“A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/08/smartphone-voting-is-coming-just-in-time-for-midterms-voatz

by kushti • 8 years ago

249 360 8 years ago

The Boston-based company raised $2.2 million earlier this year, helped along by buzzwords such as “biometrics” and “blockchain,” which it claims allows it to secure the voting process. Its app reportedly requires voters to take and upload a picture of their government-issued I.D., along with a selfie-style video of their face, which facial-recognition technology then uses to ensure the person pictured in the I.D. and the person entering a vote are the same. The ballots are anonymized and recorded on the blockchain.

This is horrible on so many levels.

Heag3aec• 8 years ago

https://xkcd.com/2030/

mbel• 8 years ago

Apparently there is an eerily relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2030/

bilbo0s2• 8 years ago

and “blockchain,” which it claims allows it to secure the voting process...

(I'm rubbing my temples right now)

I don't even have the words for how bad this would be for a democracy or republic.

I will, however, make a curt but general comment on blockchain:

Anytime you see that buzzword, be on your guard.

logifail• 8 years ago

Question: Are there (m)any people other than those involved in the manufacture and sales of voting machines, or their lobbyists, that support increased automation in the voting process?

I'm absolutely, 100% happy with putting a pencil mark onto a paper ballot, which I fold and place into a box (with people watching), which is later taken (with people watching) to a counting place, emptied out on a table (with people watching), and counted by hand by volunteers (with yet more people watching).

starbeast4• 8 years ago

Don't worry, I'm gonna solve the trust problem in blockchain technology by creating a blockchain that lets you know which of the blockchains are trustworthy. It will be fully secured by blockchain technology, so you know you can trust it.

lb1lf3• 8 years ago

...and it doesn't address one of the key issues with votes being cast in places other than a booth in a polling station where you are alone: Coercion.

What's to stop a family member (OK, not much of an issue for overseas military personnel, one would think) or another person from hovering just outside the camera's capture area with a blunt object, ready to -ahem- influence your vote?

Granted, this would only affect individual votes; there are bigger potential issues with electronically tallying votes, but I'll leave those be...

JumpCrisscross4• 8 years ago

What's to stop a family member...[from] influenc[ing] your vote?

This is also a problem with mail-in ballots. (It’s why I believe early votes should be allowed to be overwritten by in-person votes.)

The issue with smartphone voting with selfie verification is almost everyone’s phones contain selfies. (Americans overseas are also likely to have a photo ID on their camera roll.) So controlling the phone means controlling a vote. That’s a scalable risk.

Moreover, if the app is anonymising after verifying, it means the app developers have been deputised by the Board of Elections to verify voters and count their votes. (Whether you voted is public, in America. For whom you voted is not.) That’s a big deal!

The blockchain add-on is worthless if done right, dangerous or illegal if done wrong, and increases the cross-section across which the above issues get amplified.

ghayes• 8 years ago

If you could re-vote as many times as you’d like, then this would largely destroy coercion since the coercer would have to control you or your device during the rest of the voting period. That alone would significantly reduce this risk. For more complex scenarios, you could allow the user to enter his/her PIN backwards which would mean “silently ignore this vote.”

tomatotomato37• 8 years ago

So who's betting both the "anonymized" votes and the biometric software are both going to end up having time-stamped logs, which we'll only discover after a major election takes place?

jobigoud• 8 years ago

I wonder how many pairs of ID pic and selfie video can directly be grabbed off Instagram.

mortenjorck• 8 years ago

Honestly, I don’t think voting by app is inherently a “horrifically bad idea” – just that Voatz’ implementation is horrifically bad.

Biometrics are going to be almost impossible to do in a non-invasive and secure way for now, so cut that part of the pitch. Blockchain may not be an entirely round peg in this square hole, but there are other cryptographic architectures that probably make more sense (I am not a cryptographer, but maybe go talk to a competent one before just deciding on blockchain).

Obviously, without the two big buzzwords of blockchain and biometrics, you’re suddenly at a big disadvantage for VC money, but if mobile voting is ever going to be feasible, it’s going to need a considered, end-to-end approach that isn’t some MVP built from off-the-shelf components and off-the-shelf ideas.

JumpCrisscross4• 8 years ago

I don’t think voting by app is inherently a “horrifically bad idea”

If a voter can cast their vote from their phone, anyone else can.

The strength of paper-based voting is in its cost and complexity: the number of confederates required to tamper with an election is prohibitively large. With app-based voting comes the risk of a large number of compromised phones tampering with elections.

