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Comment by DontBreakAlex | Hacker News Reader

In europe, voting typically happens in one day, where everyone physically goes to their designated voting place and puts papers in a transparent box. You can stay there and wait for the count at the end of the day if you want to. Tom Scott has a very good video about why we don't want electronic/mail voting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI

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Electronic voting and mail voting are very different things though.

They both share the fact that you don't see your vote enter a ballot box.

Well "mail in voting" in Washington state pretty much means you drop off your ballot in a drop box in your neighborhood. Which is pretty much the same thing as putting it in a ballot box.

One of these things is much easier to burn or otherwise tamper with.

You should research what’s inside the boxes in Oregon before just assuming they’re easier to tamper with.

Doesn't look difficult: https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info/ballot-box-fires (yes, that's in Oregon)

I’m not sure what’s so special in Oregon’s ballot boxes. But, tampering that is detected (don’t need much special to detect a burning box I guess!) is not a complete failure for a system. If any elections were close enough for a box to matter, they could have rerun them.

Here in NZ when I've been to vote, there are usually a couple of party affiliates at the voting location, doing what one of the parent posts described:

> You can stay there and wait for the count at the end of the day if you want to.

And if you watch the election night news, you'll see footage of multiple people counting the votes from the ballot boxes, again with various people observing to check that nothing dodgy is going on.

Having everyone just put their ballots in a postbox seems like a good way remove public trust from the electoral system, because noone's standing around waiting for the postie to collect the mail, or looking at what happens in the mail truck, or the rest of the mail distribution process.

I'm sure I've seen reports in the US of people burning postboxes around election time. Things like this give more excuses to treat election results as illegitimate, which I believe has been an issue over there.

(Yes, we do also have advanced voting in NZ, but I think they're considered "special votes" and are counted separately .. the elections are largely determined on the day by in-person votes, with the special votes being confirmed some days later)

> I'm sure I've seen reports in the US of people burning postboxes around election time

Yeah that happened once in OR then got re-plastered all over the news dozens of times. I'm sure you can find way more incidents of intimidation, fighting, long lines and other issues for in-person voting. But individual incidents does not mean that there is anything wrong with a system that has worked for decades in multiple states.

In Sweden, mail/early votes get sent through the postal system to the official ballot box for those votes. In 2018, a local election had to be redone because the post delivered votes late. Mail delivery occasionally have packaged delayed or lost, and votes are note immune to this problem. In one case the post also gave the votes to an unauthorized person, through the votes did end up at the right place.

It is a small but distinct difference between mail/early voting and putting the votes directly into the ballot box.

How is that the same?

The description of voting in the Netherlands is that you can see your ballot physically go into a clear box and stay to see that exact box be opened and all ballots tallied.

Dropping a ballot in a box in tour neighborhood helps ensure nothing with regards to the actually ballot count.

Seeing your ballot drop in a box is no indicator the vote is actually recorded in the grand tally, or what was recorded for your vote.

My county lets you look up if it was received. You can vote on Election Day in person if they don’t.

My county sends me a text message when they've counted my ballot.

My point is, you don't actually know that.

Sure you got a notification! That doesn't mean anything. Even with human counted ballots or electronic ballots.

Following the chain of custody from vote to verification, in some way, would be nice.

You have to trust that whole system. Maybe you do, I don't know the details of how any of that works.

When I vote in person, I know all the officials there from various parties are just like...looking at the box for the whole day to make sure everything is counted. It's much easier to understand and trust.

I mail in to Florida and I can log in and see that they received it and it was counted. So, close to seeing it enter the box.

That doesn't seem at all like the same thing as literally seeing the ballot enter the box in the presence of observers from all parties.

There's so much more you have to trust.

Even with ballot boxes you still need to trust what happens after ballot enters the box.

It could be possible to have a system like:

If you wish, you can write a phrase on your ballot. The phrases and their corresponding vote are broadcast (on tv, internet, etc). So if you want to validate that your vote was tallied correctly, write a unique phrase. Or you could pick a random 30 digit number, collisions should be zero-probability, right?

I mean, this would be annoying because people would write slurs and advertisements, and the government would have to broadcast them. But, it seems pretty robust.

