Digital online voting is just asking for trouble. The requirement to be present in person solves a lot of issues, I can’t think of a way that online voting could work without serious issues.
I just can’t imagine a way to make it work that prevented people from selling their votes or being forced by others to vote a certain way. Requiring people to show up at a poll and having no way of knowing who someone voted for is a huge part of what makes elections fair.
Let’s say I’m a dick. I run a church, and everyone who comes to my church has to vote FreedomNZ. Now you have a way to verify that they did, by requiring voting to happen at a church session.
Or, let’s say I’m a prisoner in my own home, and my husband is forcing me to vote for a party that intends to repeal laws that protect people in my situation. At a polling booth, you are not allowed to hang around watching someone else vote. You aren’t allowed to take photos, and you can’t know who they voted for once it’s in the ballot box.
With online voting, you lose that protection. You will probably even see a black market for voter codes, or whichever method is used to help people log in.
I’ve never seen a proposal for digital voting that looked better than the current system.
Yup agree there is coercion. That still happens. No way to know for sure what people vote for but we shouldn’t hold back technology because it can be used for nefarious purposes.
Let’s ban all internet use because it can be harmful. Ban books because they can spread lies.
We can learn from the past and out safeguards in place. Nothing is 100%. But we can’t stop things because bad things might happen
I think that missed the point. We should move to digital platforms as and when they become better than the existing ones. Voting is no where near that threshold.
Digital online voting is just asking for trouble. The requirement to be present in person solves a lot of issues, I can’t think of a way that online voting could work without serious issues.
Relevant xkcd
deleted by creator
I just can’t imagine a way to make it work that prevented people from selling their votes or being forced by others to vote a certain way. Requiring people to show up at a poll and having no way of knowing who someone voted for is a huge part of what makes elections fair.
If you use ird then what’s the issue?
Let’s say I’m a dick. I run a church, and everyone who comes to my church has to vote FreedomNZ. Now you have a way to verify that they did, by requiring voting to happen at a church session.
Or, let’s say I’m a prisoner in my own home, and my husband is forcing me to vote for a party that intends to repeal laws that protect people in my situation. At a polling booth, you are not allowed to hang around watching someone else vote. You aren’t allowed to take photos, and you can’t know who they voted for once it’s in the ballot box.
With online voting, you lose that protection. You will probably even see a black market for voter codes, or whichever method is used to help people log in.
I’ve never seen a proposal for digital voting that looked better than the current system.
Yup agree there is coercion. That still happens. No way to know for sure what people vote for but we shouldn’t hold back technology because it can be used for nefarious purposes.
Let’s ban all internet use because it can be harmful. Ban books because they can spread lies.
We can learn from the past and out safeguards in place. Nothing is 100%. But we can’t stop things because bad things might happen
I think that missed the point. We should move to digital platforms as and when they become better than the existing ones. Voting is no where near that threshold.
Takes decades to transition. So start now and roll it out slowly. Catch bugs and patch them. Build a safe a secure system.