The security downsides simply don't make sense next to mailed-in ballots, which capture the security (and accessibility) of paper ballots with the convenience of voting from home. The only upside of app-based voting is cost, which is a ridiculous factor to strongly optimize for when it comes to something as important as elections.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...

octorian2• 8 years ago

Honestly, I don’t think voting by app is inherently a “horrifically bad idea”

Yes, it is. There are many ways such a system can go wrong. If its not this defective implementation, it'll be some other company's defective implementation. If not that, it'll be a targeted attack against the underlying platform.

Another big thing you have to think about is... Who will be choosing the system? Its going to be some bureaucrats with a vested interest in supporting one particular vendor, who use their power to silence any critics of said vendor's solution. Whenever electronic voting comes up, we always end up with this situation.

CWuestefeld4• 8 years ago

If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck.

Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. And I think that people realize this. So when they know they haven't invested enough in fully understanding the issues and the candidates, they spare us the chance of their error by not voting.

If you want to get more people actively participating in democracy, the right path is through transparency in government and other efforts to make it easier for people to understand what they're voting on. Today it's a big investment in time to get oneself up to speed, and so making that information more accessible and useful would lower the cost for a citizen to make an informed vote.

sidlls• 8 years ago

You've got it backwards: people don't vote for a number of reasons. Many don't because elitists in politics constantly tell them they're too stupid or ignorant to know what's good for them, lecture about civic duty, and ignore the very real problems they have in their lives. Ignoring the real problems that exist in registering or getting to the polls doesn't help.

aalleavitch2• 8 years ago

There are also concerted voter suppression campaigns against certain groups who may be unlikely to vote for a particular candidate.

IncRnd3• 8 years ago

Many don't because elitists in politics constantly tell them they're too stupid or ignorant to know what's good for them

If the cause of someone not voting is politicians saying they are too stupid to vote, maybe they really shouldn't vote.

malvosenior2• 8 years ago

Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society.

I think this describes pretty much everyone who votes today. It's nearly impossible to actually understand the issues and I'd wager it's literally impossible to understand the future effect of what you're voting on. The system is just too complex.

Have you ever read a news article about a topic you're actually familiar with? They are rife with inaccuracies. Most of us are not politicians but I'm sure the same can be said about political coverage.

In summation I think the government and society are too complex to reason about with a human brain and what little there is to know is heavily distorted through inaccurate reporting. I don't see smart phone voters being any less informed than the people that currently think they're informed.

zanny2• 8 years ago

A big part of the problem I feel is choice fatigue. Its by design that when you go to vote in a US election you are often voting for sometimes 20 or more different positions, and because of the sheer quantity of people you are supposed to audit this way it becomes impossible to thoroughly investigate all your choices if each one takes an hour of research.

You can't ask your average citizen to spend 20+ hours in advance of an election thoroughly researching candidates, and you can't trust a third party to "condense" information on them without an agenda.

A republic is supposed to be a society where people elect representatives to make most of these decisions for them. I should not be directly electing judges, police chiefs, school officials, attorney generals, or cabinet positions of the state government. The only reason TPTB made these elections direct was to incentivize people to vote by party color rather than by person to smuggle in bad actors into government.

I'm a firm believer that instead of having at least 5+ different elections each cycle we should be electing a ranked choice set of 3+ representatives per district who then can, as their job, and by legislature appoint the rest of the offices of government.

That would mean I would ranked choice vote for ~3 representatives that then convene in my state legislature. That legislature sends some number of its own delegates to Washington to act as federal representatives. The 3 representatives in my district would, for my district, select its judges, police chiefs, etc.

That would hugely dissociate the machine that overwhelms people with choice and results in aligning with factions and talking points instead of actual people.

whatshisface• 8 years ago

A "local government dictator" could smuggle in bad actors just as easily as a party ticket. Either way, you're outsourcing the decision to someone other than yourself, and hoping that the checks on them (you could oust the local dictator, and the republicans want to keep you happy enough to not vote for the democrats) will be enough to keep them honest.

king078283• 8 years ago

Alternatively, make each elected office require a man and a woman to be independently elected to that office. Have the decision making power split equally between the two 50-50 so that both must agree before taking action (e.g., signing or vetoing bills, or casting votes for bills). Each political party would provide both a male candidate and a female candidate for each office.

bloopernova2• 8 years ago

When I first moved to the USA, I was astounded at how many different positions people were voting for!

My experience in the UK was a small 3x5 notecard sized piece of paper with my choices for local member of parliament. I marked the box by the person I wanted to elect, and submitted the vote.

I still joke that the USA has "too much" democracy ;)

But, like other things the USA does differently to the rest of the world, a great many of its people just haven't experienced anything different to compare their experience.

the_watcher2• 8 years ago

What you're describing is somewhat similar to pre-17th Amendment Senate elections.

dragonwriter6• 8 years ago

The only reason TPTB made these elections direct was to incentivize people to vote by party color rather than by person to smuggle in bad actors into government.