I’d suggest the state handle the number issuing, but then they could record who they issues which numbers to, and the winning party could go about rounding up their opposition, etc.

Voting systems require that there be no way to prove that you voted a certain way, otherwise it opens the market for vote-selling.

Hmm, good point.

Googling around a bit, it sounds like there are systems that let you verify that your ballot made it, but not necessarily that it was counted correctly. (For this reason, I guess?)

In India we have electronic voting and we get to see our vote going in the ballot box.

You can see electrons or what do you mean?

Is it possible to trace your own vote after? There has to be a technical solution to ensure that your own vote was counted

yes there is. Check double envelope mail in voting mechanics.

That's just that they got my ballot. How to ensure they allocated my specific vote to the specific candidate/measure.

In Washington you can track your ballot return status: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/data-research/ballot-status...

With proper mail voting you have a way to verify that your mailed in vote is counted.

(AI generated explanation) How the double-envelope system works

Inner “secrecy” envelope

You mark your ballot, fold it, and slip it into an unmarked inner envelope. No name or identifying info is on this envelope, so your choices stay anonymous. Outer declaration envelope

The inner envelope goes inside a larger outer envelope that carries: – A ballot ID/barcode unique to you. – A signature line that must match the one on file with your election office. In many states, a detachable privacy flap or perforated strip hides the signature until election officials open the outer envelope, keeping the ballot secret.

In Italy we typically vote for two days, usually Sunday and Monday or Saturday and Sunday.

Many countries in Europe have advance voting.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of an EU country that does not have some form of advance voting.

Here in Latvia the "election day" is usually (always?) on weekend, but the polling stations are open for some (and different!) part of every weekday leading up. Something like couple hours on monday morning, couple hours on tuesday evening, couple around midday wednesday, etc. In my opinion, it's a great system. You have to have a pretty convoluted schedule for at least one window not to line up for you.

Germany has mail-in voting, not sure if that counts as advanced voting though

Ireland doesn't have it.

That's not true (as somebody who had to do this last year in 2024 because I was traveling in another country for work on election day)

Here is the form to register for postal voting in the Republic of Ireland - https://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/2024-01/pv4-wo...

Instructions on how to submit the form / register for mail-in votes is on page 4.

Hope that helps anyone else out who needs in Ireland

I think they meant "don't have it" as in except in special circumstances, and that form says:

> You may use this form to apply for a postal vote if, due to the circumstances of your work/service or your full-time study in the State, you cannot go to your polling station on polling day.

Which seems to indicate that's only for people who can't go to the polling station, otherwise you do have to go there.

I think that a lot of Ireland's voting practices come from having a small population but a huge diaspora. I imagine the percentage of people living outside Ireland what would be eligible to vote in many other countries is significant enough to effect elections, certainly if they are close.

As someone who spent the first 30 years of my life in Ireland but is now part of that diaspora, it's frustrating but I get it. I don't get to vote, but neither do thousands of plastic paddys who have very little genuine connection to Ireland.

That said, I'm sure they could expand the voting window to a couple of days at least without too much issue.

Italy has mail-in vote only for citizen residing abroad. The rest vote on the election Sunday (and Monday morning in some cases, at least in the past).

Europe, expect in the middle of it in Switzerland where at least I know nobody that actually goes to the voting place. We do it by mail.

UK is a one day affair with voting booths typically open like 6 am to 10 pm

With the option to do a postal vote, or vote-by-proxy.

We do mail voting from embassies or consulates when abroad.

Voting seems like one of the few problems that blockchain is actually the solution for.

Nope. Blockchain has no anonymity.

wouldn't that be a feature in this case?

Not really. Your ballot should be secret, which goes against blockchain, I guess.

The blockchain doesn't require your ID, just the voting station ID.

Any id can be correlated.

Anonymous voting means that you can't sell your vote. Like, if I pay you $5 to vote for X, but I can't actually verify that you voted for X and not Y, then I wouldn't bother trying. Or if I'm your boss and I want you to vote for X... etc.

Monero demonstrates a solution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_signature)

You don't have to attribute any name to the transaction, just a voting booth ID and the vote. The actual benefit is just that it is hard to tamper and easy to trace where tampering happened.

But I still prefer the paper vote and I usually a blockchain apathetic.

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