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Comment by blablabla123 | Hacker News Reader

> Snark aside, I really hope the community gets back on track and addresses these isses.

Not entirely sure if I understand your comment. Obviously all of these things can be done for the "good" and the "bad" and most of these are quite complex to discuss. But about "Electronic Voting systems", I'm quite sure humanity is technologically able to make it at least as reliable as paper votes with some machines even printing out paper receipts and keeping a separate paper trail. (Also considering that most people aren't tech-savvy) But has anyone succeeded making a system that also reputable hackers "approve"? The German Covid App got the design it has now only after lots of public backlash.

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The challenge with electronic elections is only partially a technological one.

The point of elections is that people en mass need to trust them and be certain that their fellow citizens did in fact vote as the numbers claim that they did.

Paper (in person and see through urns preferably) is a very accessible way to do that and allows even nontechnical people to witness and verify it with their own eyes.

In most countries with free elections, regular people can supervise their local elections (within reason and if they are able to behave themselves).

With electronic machines you have all the problems you have with paper (e.g. political shenanigans and politicians doubting the results without proof etc) and in addition there suddenly is a totally oblique process on the local level (seeing is believing and no one can see inside a computer memory)

What's the benefit? What do we gain? If counting paper takes too long get more people to do the counting.

> What's the benefit? What do we gain?

Probably more flexible voting systems would be possible. In various countries a) there's a trend to ask voters directly about secondary topics and b) there are reports how voting organizationally is often a mess preventing people to vote within the available time window. e-Voting would enable counting votes quickly and do fraud detection in a more relaxed time window.

So yes, there's a case for being able to more flexibly cast a vote. While more direct democracy isn't there yet for other reasons as well, paper is a technical reason.

e-Voting is something that IMO can never be done safely, and pretty much everyone else I know in the CCC agrees.

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