No, the reason reformers made these changes was to break up rampant corruption and back-room dealing in State government and the allocation of appointed positions.

athenot• 8 years ago

Moving voting day from a Tuesday to a Sunday would also make a big difference. There are many people who have have informed opinions but can't afford to take off work (write-up for being late to work/take off early, lost income, transport issues). Also that would avoid removing a school day since most public schools are used for polling.

Another option would be to switch to make mail-in ballots only.

RankingMember• 8 years ago

I'm in favor of ditching Columbus day and replacing it with November 6th as a national holiday for that reason.

Shivetya2• 8 years ago

how do you validate mail in ballots? I am more worried about votes where we have to verify an absent voter simply because the chance of fraud increases. Fraud not only in not knowing if it is the actual voter but also because we cannot insure their vote was not forced.

my state had early voting for weeks so there really isn't a "voting day" issue here. (Georgia). Now I have not looked but how many other states offer early voting?

We need multiple issues fixed in US voting. (just a random list)

1) spreading the number of days to vote across a week or more 2) providing an easy method to confirm a person is eligible to vote and vote on the candidates they want to vote on.

3) providing a means to vote from outside your district for your own district, this is mostly solved by expanding the voting period.

4) providing in clear language what non candidate reforms are being voted on

5) randomizing how candidates appear on a ballot

6) removing one party votes. people need to choose, we don't need drones

7) removing the primary system which exists to stymie third party options

acdha2• 8 years ago

My $.10 proposal: change Veterans Day to be the 2nd Tuesday in November. Almost no cost, there's a strong “they served so you would have this right” angle, and it'd pair naturally with other civic events.

asdkhadsj• 8 years ago

I hate going anywhere, and I am so happy to have mail-in ballots. I can't recommend them enough, it's insanely low effort.

JustSomeNobody2• 8 years ago

They won't do that. The people a certain party doesn't want voting will get bussed to voting stations by local churches, etc.

Tuesday is a day that certain people have to be at work, working. And politicians like that.

JibJabLab• 8 years ago

That might be difficult as many churches are polling stations and they'd have services on that day. They could effectively be closed for 4-7 hrs that day. For many, their service would trump any political duties you might feel they are owed.

holtalanm• 8 years ago

Well, for one, employers are legally REQUIRED to allow their employees time off to vote.

At least I thought that was the case. Please correct me if I am wrong.

twtw6• 8 years ago

I'm not sure - CA has permanent vote by mail available to all eligible voters, and saw about a 38% voter turnout yesterday. Texas does not, and saw about a 40% voter turnout. If getting to the polling place is the bottleneck, I would expect CAs vote by mail option would increase voter turnout relative to somewhere without it.

(Cue someone saying I can't compare TX to CA - it seems like if I can't that demonstrates that there are other factors that matter just as much or more)

umvi• 8 years ago

I don't think so. In Maryland anyone can vote early at their convenience. That rules out work since you can just fill out the ballot at your leisure.

dforrestwilson• 8 years ago

Why do I even need to elect a Congressman/woman to make decisions for me? Just let me do it directly now that the technology is here. We should vote on issues in real time, or within a week or month-long window.

It would incentivize people with time and interest to be more involved, and get rid of that pesky agency problem.

At the very least we can marginalize the role of politicians and perhaps be less disappointed in them.

tmaly2• 8 years ago

a Saturday or Sunday would have a much higher turnout. However, you would still be excluding a large number of lower income service workers that work on the weekend.

leetbulb2• 8 years ago

I attempted to vote in the wrong county. My buddy attempted to vote in the wrong district within his county. Luckily I am a telecommute worker with relaxed hours. He on the other hand was debating whether he should return to work or risk being late.

The reasoning for such extremely strict geographic restrictions, I am unsure of, but surely it would also argue against mail-in ballots (and I would assume smartphone voting).

Side question: How are people temporarily living in distant areas from their registered county (working, attending school, etc) able to vote? I'm sure there's a large handful of people in this situation unable to cast their vote.

IncRnd3• 8 years ago

There are many people who have have informed opinions but can't afford to take off work (write-up for being late to work/take off early, lost income, transport issues).

They don't need to take off work. Every state in the US lets people mail-in votes or vote early in person.

buzzdenver• 8 years ago

I second mail-in ballots. Everyone automatically gets them in Colorado, you essentially have 2 weeks to fill them out and drop them off.

moneil971• 8 years ago

Early voting also helps, many states let people vote through the weekend before Nov. 6. Or mail in ballots, but yes, making it officially on a weekend would simplify quite a bit.

smpetrey• 8 years ago

Fuck that, emulate the Australians and move it to a Saturday. Go one step further and make it a national holiday. Need to work? Mail-in your ballot before-hand and work if you must.

smileysteve2• 8 years ago

Weekend voting can be a part of early voting; But mail-in or smart phone solves the availability problem much better than a holiday (where the very people who don't have the flexibility to take off work now would likely still not be able to take off work (like thanksgiving, memorial day, and labor day)

reading-at-work• 8 years ago

I live in Oregon, and we do have mail-in ballots. Can confirm that it's great.

mcv• 8 years ago

Other options include making it a national holiday, or making it easy to vote close to home or work, and keep voting stations open for a very generous period.

