Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

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Yes you massively mitigate both systemic problems with a tech fix.

People in rural areas whose polling station closed thanks to Republicans, and who can’t drive 30 miles to the next one wanted to use the mail-in ballots. And Democrats were very happy to allow it. But then Republicans pointed out all the ways the mailing system and ballot harvesting was very unreliable. And both sides have a point. Taken to the extreme, both disenfranchisement and physical mail suck for voting.

In contrast, people could have an option to vote from their computer and use their phone to scan the QR code and confirm their vote and sign it. They can then verify their vote was included correctly!

I have explained at length how crypto would make it a lot more verifiable and reliable.

Everyone would be able to check:

1) their own vote was counted in their district

2) their own district was counted in the total

3) the number of votes and turnout in each district, matching the number of signed checkins

4) mutually distrusting parties in each district saw each ballot being cast (or a random sample) and were satisfied that the electronic record matches whatever receipt was generated

None of these can be directly verified by nearly anyone participating in a paper election.

> people could have an option to vote from their computer and use their phone to scan the QR code and confirm their vote and sign it. They can then verify their vote was included correctly!

Besides destroying the secret ballot, you can do this now! You look at the paper and the electronic count. If you’ve been a poll worker or observer, you know there are hundreds more checks a well-designed system has.

> Everyone would be able to check

Few people would be able to check any of this. (Fewer than can observe a poll today.) And it’s much easier to invent a “hack” that makes people distrust an electronic ledger than a paper one folks can audit ex post facto [1].

There is no similar audit capability for a blockchain. Did the person actually vote that way? Or was their phone hacked? Short of re-polling everyone, you cannot know.

Remotely coordinating a poll attack on paper ballots where every precinct has its own system is impossible. Crypto voting is a textbook tragedy of trying to solve a social problem with a band-aid of technology.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Maricopa_County_preside...

This seems very naive.

1) even if so, can I check my vote recorded at the district vote collection center is the same as the vote I meant to send?

More importantly, can I check the resulting numbers announced on TV/radio/online are the same as the sum of all legitimate votes, and not influenced by illegitimate votes, and not doctored?

This is all impossible, in any system of voting.

It is very much possible with paper voting, or at least you can personally inspect every step of the way in the process for a small slice, and you can understand how others like you verify things in other slices.

Ultimately, you do need to rely on your co-citizens to help verify that the elections are valid (in a simple to verify system, i.e. paper voting), just like you need to rely on them to vote coherently and to abide by the results of the election.

I agree the believability is much better with paper trail. Paper creates hard-to-forge records that can be checked later, electronic communication is too complicated and hard to audit, especially origins of electronic records.

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