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Comment by cryptoz | Hacker News Reader

> Senator Ron Wyden, a leading Capitol Hill voice on election security, has persistently pushed legislation that would federally mandate paper ballots, among other security measures. The legislation has been blocked by the Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell.

It's pretty clear what is happening. Given the obvious international attacks on US democracy in the last elections, it seems like a no-brainer that we'd have a bi-partisan effort to secure our elections. But we don't, and the side that doesn't want better election security is also the side that "won" the last election, while it was being hacked by foreign adversaries and while publicly asking the very same adversaries for assistance in hacking the Democrat's emails.

It's beyond suspicious.

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The beautiful thing with paper ballots is that the case is clear cut and strong enough without even dredging any of that up... it's just that partisan politics has become so entrenched that even mutually beneficial bills need to be passed with concessions to the less interested party.

I'm fine with a debate on the specifics but paperless voting machines have no place in the world. What you're giving up far outweighs the marginal benefits.

The problem is that it isn't mutually beneficial in terms of the next election cycle.

It absolutely is, while the winner may be influenced by the lack of a paper trail the real cost to society is the erosion of trust, there is a not insignificant portion of the country that currently believes our last election was no democratic[1]. If the Dems win in 2020 and the GOP similarly questions the legitimacy of the election - whether legitimately or not (say if Trump were to refuse to leave until a recount could be conducted) then that proportion will grow. There is a level that proportion of mistrust can reach where the US will devolve into anarchy, then everyone loses the game forever.

Just to note, please don't read politics into this, I've attached my own leanings clearly in case anyone thinks I favor one side or the other but I am trying to state this without it being partisan in nature.

1. And while I'm a progressive, I'm not in this camp.

There are actors, who were involved in that election, who see discord, chaos, and a weakened US as a bonus, no matter who the winner.

I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about blockchain here... we need democratization of information. How can one trust the vote counters? Put it in a distributed ledger with checks and balances.

Is there a good solution that covers voter anonymity, guarantee of record, immutability and verification without exposing the voting process to vote stealing? I haven't seen one that seems to cover all the bases in terms of security and, while I adore computers, I think while we're on paper we can rely on societal pressure to cover up some of the more minor defects in our system while transitioning voting to blockchain opens us up to computer based attacks... to reword, we're sort of benefiting from security by obscurity simply by the volume of how many checks are currently on the system and how difficult it is to simultaneously break all those checks - my concern is that in an entirely electronic system executing a time sensitive attack where multiple actors need to be compromised in a co-ordinated manner before they can communicate their compromised state becomes much more do-able... if your attack relies on Sharon transferring the ballots to a secure van at the same time as Leonard in the next county over then it'll fail since people are unreliable, but computers are more predictable.

When the hackability of electronic voting machines first made national news during the Bush vs Kerry election of 2004, a lot of Democrats huffed and puffed and stomped their feet, vowing to get rid of electronic voting machines... until a few months passed and the news cycle rolled on to something else, after which all those outraged Democrats apparently didn't feel it was a pressing issue anymore, and up to the present day those electronic voting machines are still with us. This demonstrates that the Democrats as a whole don't care enough to make this a priority, and might even be complicit with the Republicans in undermining our democracy.

I do not agree with your conclusion that your story demonstrates that "Democrats as a whole" don't care, especially given that the events took place before many of the present Democrats were even politically active, elected Democrats.

Regardless, your whataboutism doesn't matter here. Presently, the Democrats "as a whole" are united on election security, and the Republicans "as a whole" are united against it.

Because it could be used against them very soon. They wouldn't face such an existential threat if they had cared about it sooner.

But... Russia!

> Mitch McConnell

The quicker he leaves office, the better off all Americans will be.

He is all about Republican Power at all costs. Nothing else matters to him. Nothing. He is pleased as poop that the current sitting nincompoop President is resetting the bar lower for what the average American will tolerate from an elected official.

There's a strong conservative distaste for federal control of the conduct of elections, which has been a power reserved to state and local governments. Your suggestion is not irrational at all, but it's far from "clear what is happening."

It's too bad that McConnell is also blocking the bill in the House of Representatives that would require paper ballots and paper backup [0].

Oh, wait. That's not how Congress works. There must be someone else blocking that bill?

[0] https://gabbard.house.gov/sites/gabbard.house.gov/files/Secu...

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