Basically, you should be able to vote quickly before or after work without it cost more than 15 minutes.

99052882514569• 8 years ago

And I think that people realize this. So when they know they haven't invested enough in fully understanding the issues and the candidates, they spare us the chance of their error by not voting.

Sadly these people are often less ignorant that the ones who haven't invested enough in fully understanding the issues and the candidates, and yet still vote. But I agree with the larger point completely, and have been called an anti-democratic fascist to my face for making it before.

JustSomeNobody2• 8 years ago

Case in point. All but one Florida Amendments passed. I mean seriously!? A lot of those don't belong in the state constitution!

mattferderer2• 8 years ago

I understand where you're coming from. You can always skip voting on certain issues or candidates if you're unsure.

At the same time, we elect candidates based on how well we feel they are up for the job. Understanding the issues is very, very hard; even for the candidates & their teams! We're not expected to understand all the issues, especially at a federal level. That's why we have representatives & why they hire staff.

mdorazio• 8 years ago

I agree, but it's important to note that many people don't vote in the US because they simply don't have the time to leave work/school and go to a polling place, or won't get paid for it if they do [1]. More mail-in ballots could potentially alleviate this, but a lot of people prefer to vote in person. Also due to our two-party system, gerrymandering, and the way congress works, many people don't vote because they feel it doesn't make a difference, not because they are poorly informed.

A broad approach of better voter education, a national holiday on election day, and replacing FPTP with something else that actually favors more than two parties (I like STAR myself) is needed in the US.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/us/politics/election-day-...

KerrickStaley2• 8 years ago

I agree that changing the voting system would help a lot in shaking up the stratified two-party dynamic we have in the USA.

STAR seems like an interesting method, but one potential issue with it is that it's more complicated than methods like approval voting (more bubbles on the ballot, harder to explain to people). Approval voting seems like the simplest fix to our existing voting system. It would encourage third parties and more diversity of positions, while also reducing the extreme polarization that we see between the Republicans and Democrats.

downandout2• 8 years ago

many people don't vote because they feel it doesn't make a difference

This is actually the case in many areas. For example, casting a vote for a Republican Presidential candidate in California is a pointless endeavor. This sentiment doesn’t arise from lack of voter education, but rather from voter education - people understand the political makeup of the areas in which they live, and in those that are overwhelmingly partisan, can correctly conclude that their vote won’t make a difference.

IncRnd3• 8 years ago

they simply don't have the time to leave work/school and go to a polling place, or won't get paid for it if they do [1]. More mail-in ballots could potentially alleviate this, but a lot of people prefer to vote in person.

That's already solved. People can vote early in-person or mail-in ballots.

dvdhnt• 8 years ago

While I agree with your overall argument regarding the overflow of issues and ignorance of their particulars, I have to disagree with your view on abstinence from voting being some sort of error prevention. By that measure, there is a right and wrong, then inherently, whether you vote or not, allowing the “wrong” choice to be made is an “error”.

smbullet• 8 years ago

I don't think they're saying the wrong choice is a particular candidate. The wrong choice is mistakenly voting for someone who doesn't actually represent you because you were ignorant of the candidate's stances or history.

mtgx• 8 years ago

I agree this is far from the primary thing Americans should be focusing on, even forgetting about all the horrific and completely impossible to fix security issues that this will bring.

What the US needs to be focusing on is changing the voting system. It's absolutely insane and undemocratic for this to keep happening almost every election:

https://preview.redd.it/lyvqks420vw11.jpg?width=949&auto=web...

If this isn't a broken system, I don't know what is. This is not the "voice of the people" being heard. Oh, and what do you think happens when people see how broken this system is? Do you think they'll still "go out and vote"? Many will be turned-off by it and stay home, whether we like it or not.

And if you're looking for an alternative solution, the multi-winner ranked-choice voting system (for Congress/state legislatures) looks pretty good to me, and it would eliminate gerrymandering, too (as a simple side effect of allowing candidates from multiple parties to win in the same district, thus removing district monopolization by a single party):

https://www.fairvote.org/fair_representation

umanwizard3• 8 years ago

The senate will never change. It was an agreed-upon compromise to entice independent states to join a federation. You’re better off hoping for the state where you live to declare independence and do without the federation completely than hoping the federation changes its entire structure.

