record on receipt of the ballot and the ballot itself. This seemingly would reduce the potential for fraud in both systems.

Again, 5,000 independent districts, and every single district manages itself independently. There is no way whatsoever to ensure proper implementation.

> have no significant fraud possibilities

We have a ton of provisions implemented to curtail significant attempts at fraud of paper ballots. And in paper ballot and absentee voting, there are large numbers of problems virtually every election cycle in various jurisdictions.

> and convince whoever lost the election that he indeed lost

This isn't even close to accurate. If there is a wide margin in a result, it isn't officially contested, even when we have evidence of corruption. When the margin is small, and a recount could possibly swing the vote, then the electee becomes unconvinced and demands a recount. (Or when the election result is simply too extreme, and the necessity of a recount is obvious)

Right, so the evidence that the US sucks at implementing paper elections should be used to advocate the implementation of an incredibly more complex system that somehow will implement itself?

>We have a ton of provisions implemented to curtail significant attempts at fraud of paper ballots. And in paper ballot and absentee voting, there are large numbers of problems virtually every election cycle in various jurisdictions.

Most of the world runs these kinds of elections regularly without issue and electronic means only makes this worse. You not only don't make the count any more accurate you also add complexity and enable a bunch of denial of service opportunities.

>This isn't even close to accurate. If there is a wide margin in a result, it isn't officially contested, even when we have evidence of corruption. When the margin is small, and a recount could possibly swing the vote, then the electee becomes unconvinced and demands a recount. (Or when the election result is simply too extreme, and the necessity of a recount is obvious)

All of that is true in the US yes, but again that's because the process is poor enough. Other places have extremely close elections that don't require this. You have such poor confidence in your election process you sometimes have legally mandated recounts on a low enough margin.

Using both electronic and paper means we get the benefits of both, and each side's downsides are managed by the other mechanism. According to every expert on the subject it's the most effective means we have right now.

If you would like to compare countries and voting systems, I welcome that discussion, but unless it works specifically for the US, it's not relevant.

Citation is needed for this. I know of no expert that recommends this and no argument for this. I've already pointed out how an electronic+paper system would be extremely vulnerable to attack. All you need is for the count to be different between the two for no one to trust your election.

>If you would like to compare countries and voting systems, I welcome that discussion, but unless it works specifically for the US, it's not relevant.

There's nothing about the way elections are properly run everywhere else that wouldn't work in the US. Implement enough voting booths properly staffed and you'll have no issues. If you can't do that you also can't implement any complex electronic system so this discussion is pointless.

The gold standard is precinct-based tabulation of paper ballots, counted the moment the polls close.

* 100% mail-in paper ballots, like Oregon -- no long lines, no games about which districts get which machines, no polling place intimidation

* Mandatory random-sample hand recounts (this has been shown to only need to be on the order of thousands of ballots out of millions for most races, given the statistical confidence you get with it)

An option considered in one state (Utah?) was to allow mail-in voting, but the mailed ballot could be invalidated if you stopped into a polling place and voted. It adds some complexity but reduces the absolute chance of coercion.

Only you know who you actually voted for. That's the point.

I'd guess mail-in ballots increase participation at the expense of some coerced ballots. Surely the net outcome is positive. On top of that, it helps to remove the chance for the use of intimidation at the polling stations. I remember that being an issue last election.

In most states this is illegal. In, GA, the SOS posted a reminder. (follied by the President's picture)

Somebody else mentioned that some areas have a system where if you show up in person, your mailed ballot is invalidated. That seems like a good safeguard.

The bottom line for me is that I think the option of mailing ballots increases participation. There may be an increased number in coerced ballots as well, but I think the net result is postitive.

Canceling mailing or e-voting ballots when voting in person can be countered by requiring that the person hand over his ID card for the vote duration.

The idea that a vote might have been bought is a dangerous one. It's dangerous even if votes buying are not proven. I'm still not convinced about e-voting for this reason. There should be absolutely no doubt on the sincerity of a vote.

