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Comment by arlcode | Hacker News Reader

Why is there the need to use these machines in the first place? IMHO the overengineering started when using a tech solution for a non tech problem.

Voting on paper seems to work for most democratic countries and it's definitely harder to rig than the electronics. I just don't see any siginificant advantage in using technology here (and no, a few $/€ saved every other year is not significant in my honest opinion)

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German Constitutional Court agrees with you, having ruled e-voting unconstitutional in 2009:

> While in a conventional election with ballot papers, manipulations or acts of electoral fraud are … only possible with considerable effort and with a very high risk of detection, which has a preventive effect, programming errors in the software or deliberate electoral fraud committed by manipulating the software of electronic voting machines can be recognised only with difficulty. … The voters themselves must be able to understand without detailed knowledge of computer technology whether their votes cast are recorded in an unadulterated manner as the basis of vote counting, or at any rate as the basis of a later recount.

http://electiondefensealliance.org/germany_rules_evoting_unc...

http://history.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.5/no-evoting-germa...

I'm not sure if they've been ruled constitutional in Netherland, but in 2009 the government decided not to use them anymore after pressure from an organization called "Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet" ("We don't trust voting computers"), lead by hacker and pioneering ISP founder Rop Gonggrijp.

I'm actually still kind of impressed that a protest from the hacker community was so successful in convincing the government.

It was successful because they were able to detect if someone voted CDA (ChristenDemocratisch Appèl) because the "è" sent out a different radio wave that was detectable from a distance and broke voting secrecy. The main point, that electronics are orders of magnitude harder to secure because they are inherently more complex and less transparent than simple solutions like ballot boxes and voting on paper, is still not well understood in society and even not in the hacker community as you can read in most of the comments here.

Manual vote counting takes significant time and effort, and a properly implemented electronic system would have advantages in tamper-proofness. It also could have advantages in being interactive so users can't fill things out incorrectly, can be guided through the process, etc, which is especially important for people with disabilities.

Unfortunately, all the advantages rely on implementing a good system, so I doubt we'll be seeing them any time soon.

Electronic voting machine implementation, testing and deployment also takes a significant time and effort. Tamper-proofness obviously has a original and natural physical implmentations that do not require first chosing two large prime numbers: tape and sign the damn box! Though you didn't raise the point, some argue that the time it takes to manually count is a problem, as if people seriously can't wait an extra half-day. Just WAIT. It's important.

The clear advantage of paper voting is everyone--the entire electorate-- can see and understand the process. The legitimacy of the outcome depends on this understanding and trust.

Electronic systems introduce single-points-of-failure into the voting process - figure out a way to compromise the machines / vote collection process, and you can steal the election. Doing the same thing with a manual system requires cheating on a massive scale, which is pretty much impossible to do discretely, making it much safer.

I agree with your conclusion. Some remarks though.

I don't think the voting process itself gets sped up a lot just because you tap a screen instead of crossing a field.

The tamper-proofness is certainly attractive, however what we have on the market today is so far from that goal that one has to consider it less secure than paper by several orders of magnitude.

Slighty oftopic: I just found out how embarissing little I knew about accessibility processes in elections. Therefore thank you for mentioning that ;)

Can they really be tamper proof? How do you know they're tamper proof? The only way to really be sure is if anyone can check the correct functioning of the machine. If it's only in the hands of a company and a few officials, there's no way for us to check. There has to be a verifiable paper trail that can be checked to verify everything happened correctly.

As convenient as it might be, I fear electronic voting will always remain vulnerable.

So it's easier to rig elections. Honestly, can't think of another reason.

Another reason is if you have some buddies who are ATM manufacturers who you want to give some lucurative government contracts.

I'd be curious to get HN's opinion on crypto/blockchain voting ideas such as http://www.bitcongress.org.

It seems many of the disadvantages of traditional e-voting machines and the speed/counting effort of paper-based voting are done away with.

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