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Comment by travisgriggs | Hacker News Reader

What if some level of efficiency (not necessarily internet) improves turnout and participation?

At least in the US, I think there are a number of suggestions that are made repeatedly each cycle here. Like "it should be a paid federal holiday", and not putting onerous requirements on voters. Automatic registration. The list goes on.

But I what is written over and over is more on the lines of "I don't trust the process". I cannot blame anyone for not trusting Internet voting: I am a professional SWE, and it would be impossible for me to establish that any such system isn't pwned. Too much code to audit, hardware that's impossible to audit. But it's pretty trivial to demonstrate to the layperson how paper voting works, and how poll observers can prevent that process from being subverted.

There are non-internet ways to do that. States are really the "laboratories of democracy" on that front, with different states having affordances like long early-voting periods and mail-in voting.

However, those are in the context of whatever political system they're in. No level of efficient election design is going to put a dent in the fact that California loves direct-elected downballot offices (e.g., treasurer, controller, insurance commissioner, state judges, local judges, etc.) and referenda, which all result in super long and complicated ballots with 50+ questions each.

We have mail voting as a default in Colorado. When you get your license you are registered to vote and opted in automatically. The one piece that might improve it further is if it came with a stamp to mail back. Otherwise you just drop it off at a drive-up ballot box. You can also vote in person if you want. Hardly anybody does it so there’s never a line.

You get text messages each step of the process too. “Your ballot has been mailed”/“your ballot has been delivered”/“your ballot has been received”/“your ballot has been counted - thanks for voting”.

How do they prevent double voting?

When you vote in person they print out a label that has some internal identifier unique to you and place it in your ballot

Other states that do this well don't start counting mail in ballots until after polls closed. They know if someone voted in person, so their mail in ballot is rejected before being opened and verified.

The ballots envelopes (not the ballots themselves) are keyed to the voter's identity. When the ballot is removed (not until the signature is verified and not contested), the voter is counted as voted, so if they double vote, then the second vote will be rejected. Likewise if you try to vote by mail and then at the poll, you are flagged before you even try to vote.

Improved turnout and participation is a good thing in itself, but not necessarily if it puts a weapon in the hands of those who do not like the outcome and are seeking to invalidate it without regard to whether it represents the electorate’s legitimate choice.

Efficiency for the voter and efficiency for the vote counting process are totally different things.

A question we all have to ask ourselves. What would I trade for efficiency?

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