Long lines or inability to get to the polls on time has contributed to my not voting. Plus it's great to be able to sit with a ballot over the course of a night or two and really think about what you are going to choose. Being at the polls with people waiting behind you applies some pressure to pick the fastest option - ie choose all Democrats or all Republicans (the machine I was on had a shortcut button for that).

Last election I voted in Texas as people voted quickly. It seems like they either are only voting for one or two races or they are just pressing the button that selects all Republican (I live in a red area) candidates.

Husbands can coerce their wives into registering for a postal ballot and then vote on their behalf. Religious leaders can coerce their followers into registering for a postal ballot and handing it over to a chosen candidate. A corrupt care home worker could register dozens of residents for postal voting, then sell their ballot papers. Migrants with a poor grasp of the English language can be tricked into giving up their ballot paper. Poor people can be offered cash for their ballot paper. Postal ballots can be stolen from postboxes and sorting offices.

All of these frauds have taken place in the UK; local election results have been nullified on more than one occasion due to endemic fraud.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/1156001...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4406575.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32428648

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/7302809.stm

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_fil...

It's much easier to prevent that kind of thing rather than repair the damage after the fact, similar to the problems we've seen with gerrymandering.

You wouldn't want your colleagues at Google knowing you voted for Trump now would you...?

Except that mail-in ballots mean that some generally significant chunk of the electorate can't react to new news in a dynamic election.

I don't like mail-in ballots. I do think that Election Day should be a holiday.

Instead, use open source hardware. Use pen and paper!

:-)

There's no reason to require something that everyone can understand when talking about a different voting system.

IMHO, we should aim to build something (whether using physical machines or using cryptography/mathematical properties) that the various parties in a government can audit and recognize as secure and that leads to a larger portion of the population voting or a cheaper election process.

While many people maybe aren't aware of the security mechanisms of a pen and paper election, essentially everyone can actually understand them if they feel the need to, and that is extremely important. You cannot resolve widespread distrust by putting a bunch of mathematicians on TV who tell the population that everything is fine.

0: https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~goguen/courses/275f00/abc-chads.htm...

The problem with digital voting is that it needs to be anonymous who votes for what. That makes the problem much much harder.

* it must be anonymous, ie nobody but you should know you you voted for

* it must keep integrity, ie nobody can change your vote

* it must be verifiable by all participants

Paper vote makes it easy to meet all criterions: just keep an eye on the ballot and you will be relatively sure that everything is fine. On the other hand it is impossible to have all those conditions with a digital vote, if only because digital anything isn't easily verifiable by all participants.

One criterion, three criteria.

Same goes with money, these things called crypto currencies are digital money offering various levels of anonymity.

None that don't require printing a paper ballot so the voter can check the correct thing was done. And then taking that paper ballot and putting it in a sealed box. And once you've done that the high-tech bits are irrelevant and you're back to the cheap, safe and easy to use voting system we've been using without issue for decades or even centuries.

"Electronic voting is the reverse FizzBuzz. FizzBuzz tests if you know the absolute basics about technology to implement something extremely simple. Electronic voting tests if you are able to reject the use of technology when it doesn't add any advantage and instead creates very hard to solve failure modes. Voting benefits from the use of the extremely simple ballot and box. It benefits from it not being programmable and from the counting method being something that almost all the population is able to carry out let alone understand."

I have yet to see one that involves a digital voting system. Many of these voting systems are insecure and F/OSS(free and open source) won't fix that. You are giving too many people physical access to these systems at every step of the chain. Many have proposed a "blockchain" based voting scheme, but that takes out the anonymous aspect of voting.

> Same goes with money, these things called crypto currencies are digital money offering various levels of anonymity.

Yes and none of them provides any anonymity since they all at one point or another reveals too much about a given transaction.

With paper ballots, it's really difficult/infeasible to track who voted for whom and is a bit more tamper resistant on a large scale.

edit: a word.

Rivest

The "trust" of the digital money system is because we can have humans unwind any transactions we deem to be "incorrect".

Unfortunately, we can't "unwind" an electoral transaction without giving up anonymity.