Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile

Having open source voting systems is a great thing, but electronic voting is inherehently flawed and is a terrible idea. There's no way to prove the checksum of your software is real unless you have root access to the voting machine and are assuming the OS is not compromised. Decentralized electronic machines that print paper ballots for you (which you can physically verify), and submitting to a tabulator seem to be the safest option. But your paper ballot can be compromised in transit by a worker. I have also heard talks about using a blockchain-esque system for voting and verifying it online with a hash code. Here's a great video by Tom Scott: ▶ this video

in “Election Commission of India throws “open challenge” to hack voting machines” · View on HN

Please explain how a “digital election system” could ever be a sane idea? • Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea < ▶ this video > • Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea < [link] >

in “Brazilian hacker claims Bolsonaro asked him to hack into the 2022 voting system” · View on HN

Obligatory Tom Scott videos: Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile | ▶ this video Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea | [link]

in “It’s not still the early days of blockchain” · View on HN

It's hard to decide which part to highlight, as every sentence is more farcical than the last, starting with the premise that the code that counts American's votes is kept secret from them, and the unquestioning trust placed by the author in what election officials and voting machine vendors say - election security is not something that should be taken on faith. > Dominion has filed suits contesting unfounded claims about its systems. In May, it called giving Cyber Ninjas access to its code “reckless” and said it would cause “irreparable damage” to election security. The machines are so very secure, that mere access to the source code (something which many people had even before - do we trust all of them? Do we even know who they are?) is downright reckless ? Then we shouldn't be using machines at all, as they are clearly untrustworthy even by their own admission. This is not a fringe opinion - electronic voting was ruled unconstitutional in Germany [1], and Computerphile has strong arguments against it as well [2]. In summary, we should be outraged that a leak was needed, not that it happened. [1] [link] [2] ▶ this video

in “Republicans leak voting machines source code” · View on HN

The market for voting machines is broken because it should not exist. Voting machines are a bad idea. ▶ this video

in “The Market for Voting Machines Is Broken. This Company Has Thrived in It” · View on HN

Nope. You never can audit most of it. Especially the hardware and firmware at vote time. And that's a false arg anyway, even if you could "audit" it (ask the hardware nicely to not lie to you:), it's still a (really) bad idea: ▶ this video

in “Darpa wants help cracking the election security problem” · View on HN

Per usual, here's the video from Computerphile on why digital election systems are a terrible, terrible idea: ▶ this video

in “New election systems use vulnerable software, Windows 7” · View on HN

[Computerphile - Why electric voting is a bad idea]( ▶ this video ). No hacker can hack paper. Don't be triggered, but I still haven't seen any real evidence of "Russian Hacking" of the Election. Until now it has only been a political game to discredit Wikileaks. You can find some reasonable neutral info on [link] But there were some actual hacking reports like plugging USB-sticks in voting machines. The most recent one I found is an [alleged failed hack in Georgia]( [link] ). These are all cases that I want to be looked at, but I do not see that in the news. There are plans by Homelands security to take over the election infrastructure. If you trust them it is ok. If they start to plant their own votes, we may never know. That makes some people afraid that it is the patriot act for elections. The simple and cheap solution is to have no computer voting without a clear paper backlog and registration. Let's make recounts standard (and put those pensioners to work). No computers, no hackers, no cheaters, no problem. A more direct problem is corruption due to too much power and money in politics. Organisations like [link] may stop that. Anyway be friendly to humans that think differently than you, and vote for what you think is best.

in “Hackers targeting election networks across country prior to midterms” · View on HN

Nobody sane would want e-voting. It has exactly the same problems as voting machines and in addition to that is heavily vulnerable to DDoS attacks and ID theft. Tom Scott on electronic voting: ▶ this video

in “Estonia is planning to launch Estcoin” · View on HN

I'd like to reference Tom Scott's video[0] here. There is no need for an electronic voting system, paper ballots work perfectly. [0] ▶ this video

in “To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software” · View on HN

Because people move, and you need to be registered to vote in the right constituency and polling station (and those need to be well positioned/balanced so that too many people aren't voting in once place - which could mean some are unable to vote due to queues). Being able to vote anywhere is not an option - it would required digital voting, which we do not want .[1] [1]: ▶ this video

in “Brexit vote site may have been hacked, MPs say in report” · View on HN

I can, and it isn't. It cannot be. First of all, I wrote above you in this thread, regarding smart cards for government ID: > That's not really a good solution either, though, because that requires trust in an essentially unverifiable system and the entity producing it. So, maybe you want to address that instead of just pointing out that people are in fact using a system that obviously has this problem that I already mentioned. As for why electronic voting or electronic counting of votes is a terrible idea (I would have thought everyone on here knows that by now): It's impossible to audit. Elections are the failsafe of a democracy that has to be able to remove a government from power that tries to prevent being removed, and they are about the control of huge amounts of recources. Therefore, you cannot have trust in a small minority as the basis for its reliability, you have to have a system that is very hard to corrupt even by the government. A government server counting votes is the exact opposite of that. See also: ▶ this video The fact that, so far, noone has seen any problems is completely missing the point. First of all, the whole system is set up such that it's really difficult to find out if something went wrong/was manipulated (that's just the nature of electronic voting). Secondly, most elections aren't all that problematic. In times of peace and prosperity, there usually isn't much contention over the results of an election. What makes a voting system good is when it's a

in “The careless errors of credit reporting agencies” · View on HN

The more people insist such verification is possible, the less you should trust them, they don't understand the issues[1]. It might be possible to come up with some provably verifiable scheme but they are very sophisticated and revised often because people still come up with ways to skew them[2]. [1] ▶ this video [2] [link]

in “Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source” · View on HN

I can't see how that in any way can be anywhere near secure enough. Online voting for anything important, is a bad idea. ▶ this video

in “Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy” · View on HN