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Comment by llSourcell | Hacker News Reader

I think the biggest catalyst for government reform in the internet era would be bringing voting online.

I'm 23 years old. My generation doesn't have the time or patience to wait in line to vote and fill out legal documents. We're used to apps that let us order delivery and message friends in a button tap.

The reason big money keeps winning is because our generation doesn't vote enough. If we make local and federal voting deadlines as simple as phone notifications, we're going to start seeing a a huge array of intelligent decisions injected into the political system.

The Pirate Party offers liquid democracy through online voting. I'm all for it, I hope Iceland sets an example for the rest of the world.

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I think you have a very idealistic and naive opinion about your generation (I'm 30 years old, I don't know if that makes it my generation too). Liquid democracy might increase vote turnout, which is good anyway, but in my opinion that will have little impact on the rule of "big money". You have yourself as frame of reference, but try to think about the average 23 years old (and no, very likely your immediate circle of friends does not count very much as the average). But even if it does replace the "big money" rule, it might not be for the good. I cannot find a reference right now, but I seem to remember that young people place usually at the extreme right and left parts of the political spectrum.

Do you think President Obama is naive and idealistic as well? He's started to argue for the same. (http://www.infowars.com/obama-calls-for-mandatory-voting/) Since his term is nearing its end, he's becoming more fearless in talking about the influence of big money in politics and how making it easier to vote would greatly reduce its influence.

And yes, you are in my generation (Y). Please enlighten me in ways big money influences politics that cannot possibly be stopped by the democratic process.

I do not understand what is the mechanism that equates "more people voting" with "less money influence". You have done little to explain it, only using an argument from authority ("An important man said it, therefore it's true").

"Big money" isn't directly buying votes. Increasing the number of votes doesn't make an election "more expensive" to buy. If you have only three candidates, to buy out their loyalty you need the same amount of money, regardless if you have one million of people voting for them or ten.

Direct democracy renders the process even worse. People cannot be fully informed about all topics at all times - I hope you realize how uncontroversial this opinion is. So they'll just find the information that is easiest to find and digest and be influenced by it. If you have enough money, you can be the easiest source of information in the topic you care.

I think it is naive and idealist to think that a very accomplished career politician would not have ulterior motivations.

Politicians don't get behind "go vote" initiatives out of the goodness of their heart. They do it because they think those extra voters will swing the vote in the favor of their particular party.

It's pretty naive to say that 'politicians' don't have goodness in their heart, period. Like most things in life, one can't group a large subset of people to think exactly the same way.

I never said that politicians have no goodness in their heart. I am criticizing your absurd wiliness to believe that politicians want more people to vote for purely selfless reasons.

I'm about your age and I live in Italy (not exactly the most advanced democracy ever). We still vote with pencil and paper. I see no issue with that: I go in with my voting document (that I received via mail), I vote, I go out. It takes 5 minutes of my time, and it happens every few years.

The reason why young people don't vote, I think, is mainly because indifference towards politics and/or the candidates, not because it's a hassle to vote.

The idea of liquid democracy is appealing because the issues are all opt-in. If there is a particular topic you feel passionate about, say funding stem-cell research, you can choose to vote on it. Maybe not everyone cares about who runs for X office, but I think giving people the option is always the better choice. Doesn't Italy have like the highest youth unemployment rate in Europe? I'd bet some young people have a lot to say on the matter.

Yes, liquid democracy is a cool concept and I'd love to see it applied in a reasonable way, but the OP was talking about local/federal elections, where - I think - online/offline voting wouldn't matter much. Hell, thanks to digital divide I think that making elections online only would actually decrease attendance in Italy!

Voting via internet is very dangerous - fortunately we can use the internet to for things better than just voting - like consensus building etc. It is much more difficult to disrupt broad channel communication that the extremely narrow channel of voting.

blockchain

A voting system should not allow someone to vote twice, and should allow the voter to verify it afterward, but must not allow anyone else to prove what their vote was afterwards or even allow the voter to show it to someone else. Can your one-word system do that?

yes

Could be used to enforce voter coercion.

Imagine an employer who demands that an employee produce proof that they voted a certain way.

voter coercion is orthogonal to online/offline voting.

No, not really. Some forms of voting facilitate it, while others discourage it.

Voting that is done in person, in private (for instance: voting booths) is less susceptible to coercion than voting which is not done in person (for instance: mail-in). Systems that give out a receipt for the vote placed are also more susceptible to voter coercion, particularly if they are mathematically provable receipts that cannot be fabricated (nearly all "blockchain" proposals).

I think we need more power than voting. If we had more control over funding, gov wouldn't be able to be as brazen with some of its actions. We wouldn't have nearly as much war, for example. Not many would fund it. They would rather spend their money on a house downpayment or their children's education, rather than destroying people and property on the other side of the world.

By convincing people who aren't interested in politics to vote, all you would be doing is adding noise to a vote that is already 99% noise and 1% considered intelligent rational opinion.

That's something that surprises me a lot about the US: optional voting. Most (if not all) of the places I've live in during my lifetime had mandatory voting (in Argentina there's even a fine and you may be denied a passport if you have no justification for not-voting).

But what amazes me even more is how much people CHOOSE not to vote. Do they really not care at all?

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