Hacker News Reader

Comment by micaksica | Hacker News Reader

IMO Occam's razor ends up here. Electronic voting systems do two things very well: obfuscate the system in a way that is relatively incomprehensible to a layman, and provide plausible deniability in the case of manipulation. Even if manipulation is discovered, you can chalk it up to a "bug" and re-run the manipulated election again. People are stupid, and most ordinary people only want to believe there's malice involved when they've run out of more pleasing cognitive options.

I believe that if this site enumerated all the ways that you can maliciously use computerized vs. paper voting systems, we would show a hell of a lot more benefits to a manipulator than a voter.

View on HN

> IMO Occam's razor ends up here. Electronic voting systems do two things very well: obfuscate the system in a way that is relatively incomprehensible to a layman, and provide plausible deniability in the case of manipulation.

I think if you bring up Occam's Razor you also need:

1. Somebody gets to make money selling crap to the government

2. Somebody in government thinks it'll mean cost-savings

Occam's Razor is not a real logical principle. It would also lead to the conclusion that the reason not much of substance is ever done about computer security in general is because there is someone or some group who earnestly wants to see the rise of action-movie-style supervillains who can walk down the street and see society unwind into chaos around them as ATMs jackpot into the street, airplanes careen out of the sky, power stations blink and surge, all the doors to prison cells fling wide open, and modern cars lock the steering while maxing out the accelerator. Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence. And that's the case here. Electronic voting, if it were magically secure, would be cheaper and more accessible. And it would make some companies like Diebold a bunch of money. So of course it gets pursued.

That is more or less correct. It is a way for state governments to enable "their side" to win easier. It will get worse as the demographic shift continues to strangle the GOP's support in swing states.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com