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If we can bank online, why can't we vote online? In the clever separation of powers that most modern states have it seems like the part that determines voting procedures and election boundaries should also be separated. Otherwise the incumbents are incentived to maintain the status quo!

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The report's conclusions are that there is not much to be gained by it, but significant risks. Banking online is a significant convenience, not having to go to a polling station once every four (or so) years is less of one. Also, as the report notes, the issue is mostly about legitimacy, not technology. How to you get people to feel safe that the secrecy of their ballot is kept and that the system isn't compromised and can be audited seem to be the big issues.

Obviously a very different country but, in the US, and dependent on implementation details, there could be a lot to gain in terms of voter turn out.

In Finland there is a period of time, before the election day, during which you can vote at all sorts of locations that have been set up in libraries, supermarkets and other locations people often visit. Pretty much the only reason not to vote is that you could not be bothered to, and I doubt online voting would help much with that.

> Pretty much the only reason not to vote is that you could not be bothered to

I think some people have a principled stance against voting. You may not agree with that but it is another reason why people may still not vote.

That is certainly true. I considered mentioning it, but decided to sort of include it in the "not bothering" category, as I think it might be better to cast an empty (or otherwise invalid) vote to make sure your message is interpreted as such. A mistake, in hindsight.

The US already has problems with election integrity and parties attempting to force differential turnout. E-voting + removal of some polling stations could be a very effective way to keep poorer people from the polls.

It seems weird that people would opt to not vote, because it's slightly convenient. Scandinavian countries have voter turn out in excess of 80%. I don't know about the rest of the Scandinavian countries, but Danish elections are always on Tuesdays, so the queues tend to get a little long after the work day ends.

It's my belief that people will vote, Americans included, if they think it matters. In Denmark fewer than 80% vote for the EU parliament, because very few actually care, even though the EU have a huge influence on our laws, it's just not clear to the public. Similarly I find it more plausible that the average non-voting American simply don't believe voting will have any real impact, rather than choice to stay home because they don't can't spare an hour every two years.

There's a number of things I personally believe the US should do before looking into online voting, if the goal is increase voter turn out. Losing the "winner take all" system for one. Having more parties represented in the congress and senate could help people feeling that they're better represented and that their votes actually matter.

A few comments about voter turn-out in the US... 1. For a large portion of the country, voting really doesn't matter. If you reside in a partisan district (heavily GOP or Demo), even if you are moderate/independent, your single vote might not matter. Since the early 2000s, the GOP has controlled many state governments and redrawn voting districts heavily in their favor. Some of these are being challenged right now (and several have been deemed unlawful by various courts), but it will take many election cycles to undo that damage.

2. In Presidential elections, #1 holds true. But, even worse, due to the electoral college, some states have outsized influence on the outcome. Voters in CA have less voting power than voters in North Dakota. This is due to each state having a minimum number of electors, but a fixed total number.

3. Even ignoring #1 and #2, at the national level, there aren't big differences between the GOP and Dem positions on the things that will impact an average person's day to day life. Elections always come down to "those guys kill babies" or "those guys like to arrest black people". This is less true at the local level, where property taxes, schools, etc actually do impact daily life, but for whatever reason, those elections are less interesting to most people.

4. Voting in the US is during work hours; it is not a holiday. Hourly wage-earners are frequently forced to forgo income to vote. The GOP deliberately understaffs polling places where possible to increase wait times and make voting as tedious as possible. They also regularly attempt to stymy voting through ID programs, misinformation campaigns, intimidation, etc.

5. 24-7 news cycle has many people worn out and frustrated with the system. There is a growing sense of "fuck it, let the whole thing burn" on both sides of the aisle.

Waiting outside on a cold night for hours[1] is more than just "slightly inconvenient," particularly if you have kids and work.

Also, if people are only voting once every 2 years, then they're still opting not to vote in a lot of elections (elections where there vote has a lot more impact).

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/upshot/why-long-voting-li...

The solution surely if to make voting quick and easy; I rarely hear stories of long queues for voting from outside of the US.

In the U.S. it's often an intentional way to suppress the vote of certain groups (the same with voter ID laws[1]). That's the problem with efforts to increase turnout - there are plenty of people in power who want to decrease turnout because it helps them politically.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/some-republicans-ackno...

If you want simplified, convenient voting there's the good old mail service for that. Nailed a decade ago or more in Switzerland. Details may differ by canton, but essentially here is how it works:

About one month before elections, or a referendum (ca. 3 times a year) you get a resealable envelope containing all voting materials.

You cast your votes and put the slips into a sealed envelope (which ensures confidentiality). Then you sign the voter eligibilty card (which also serves as the return address), stick it into the envelope in which you received the materials and drop it into the next letter box.

The materials are checked and the sealed envelopes are stored until voting day, when the votes are counted.