KerrickStaley2• 8 years ago

One issue with ranked choice is that it's more complicated than some alternatives like approval voting, and certain ranked choice methods (non-Condorcet ones) can encourage strategic voting or produce surprising results.

jfk13• 8 years ago

It's absolutely insane and undemocratic for this to keep happening almost every election:
https://preview.redd.it/lyvqks420vw11.jpg?width=949&auto=web....
If this isn't a broken system, I don't know what is. This is not the "voice of the people" being heard.

If that graphic were for the House rather than the Senate, it would be more persuasive. The Senate is (by design) not about representation directly in proportion to population.

It may be debatable whether the Senate model of equal representation for each state is appropriate, but that's a different issue than changing the FPTP voting system.

twtw6• 8 years ago

if this isn't a broken system, I don't know what is

You are either willfully ignoring the structure of the system or need to study it more. If a billion people vote for democrats in New York and California, it has zero impact on the election of the representative from Wyoming (or any other not CA or NY). Thinking that it should fundamentally misses the point of a federation.

SonicSoul• 8 years ago

what you're saying is good but:

the right path is through transparency in government and other efforts to make it easier for people to understand what they're voting on

bit of catch 22, because in order to do this we need to vote out people actively obstructing this change

sailfast2• 8 years ago

Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society.

EDIT: "Wow" Retracted and language changes - agree that ignorance is something to be fought, but it's a tough determination when it comes to voting.

How are you determining a voter is ignorant? What if someone is informed but disagrees with you?

Like so many things, we need both, and I don't think it is an either/or.

It should be easier to vote (Maryland just passed same-day registration 67% to 33%.), and people need time to vote which can be hard to come by if you work multiple jobs.

We also need transparency on the issues and good explainers. Civic groups have been doing a good job on the latter, and this works well on the local level depending on your jurisdiction.

Transparency may help you understand incumbents, but will not help with new candidates, or with ballot questions. That also won't scale to local politics. Donate to civic groups that are trying to make it easier to understand what is on the ballot. Push for better explanations on the ballot itself. Fund local newspapers and buy a subscription.

Also, in general, if you think higher participation is better you kinda have to rely on the voter - even the "ignorant, poorly-informed" ones.

twtw6• 8 years ago

Wow. What if someone is informed but disagrees with you?

OP didn't say anything about agreeing with their positions. I honestly don't see what your "wow" is about - do you believe that it would be helpful to society to have poorly-informed people casting votes?

EpicEng• 8 years ago

Wow. What if someone is informed but disagrees with you?

ig·no·rant /ˈiɡnərənt/

adjective

lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.

tomjen37• 8 years ago

I would say a voter isn't ignorant if he can tell me why I believe what I believe in such a way that I can say that is correct.

You need to understand the positions, then you can disagree with them.

danso• 8 years ago

It doesn't have to be one or the other. People who put forth the effort to participate in government -- whether it's voting, or going to a public meeting, or visiting their representative -- are sacrificing their time, and getting something out of it even if they initially do it for shallow reasons. They're at least getting firsthand experience of government's warts and all. And that firsthand experience is going to be more directly motivating than the passive enjoyment of transparency and other reforms that civic enthusiasts may bring.

I'm not belittling the benefits transparency or better information dissemination -- it's just that the average person can't fully appreciate such features. Even on HN, despite the abundance of online info and search tools, people are staggeringly ignorant of ordinary functions of our government -- including the use of public records to do the most basic research. But it's not because people are dumb, it's just they haven't yet had the motivation or need to engage with government and elected officials. OTOH, anyone who's had reason to be irate enough to speak at a city council meeting or read an entire environmental impact review quickly becomes knowledgeable about civic functions.

So I just don't agree with putting forth the idea that you should only vote when you've put in real effort. Voting was intended to be broadly accessible with minimal investment demanded and few requirements imposed upon a citizen's motive or knowledge. No amount of education, passion, or moral inclination changes the fact that your vote has the same worth as even the lowest-information voter.

knieveltech• 8 years ago

If you want people to vote make it mandatory like Australia. Anything short of that seems incoherent.

bun_at_work• 8 years ago

Mandatory voting? How would you propose enforcing it? How does Australia enforce it?

I'm not necessarily against mandatory voting, but it would be very hard to convince the American public that mandatory voting is a good idea when a huge part of the population would see that as an attack on their freedom to not vote.

This doesn't even begin to discuss the situations where voting only occurs on a Tuesday (aside from mail-ins) and some people can't take that time off work. There would have to be some clause to force employers to let employees go vote, at a loss of money somewhere. Such a clause would lead to more resistance.

Again, I'm not personally against it, but it's not so simple as "make it mandatory."

dragonwriter6• 8 years ago

If you want people to vote make it mandatory like Australia.

