Re:DHS plans urgently needed to address identified challenge...
by munk-a on Thursday February 06, 2020 @04:45PM
(#22260711)
There are some pretty hard, potentially unsolvable, problems around electronic voting around guaranteeing the ability to vote and guaranteeing the accurate record of voting - these problems aren't unique to electronics but paper & person systems have pretty good ways to protecting against system abuse by being incredibly inconveniently distributed, having known actors that can face legal pressure, relying on our existing social systems to increase the difficulty in compromising the system and, lastly, having thinking components that can act in isolation to solve problems independently including those we can't anticipate.
"Tech" exacerbates those issues while not offering a lot in exchange, the big two I can think of is accessibility (which, honestly, look at Washington state's system for a counterpoint there - though it is limited in how many states are that good) and quick vote tallying.
I just don't see the point - have automatic counting machines, allow tech to help inform voters (provide a blurb on the candidates or dedicate a gov't organization to providing some structured data around political stances), allow easy confirmation of registration and auto-enroll eligible voters... just... keep the ballots dead simple.
"Tech" exacerbates those issues while not offering a lot in exchange, the big two I can think of is accessibility (which, honestly, look at Washington state's system for a counterpoint there - though it is limited in how many states are that good) and quick vote tallying.
I just don't see the point - have automatic counting machines, allow tech to help inform voters (provide a blurb on the candidates or dedicate a gov't organization to providing some structured data around political stances), allow easy confirmation of registration and auto-enroll eligible voters... just... keep the ballots dead simple.