Inconvenience, even if you live out in the total sticks, is really no excuse for not voting in Switzerland.

Can the system be gamed? On a very small scale probably yes if you really, really want to and are really careful. Gaming it on a significant scale? i really don't see how.

Edited for clarity

Postal votes can certainly be gamed on a significant scale. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/1156001...

Voting online will take away one of the biggest feature of a free and fair election: Lack of coercion. Voting must be done in a publicly visible manner (and yet, the ballot should remain secret) so that there is provably no coercion. Voting from home - will enable coercion by families, employers and goons.

> Voting must be done in a publicly visible manner (and yet, the ballot should remain secret) so that there is provably no coercion.

There can certainly be coercion even in countries that maintain secret ballots. In Russian regions, it is not unheard of for civil servants and teachers to be told by their superiors that they must vote the favoured party “or else”, and a mobile phone picture of their ballot might be demanded as proof that they did so.

Which is why it is forbidden in many countries to take such pictures. Hadn't there been a scandal with Trumps son-in-law (or son maybe) who posted a picture of his ballot?

You think because it's illegal, it'll stop people that are being coerced?

In Germany, we have roughly this system (and I think that it is similar in US): the voting boxes are some rather tiny cardboard boxes which can be seen by the people running the election, they are rather open. You would need to be pretty sneaky to take pictures. As well, in Germany phones tend to not be able to switch off the clicking sound of the camera.

If I am able enough to tweak my stuff to take such a picture I'd be surely able enough to provide a fake picture. The attacker would need to provide the device which in turn does not scale very well. So, apart form husbands, this attack would not make much sense.

If that was to be done in scale, it'd be noticed fast. And people would ask questions quickly. That might be different for Russia, I admit. In US, no need for all that, you have electronic voting boxes, which are completely opaque to voters and counters.

EDIT: spelling.

It doesn't matter if it's forbidden to take pictures if it's done in private

So take the picture, dispose of the ballot and get a new one from the election officials. Fill the new one with your own choice, get it stamped and put it into the ballot box. A bit of a hassle to be sure, but it does not exactly derail democracy.

The coercer can stand outside the window looking in, or somewhere nearby, to check that you don't go take a new one.

Hardly scales.

LOL

nobody not-voting allowed in the actual-voting portion of my local polling areas, and windows were covered over, as i recall.

whatever increasingly convoluted suggestion you'll make next probably doesn't work either.

You're already coercing people into voting your way. It'll be peanuts to coerce a person who works in the polling areas to jot down who came to ask for a ballot twice.

I also don't appreciate your arrogance in trying to shut down this discussion pre-emptively. Maybe try listening more in the future, you might discover interesting things even if they don't agree with your pre-set ideas.

The officials "represent" different different parties. They keep eye on one another, so anyone keeping a personal list of voters would probably be caught quite easily. Besides, the last time I voted, the ballots were handed out at the entrance - long before anyone wanted to know who I am.

When a population has already lost faith in their authorities, and they think that their single vote counts for nothing and the results are probably rigged anyway, then most of them probably can’t be bothered to make the additional effort you describe.

Not only that, in Germany also the counting is public, if you wish so, you can attend it.

That doesn't really matter, because you can only be present at one place at a time. You still have to trust other anonymous parties

It's not about me checking the election, it's about the public to be able to. Our parties regularly send representatives to check.

It's like open source software. I am not able to check everything I use. But there are parts where I am capable enough to do so. For the rest I rely on others to do so.

You can't run a society without trust. It's about the ability to verify or have persons you trust to verify for you.

So how is this different with a public blockchain type ledger?

Everybody understands this system.

You can be pressured still with paper voting: They can just ask you to take a picture of your voting card with your mobile phone. It's illegal but no one will notice because, guess what, you're in a private voting booth that no one should be able to see into.

There are ways to avoid being coerced when enabling online vote: have an online vote for a week, then a few days after the online vote ends, have one day of paper voting. If you were coerced during the online vote, you can still go to the paper vote later, at which point your online vote will be overwritten by the paper vote[0]. This is still not fool proof (i.e. one can force people not to go to the paper vote after coercing their online vote) but as explained above, neither is normal voting.

Extortion of individual voters doesn't scale. Electronic voting could be manipulated for millions of votes without anyone even knowing.

I was merely pointing out that "Lack of coercion" is not a inherent feature of paper voting nor a feature that is lacking in electronic voting.

In the scenario you described above what is to stop you from taking a picture of a different voting card than the one you put in the envelope?

You are only issued one voting card.

Is this in the US? In my country you get one envelope and one ballot paper for each party so that wouldn't work.

(in the US) i was free to request an additional ballot if i made a mistake/damaged mine, last i went in in person.