Empirically, a more proportional election system not only improves satisfaction with government, but also participation in voting.

People not voting should be a signal that there is something wrong with the voting system’s fitness for purpose. Mandatory voting may treat the symptom, but ignores the underlying problem.

pentae• 8 years ago

And make it a public holiday

nerdponx• 8 years ago

How about ending and prosecuting voter suppression?

pqs• 8 years ago

Of course, you are not an ignorant so you can illuminate us with your vote.

AnimalMuppet2• 8 years ago

There are at least three groups of people who don't vote. One group is the lazy.

The second group is those for whom things are going reasonably well - the lights work, the roads get repaired, crime isn't too bad, their economic circumstances aren't terrible, and so why worry? No matter who gets elected, the lights are going to continue to work, and so on - it won't be a radical change either way. (This group may overlap with the first one.)

The third group is those in despair. They see the problems in society, and they see fifty years' worth of politicians who have promised to fix them, and the problems are still here. They've given up on politics as an answer to the problems of society.

CuriouslyC• 8 years ago

I would break down the third group into people who people who have given up on politics and people who just don't feel represented by the current set of political ideologies, and would rather abstain than support people they don't believe in.

wu-ikkyu2• 8 years ago

The third group is those in despair. They see the problems in society, and they see fifty years' worth of politicians who have promised to fix them, and the problems are still here. They've given up on politics as an answer to the problems of society.

As someone who falls under this group, I've often suggested that we should allow more participation for the individual in the democratic process, seeing as how the fundamental assumptions and constraints of society have so drastically changed since the current system was designed:

"In a large society, inhabiting an extensive country, it is impossible that the whole should assemble to make laws. The first necessary step, then, is to depute power from the many to a few of the most wise and good."

-John Adams, Thoughts on Government 1776

Ironically, many of the same people who disparage others for not "participating" enough in democracy (by voting), see a more direct/participatory system to be out of the question, claiming people are too stupid to have more involvement.

wpietri• 8 years ago

Do you have any data at all that backs your theory that the major barrier to voting is lack of issue/candidate information? Because at first read, I'm not sure how ranting about "ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes" is different than "I don't want those people voting."

I vote in one of the most complicated areas in the country: San Francisco. I had to make 40 different choices for a variety of different local, regional, state, and federal offices, plus 14 ballot propositions. There was an excellent local ballot guide, which voters receive on paper and can view online. [1] The State of California produces a good guide as well, again on paper and online. [2] For areas where I needed more information, there was plenty available. The nonpartisan League of Women Voters has a nice site with general information [3] and both the local and state chapters produce their own good-government recommendations on ballot props. [4] Plenty of organizations have recommendations as well; I looked at several different ballot guides produced by individuals and organizations.

And you know why I did all this work? Because I had to vote. I was not particularly informed on the intricacies of bond funding and government budgeting before this. That's how it has always been. The first time I voted at 18, I surely made some choices I'd now regard as woefully uninformed. Until then I had no skin in the game! But each election I vote, see the outcome, and have more incentive to do better next time. And I do.

So no, the bottleneck is not information. There's a ton of it out there. The bottleneck is also not information access. If well-presented information doesn't land in one's mailbox (and it should!), it's a Google search away. The problem is that voting in America is needlessly hard.

How do I know? The nice people at the Center for Civic Design [4] actually research this. They have done hundreds of interviews with voters. And they write about the problems. [6] We also see, both historically and currently, that people seek partisan advantage by making the registration and voting process needlessly difficult. If those barriers didn't work to discourage voters, self-serving politicians wouldn't be putting them in place.

I have helped register hundreds of people to vote. Not one of them wasn't excited to take part. Not one of them struck me as unserious about exercising their franchise. So I am 100% for voter registration, GOTV, and removing artificial barriers to voting. And I'm 100% for good schools, so that future voters are well prepared. And I think everybody in favor of democracy should be.

[1] https://voterguide.sfelections.org/en

[2] http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/

[3] https://votersedge.org/

[4] https://www.lwvsf.org/ and https://lwvc.org/

[5] https://civicdesign.org/

[6] e.g.: https://medium.com/civic-designing/the-epic-journey-of-ameri...

jackvalentine• 8 years ago

Because at first read, I'm not sure how ranting about "ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes" is different than "I don't want those people voting."

It's not, and therefore the only 'fair' way of conducting elections is to make sure everyone has the opportunity to vote - even the people who will vote for the candidate you don't like.

