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Comment by mike741 | Hacker News Reader

how does the current system, or any voting system, prevent coercion? If there's a gun to your head, or some other ultimatum, it seems far too late to be worrying about your vote being shared. Even if votes aren't all logged, you can still be tortured for the answer. I would much rather the country have an individual coercion problem than a mass voting fraud problem.

"Voting systems should [...] not permit anyone, including the voters themselves, to learn how they voted" What could possibly be the benefit of that?

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> how does the current system, or any voting system, prevent coercion?

By only allowing you alone into the voting booth, not allowing you to show your ballot to anyone, collecting the ballots in a sealed ballot box that's located in public that anonymizes the votes

> Even if votes aren't all logged, you can still be tortured for the answer.

No, you can't if there is no way for you to prove how you voted.

> I would much rather the country have an individual coercion problem than a mass voting fraud problem.

Why would one have anything to do with the other?

Also, one way to keep a country free from individual coercion problems is by having a reliable election process.

Ok, you put a gun to my head and tell me to vote for Hillary. I go into the ballot box and vote for Trump. I come out and you ask me if I voted Hillary. I say yes, I voted for Hillary, of course.

If there is no possible way for you or me to know (edit: prove) if I'm telling the truth, how is that worth your time and energy? It's not.

The benefit of a secret ballot is that it greatly reduces, if not removes, the incentive for coercion.

Seems like burning an orchard for a few bad apples. It's this really that large of a concern vs voter fraud?

Yes. The U.S. originally did not use secret ballots in federal elections and we switched to them because of widespread coercion.

A durable record that maps votes to voters does not prevent voter fraud, it enables it.

Postal voting allows the same type of fraud, so an electronic system would only be as vulnerable as our current system in this respect.

computers enable easy mass voter fraud... so we need to stay with paper ballot or we need a way to see if our vote is in the total number of votes, coercion aside...

This is how it actually works:

1. Mobster goes in to vote but doesn't put it in the box - he takes the blank ballot paper outside with him.

2. He fills the vote on the ballot and gives it to the coerced voter 1. He expects a blank ballot back, or else. He has his goons watching the voter throw the real ballot in the box, or else.

3. Using the new blank ballot he goes to coerced voter 2, and the cycle continues.

Of course this is hard to scale.

This scheme is prevented by having scrutineers appointed by multiple candidates. Australia does this and it works well.

How would they stop that?

By having dozens of people watching everything except the actual marking of the ballot. Scrutineers are highly motivated: they want to catch the other candidate cheating.

I've been a scrutineer in a polling room. I could watch and challenge anything except the marking of a ballot. And I did. So did other scrutineers. The odds of the mobster keeping a rotating scheme without detection approach zero with great rapidity, especially since staying in the ballot after casting your vote is not permitted.

Yup. In the U.S. they are generally called poll watchers.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/10/29/politics/poll-watchers-moni...

Also, a voter who is being intimidated by a mobster could just walk up to a poll worker or police officer and report it.

He wouldn't stay in the ballot - he'd pocket the slip and take it outside...

Returning to my point, which is that he'd need to do this without anyone noticing.

A bit difficult since there are officials watching you put the ballot into the box. Or, gee, that's weird, failing to put the ballot into the box.

Couldn't they put a random piece of paper in the ballot box?

What happens if a white piece of paper is found? Do all the votes in the box get cancelled?

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