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Comment by hnmonkey | Hacker News Reader

Is there a solid argument for not having more regulation on these organizations? We have so much regulation on slot machines and casinos for example because we know that a lot of money passes through there and there's high potential for money laundering. Why not have strong regulations around voting systems too? We know that if voting systems are compromised the impact could be devastating to the entire country - far more critical to America's security and continuity than regulation in many other industries.

I just don't get the opposition to that. It seems like it's in everyone's best interest (those that are honest and are looking for a fair foundation to build from that is).

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The voting machine certification gauntlet is text book regulatory capture. Meaning the vendors themselves fund and run the testing labs (last time I checked).

Further, since appropriations are (mostly) done locally, the "surface area" is quite big. Like the parable of the boy plugging the dyke with his fingers.

For example, I was able to block the purchase and use of gear that added the voter's id to their ballot. In my jurisdiction alone. There are roughly 2,000 counties in the USA. So to protect everyone's secret ballot, that fight would have to recur many, many times.

Alas, saving democracy doesn't pay very well, nor does it scale.

I honestly think that a lot of people in the US think it's more important that their party wins than having fair elections. So I don't expect a big push coming from the people who are responsible for these purchases.

when the "other side" leverages something controversial, it's a crime. when "our side" leverages something controversial, it's playing to win. the hypocrisy in US politics is strong at every level.

At the risk of sounding like a preacher (as a nonreligious person) I think a lack of moral guidance in modern life is a factor. What might've been controversial in the past, the idea that morality is an individual weakness rather than a communal strength, seems to be projected through all sorts of media.

I'm not sure why you see that as irrational? If I had a genie that made sure whoever I voted for won I wouldn't really hesitate to use it. It would be silly of me to refuse.

The party in power is expected to lie cheat and steal to maintain their position and the opposition parties are supposed to keep them in check. Adversarial systems seem to work pretty well since the incentives align -- way better than I would expect an honor system to work at least.

The party in power is not expected to lie, cheat, and steal to maintain their position. You're claiming that as if that is the righteous goal of any party. I would argue that's exactly what the founding fathers didn't want. There's a trust but verify attitude in the Constitution which is why there are checks and balances. Also, in America there is only 1 party that continually seems to be doing all of those things and ramping it up massively as of late. The opposition party, when in power, has generally not had to do any of those things because it usually does things that the people of the country want so they don't need to do those dirty things to stay in power.

Also, claiming that if you had a genie that could make your candidates win it would be silly to refuse is kind of not great. I think for a lot of people that it would be downright disturbing to use that and they would instead realize that if their candidate lost then that is the will of the people and that's democracy and what we all supposedly should want. Trying to make it anything but is basically cheating, which you are admitting if you had the opportunity you would gladly do. I'm not sure I would claim that as happily as you have.

You're almost arguing that corruption is the norm and that it really can be great if it works in your favor. This is a pretty disgusting argument.

It's irrational because they should understand both from both civics education an intuitively that the success of the system depends on good faith participation. If we don't respect the process or the outcomes, act like adversaries to our own country, it ends up a steaming pile.

Why do I care about 'the system'? It's just a means to make a decision. Holding the process as the highest ideal ignores the consequences. If a wrong decision gets made but we followed the process are we really saying we're somehow better off than if we made the right one?

It seems you are advocating outright war between factions and let the strongest win. In this case we should abolish all laws.

A wise decision was once made to adopt a system for making decisions; to avoid complete non-cooperation, violent coercion, and other worse outcomes.

An adversarial system can only work if there are neutral referees in between that make sure certain rules are followed. In this case it would be election officials. If they are partisan themselves then the system is just corrupt.

An adversarial system doesn't need a neutral party, it just requires that all interests are represented in the body of rule enforcers.

Any system that depends on the existence of angels is pretty much doomed from the start.

"it just requires that all interests are represented in the body of rule enforcers."

What does this mean? Who are the rule enforcers?

I was going to say members of each party but I realized that there are many non-political party interests that need to be represented as well for ideal fairness. Largely what I'm getting at is that adversarial systems fail when somebody doesn't have an adversary.

So in general it's not enough for them to be bipartisan, they need to be a group that collectively opossss every action someone takes. When all the dust settles the only things people will actually be able to do are the things permitted by the rules.

Might makes right?

We have fair elections so that the losing party can accept the results and move on.

Your statement doesn't really require fair elections. It just requires that a process accepted by all interested parties exists and is carried out.

You might be able to get away with defining such processes as fair but it wouldn't really align with what most people mean which is representative.

"...process accepted by all interested parties exists and is carried out."

We're talking about the belligerents working the system for partisan advantage. Everyone accepting the process and results is the (practical) definition of fair.

What are you talking about? Mathematical fairness of various voting systems? Totally different discussion.

You are absolutely correct, and some evidence is gerrymandering.

The only buyers for voting machines are governments, and they can use whatever purchase criteria they want. Thus, the market is effectively completely regulated in every aspect.

The difficulty is that building a secure voting machine is a problem similar to building secure, spam-free email. No matter what trade off you make, you will trigger violently angry responses from some group.

Just because there's only 1 type of buyer doesn't mean the industry is regulated at all. It just means capitalism is at work. I'm not sure how you can conflate the two. The government is massive so you can't just say because the same entity as a whole is the one purchasing the machines that they're essentially also regulating it.

To be even more clear there are almost no regulations in this space other than what the companies themselves say they regulate/control/test. That's not regulation, but government simply buying from the only options that are out there who currently poorly regulate things themselves.

You're basically saying that building a perfect voting machine is impossible so they're all faulty so we should be okay with faulty ones. You seem to be an engineer from your twitter, which is somewhat shocking for me. In engineering (mechanical, electrical, software) if you said to your boss "hey, we can't make this thing perfect so we shouldn't even bother because someone will complain about it" I'd imagine your boss would fire you and find someone that wasn't so black and white who would actually try to implement something and then make it better.

Also, your comparison to spam-free email doesn't actually help your case at all. If you went to google years ago before they created gmail and said 'I heard you were going to try and make a secure and spam-free email system, but that in doing so you'll make tradeoffs and some people will be angry with it' I imagine they'd laugh you out of the room. Moreso today if you said that to them since they have built that system and generally most people like it.

Out of curiosity, where are the 'violently angry responses from some group' happening? All I see are people fighting regulation and the use of better systems and people who are dismayed by that and are trying to make things right.

Please don't conflate a closed market with a well regulated market.

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