A high turnout also has the advantage of inserting noise in to the result, negating the unfair advantages of highly motivated time-rich people (usually older people).

ahoy• 8 years ago

I agree, we should restrict the franchise of voting to only the most informed and qualified. How about just white male land-owners?

srtjstjsj• 8 years ago

"abstain" is an option on every ballot. You are conflating "being able to vote" from "voting for a choice"

partiallypro4• 8 years ago

Most people are not going to abstain if they can vote from their couch, they will vote straight ticket.

specialist2• 8 years ago

Follow the money.

These new products and services justify changing from a per ballot to a per voter revenue model.

Whereas before vendors charged per ballot produced, now they're charging per registered voter. Signature verification, ballot tracking, ballot casting, etc. Every single step, task is being monetized.

The transition to all vote by mail is a bonanza for vendors. Creating a $2.50 ballot packet for every voter every single election, whereas before they'd only print 10 cent ballots for expected turnout (plus 10%).

Undermining the integrity of our elections (private voting, public counting) isn't even a factor in these conversations, much less acknowledged as a regrettable side effect.

rajacombinator• 8 years ago

The goal is not to do the right thing, it is to get maximally ignorant, easily manipulated voters under your control. Or kabuki voting, in which the choices are the same, but voters get to feel like they matter.

0x8BADF00D3• 8 years ago

Very well put. Career politicians thrive upon such a system.

ppeetteerr• 8 years ago

Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society.

What makes you think this is not already happening? Why would phone voting make it worse?

devit• 8 years ago

The problem is that voting correctly is irrational since the chance of affecting the outcome is minuscule and not worth the massive effort of making a correct choice.

Hence, the only people who vote are irrational or badly informed (driven by the pleasure or duty of casting the vote rather than a commitment to voting optimally), with the well known poor outcomes all democracies suffer from.

AnimalMuppet2• 8 years ago

The "well known poor outcomes that all democracies suffer from" that just happen to be better than the well known poor outcomes that all the other systems suffer from.

(Well, all the systems that have been tried. The systems that have not been tried do not yet suffer from well known poor outcomes.)

village-idiot• 8 years ago

Vote by mail! My wife and I spent 45 minutes at the kitchen counter figuring out which of the more obscure local candidates we liked, then mailed it back in the morning.

ApolloFortyNine• 8 years ago

It seems to me that any measure that makes it too easy to vote will just make campaigns even more reliant on advertising spending.

An uninformed voter would have nothing else to go off of after all, and with average turn out rates of near 60% currently, it would have a dramatic effect on elections.

jancsika• 8 years ago

If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck.

Are you saying that voters talking directly to candidates and the volunteers who work on their behalf and know their platforms is NOT a way to educate potential voters and get them to the polls? To me that seems like one of the most effective ways of telling people how to vote, why to vote, when to vote, and where to vote. Well, perhaps second to actually becoming a volunteer oneself.

Today it's a big investment in time to get oneself up to speed, and so making that information more accessible and useful would lower the cost for a citizen to make an informed vote.

The generous interpretation here is that you're a software person and are just focusing on what you know, which is the potential for software to improve access to information for voters.

Even so, why are you claiming that your solution is an alternative and not a supplement to the current ways? Especially given that the current ways had an enormous measurable increase in voter turnout yesterday?

I get the urge to code something to help people, but not the urge to wholesale ignore the history of politicking in America.

darawk• 8 years ago

That's really not how the bias shakes out. The bias ends up being that older people who are retired vote more than working people, because it's a hassle to get to the polls.

There are all sorts of weird biases that occur due to the way voting is conducted now. Smartphone voting would be great IMO, assuming it is implemented using a secure cryptographicly verifiable protocol.

devdas• 8 years ago

There's also the huge problem of vote suppression in the US, either via gerrymandering or by demanding IDs which most minorities don't have and are inconvinient for them to get.

burfog3• 8 years ago

FYI, "IDs which most minorities don't have" is incorrect and it looks sort of racist.

Here, the first third interviewing people at UC Berkeley with that idea and the remainder interviewing actual minorities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBxZGWCdgs

pbhjpbhj3• 8 years ago

I think we need to move on somewhat from voting for people, to voting for specific actions as much as is feasible.

You could even require specific items in a manifesto be implemented (at pain of losing office and opening up a new election).

So if it says in a manifesto +£n billion will be spent in 2019 on education and the independent audit officer find that it wasn't then an election is called and the PM + education minister are barred from re-election.

If referenda can be streamlined (eg by sampling) then manifestos would have a list of referenda and they would then legally be required.

Democracy seems flawed; maybe it's still the least flawed system though.

(This is not a great comment: I'm mixing lack of accountability/honour of representatives with poor decision making and poor ability at forward planning by the ignorant.)

meko• 8 years ago

But those things impair business' short term profitability so they won't happen.

Mikeb85• 8 years ago

Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society.

