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Comment by john_minsk | Hacker News Reader

I strongly disagree. If the system is transparent enough and provides mechanisms for verification and control - No reason to distrust it. I would prefer a system where even in 20 years I can go online and check how my vote was counted in older elections - this way stealing my vote would be impossible.

The issue is how to preserve privacy...

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> I would prefer a system where even in 20 years I can go online and check how my vote was counted in older elections - this way stealing my vote would be impossible.

Understandable, but then vote-buying becomes possible. The reason vote-buying is impossible in a secret ballot is because you can't prove how you voted to anyone else. If you can look up your own ballot even five minutes after it's dropped into the box, then you can show your screen to someone else who then hands you $100 for voting the right way, and elections change from being "who has persuaded the most voters?" into "who has the most money to buy votes with?"

Vote buying and worse 'vote for me or I'll shoot you'. Buying is the more common scam but there are worse options for evil people

A related issue is “vote for my preferred candidate, or I’ll abuse you” as a way for husbands to control wives. That’s especially relevant when one party is favored by a majority of men while the other party is favored by a majority of women.

s/husband/boss

Or despot, or ruthless water district rep (lol)

You can also do this today by telling someone to take a picture of their vote by smartphone or you'll shoot them. Millions post a picture of their ballot on high-energy political forums every 2 years already. This hypothetical is unhelpful.

Where I live, ballot are a piece of paper slipped into an envelope (not sealed). It's mandatory to take at least two different ballots before entering a voting booth. You can take a picture with one ballot inside the envelope and switch before leaving the booth.

That's pretty cool.

Where I live phone use is not allowed in the room where the voting is

And "sharing proof of your internet vote" would not be allowed either. Doesn't matter, they have the same problem.

Pole watchers will see you with a phone. They won't see 'the evil person' in the room watching you vote

> If the system is transparent enough and provides mechanisms for verification and control

That "if" is doing an awful lot of work here!

You can literally explain paper voting to children - it was part of my mandatory Civics classes. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure you need a cryptography PhD to even begin understanding why the various digital protocols are supposed to be secure. Even worse, as a software developer I am aware that things like "how do I know the compiler is trustworthy" and "how do I know the computer is in fact running the right binary" are very much open problems in the industry, so I know that any computer is untrustworthy.

Sure, if it's transparent and verifiable there's no reason to distrust it, but we don't live in a world where a transparent and verifiable digital voting system has been invented yet, so there are plenty of reasons not to trust them.

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