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Comment by mariusor | Hacker News Reader

> You should always use paper ballots

I think that even if electronic voting devices are not guaranteed to be failsafe today it does not mean that they can't get there.

Paper ballots are not an optimal democratic way of conducting voting. The whole process is time and resource consuming and disenfranchises the less privileged.

If there would be a cheap and safe way to cast electronic ballots from one's own phone I bet engagement with democracy would be a lot higher, not only on big issues like presidential elections, but on smaller stuff that one would vote at a local level.

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> Paper ballots are not an optimal democratic way of conducting voting. The whole process is time and resource consuming and disenfranchises the less privileged.

That really depends on how it's implemented. Living in Switzerland I get to vote a lot.

About a month before an election or referendum I get the voting slips in an envelope that can be reused to send them back, postage paid.

The slips are placed in a sealed envelope and a signature has to be provided on a slip. The same slip I need to provide at the polling station should I chose to vote in person.

Results are in in a couple of hours after polling closes, except for more complex elections (usually election of parliament, which has a few idiosyncrasies). But even there, results are in the same evening.

The actual procedure may slightly differ by Canton.

It may be resource intensive, but election integrity and speed has a price, which I think is worth it.

And nobody is disenfranchised since you pop your vote into the next letterbox for free.

Honestly the model of electronic ballots that I have in my head is very close to the Swiss system. Instead of mailing paper, it's a system where you do it all over the web. If this communication can be brought to a similar level of security and trust as the mailed paper ballots, I'll consider it a success. :D

It doesn't seem to really matter if you use paper or electronic so long as you allow for mail in voting. I don't know if electronic voting is responsible or susceptible to fraud, but mailing your ballot in I think certainly is. Before we get rid of electronic voting, we should reform how people vote.

Would letting people vote with their phone lead to better outcomes?

Better or worse, I don't know, but it would allow more people to vote, which would lead to a more democratic outcome. :D

By "democratic", do you mean "make it possible for someone else to force you or pay you to vote a certain way"? That wouldn't even be "allowing more people to vote", but rather fewer people, each of whom effectively gets more than one vote.

I'm saying things under the assumption that this type of electronic voting is at least as secure as mail in ballots. I have ideas about how pay/force can be prevented, but nothing super definite.

So ... rather than the less privileged using paper ballots you're suggesting that they should just use their phones?

O.....kay.

I think our society already places enough pressure on people to have phones or be excluded from certain activities, that having a mobile device or access to a web browser with an internet connection is a safe assumption to make.

The way I think about this electronic voting is not limited to just mobile applications or through the web, voting booths/stations can still be employed (which theoretically will have also less friction, due to lower usage). The purpose is to decrease friction of voting in the demographics where participation is not great currently. Young people usually don't vote, maybe having the option at their finger tips would improve that, what do you think?

I suspect that even in North America there are less privileged demographics outside your circle of interaction with many people lacking access to a smart phone.

I have no issue with the notion of expanding voting options to include a well thought out smart phone option but I have real concerns that limiting voting to only that would disenfranchise people outside your ken.

Recall that a number of indigenous americans have had their right to vote restricted simply by living on a tribal reservations with no conventional fixed address.

Sure, they might have a phone .. but I offer that as an example of the "oops, didn't think of that" consequence of assuming everyone has an address.

The assumption that everyone has internet access is no different.

My plans, if I may call them that, are definitely not suitable for the USA, because the foremost prerequisite of making the whole thing remotely safe is the existence of a national id with cryptographic signature support, similar to how Estonia, or other European countries have/plan to have.

As far as I remember some parts of the US were against requiring ID for voting, so make of that what you will.

How can you prevent a partner, parent or employer from watching you vote with a phone?

This comment adds nothing to the discussion.

The the worry is coercion, those actors could force you to vote on paper in their presence. The phone isn't a variable.

If there is no coercion, the voter can go wherever they feel safe (even a polling place) to do their voting (whether on paper, on phone or whatever other method).

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