The real solution to the picture thing is to help forge those photos. Create a booth where ballots aren't counted, and let people vote however they want there, and let them take pictures. A picture then says nothing, because the coercer cannot verify the picture. The biggest hole here is that the coercer might follow you into the polling station to see if you use the fake booth.

Honestly, postal voting already scares me from a coercion point-of-view (and this isn't entirely hypothetical: almost every election cycle we hear of people being coerced by their partners into getting postal votes because then they control their vote far more easily). I would much rather do whatever is necessary to make it possible for as close to everyone as possible to vote in person.

Because those two things are in the opposite ends of the privacy scale. Online banking works because there's a requirement that your every action is tracked, traceable and directly linkable to you as an individual. Voting require that you're confidant that your vote is counted, but in no way traceable back to you.

The hard bit of online voting is eliminating traceability of individual votes.

You can bank online because you (individual) and the bank (presumably a juridical individual) agree to it.

Online voting affects all the people at the same time. Your vote being tampered with or changed affects all the result. It is not your personal decision to vote online and it is not your personal risk.

>You can bank online because you (individual) and the bank (presumably a juridical individual) agree to it.

This is false. All banks are conducting their business electronically whether you like it or not. The global economy is run primarily on the transfer of electronic bits, not physical paper.

No: I mean, at least in my country (Spain) I can go to the bank physically and get my money, make a transfer, contract a mortgage...

And it was just as way of exemplifying the problems with voting.

Only a small percentage of people at any one time can withdraw their money physically, otherwise you have a bank run.

I guess we are going astray. One should not vote online because the possible malfunctions and hacks have consequences (grave) on others.

That was my point.

I really do not care about banks, in this context.

This comment chain originated by asking why should banks run their business online, because they are also prone to malfunctions and hacks have consequences (grave) on others.

... and banking hacks can be rolled back, while invalidating elections is extremely fraught.

In voting, the user needs assurance that the vote counts but is not connected to the voter. With banking, the transactions are supposed to be connected to the user. Very different cases.

This question is one of several that come up reliably in every discussion about electronic voting. The short answer is, the incentives and requirements for banking are very different.

Would you consider taking a few minutes to read this? http://zesty.ca/pubs/yee-phd-ch1to3.pdf

I put a bunch of effort into explaining these issues as well as I could, and that's the result. I'm pretty happy with it and sometimes wish that it were required reading for people participating in discussions about electronic voting.

I assume that's part of your PHD thesis. Without having the time to read it in detail I admit that you've probably spent a lot more time than most here thinking about this and rather than try to repeat your many strong criticisms of purely electronic voting I'd encourage anyone else interested to read it too.

Perhaps you can enlighten me on this point:

> "Voting machines aren’t supposed to record video or keep any record that associates you with your votes, because your ballot is supposed to be secret"

Is this definitely impossible even allowing for (possibly impractical) secret-sharing schemes where you provide enough information to prove you're a valid voter and to check afterwards that your vote was counted, without giving away to anyone else how you voted?

Just spare a couple minutes of your time to watch this excelent video by Computerphile: Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea [1]

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI

Good summary. The video is mostly about electronic voting machines up but also talks about online voting from home toward the end.

The additional problem with online elections, not covered in the video, is loss of anonymity (or deniability).

I did. I didn't learn very much, as someone who has a casual interest in electronic voting. I think that pretty much everything he said was "this could never work because people would do it wrong". It's an important consideration, but I don't find it an ultimately convincing argument. I think that we can certainly construct an apparatus of trust based on existing ones (like banking and encrypted messaging) that would be sufficient.

We bank online and every now and then someone loses some money. It's not a big problem and banks handle it. Sometimes the bank is DDOSed. These would be unacceptable problems in voting.

Other countries aren't that interested in your money. But imagine being able to swing elections...

> If we can bank online, why can't we vote online?

Because with online banking, all the problems - theft due to security problems, unauthorized access, the bank not giving access to an authroized user, etc, are all reversible and solvable.

With secret ballot voting, it's not. If some Martian hacker someone votes in your place, you have no recourse. If your vote gets eaten by the system, you have no proof, or recourse.

You can either relax the secret ballot restriction (Which causes a lot more problems), or use paper ballots.

Your bank is insured by the FDIC. Up to some amount.

Who will insure elections in case of hacks?

Also, more electronic voting means maybe more centralization which can increase the scale of hacks.

> If we can bank online, why can't we vote online?

If someone breaks in to your online bank account, they can steal some money - at best it's insured and you lose nothing, at worst a single person's life savings are gone.

Now apply that to online voting. If it was in any way hacked or compromised it would throw the country in to turmoil - possibly even civil war.

The stakes are far greater for elections vs banking, so more caution is needed.

>If someone breaks in to your online bank account, they can steal some money - at best it's insured and you lose nothing, at worst a single person's life savings are gone.

You're framing this completely wrong. Hackers have the ability to break into much more than just "a single person's life savings".

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