No it doesn't, but it does allow the media and establishment to manipulate people in order to obtain a favourable result under the guise of democracy.

ookdatnog• 8 years ago

So when they know they haven't invested enough in fully understanding the issues and the candidates, they spare us the chance of their error by not voting.

I don't think this is true at all, at least not on a macro scale. By having a low sample from your population voting, you're greatly magnifying the impact of uninformed extremists, if anything.

mikeash• 8 years ago

The problem with this sentiment is that ignorance and lack of enthusiasm aren’t necessarily correlated. Lots of normal people follow politics enough to be informed but are too busy to vote. Lots of crazy people get their information exclusively from bogus sources and turn up for every election.

Keeping it harder to vote doesn’t select for informed people, it selects for fanatics and extremists. Making it easier to vote selects for moderates and sane people. That would be a huge win for us.

That said, computerized voting is definitely not the way to do it.

aeturnum2• 8 years ago

Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society.

I think this understanding is common, but it's totally incorrect and is part of the larger project to get fewer people to vote.

Voting does represent, in some sense, a decision of import for how society functions. A vote for a tyrant, for example, would be bad for everyone. But is voting more important or influential than the many, many other ways in which people support or oppose bad things in our society?

In the same domain - political donations support or oppose the same politicians (and the relative impact of a donation and a vote is debatable - at the very least people can donate many times!), but the discourse around them has none of the concern around "poorly informed" donators. In a different domain - working for a company can have an enormous good or bad impact on the world, but we don't caution people against "ignorantly" accepting a position (there is lots of discussion around the morality of companies - but people are not called "irresponsible" or "ignorant" simply for working for bad companies).

I would ask you to consider how big an impact a vote has and compare that any other decision we make that impacts the world. The narrative you're advancing holds voting to a much higher standard than other ways in which people affect the world. I personally think this is because the originators of this argument (but not necessarily you) want people to question if they should vote. However, they would never suggest that a person their suitability to select who to buy services from, or work for, or donate money to - because those are all actions taken by higher-income people and voting is (or attempts to be) universal.

0x8BADF00D3• 8 years ago

I think this understanding is common, but it's totally incorrect and is part of the larger project to get fewer people to vote.

Which is what the Founding Fathers intended. The word “democracy” does not exist anywhere in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. As Ben Franklin put it, we have a republic, if we can keep it. We have done a terrible job at that.

coryfklein2• 8 years ago

they spare us the chance of their error by not voting.

Why would you think that uninformed voters have a lower participation rate than informed voters?

macrael• 8 years ago

Perhaps we could implement some kind of basic tests as a requirement for voting. Like a...literacy test...or something. /s

You are not wrong that we need to make changes to get people more engaged with government, but we also need to make it easier for everyone who wants to vote to vote. The forward march of progress in our country has been measured by the number of people who are allowed to vote. If you don't like how "ignorant people" vote, then start pushing for better public education.

NoblePublius• 8 years ago

Ok Socrates we get it the democracy is only as strong as the polis is educated. But maybe the polis will be forced to educate itself once a technology makes any barrier to voting irrelevant. Either you value an individual’s will or you don’t. It sounds like you’re advocating a poll tax.

nine_k5• 8 years ago

One place where democracy unquestionably works is Switzerland.

One thing Swiss do often is voting on small local issues. Practice makes perfect. Seeing the more immediate local effect is a great teaching experience. Making the training ground small in scale makes a lot of sense.

I think that a path to more informed, conscious voting on big elections lies (partly) through exercise of voting often for local cases.

Approval / Condorcet voting would be another crucial improvement.

The problem is, of course, that I have no idea how the US political system could be adapted to allow this.

siruncledrew• 8 years ago

I'm going to be brutally honest: Voting for candidates is detached and unclear without having prior information or knowledge about the candidates readily available. Not knowing who/what I'm voting for or the impact of my vote for a candidate I know nothing about increases my apathy towards voting. (I know I deserve the "shame on you for ruining democracy!" remarks).

Having some sort of TL;DR for each candidate on the ballot or a short abstract of their goals/platform would help inform voters, at least in my personal opinion.

I am in my 20s, and have talked to friends about this, and voting doesn't translate to feeling "involved" in democracy when we have no idea who/what we are voting for. It feels like bringing in a guy from IT to vote for the winner of an NYC fashion show (no offense, since I would be that guy).

I saw the ballot list of candidates, and I knew nothing about even a single person on the list. My hypothesis is that without knowing a candidate's beliefs/morals/objectives, this leads to voters nonchalantly voting for a person based on whether they have a (D) or (R) next to their name, or based on something superficial like how cool their name sounds. This doesn't seem like democracy being put to an effective use.

Unless there is a specific issue groups are vested in compelling people to vote (such as marijuana or rent/housing), there really isn't anything special about purely casting a vote for the sake of it without any motivation behind it. It's not even clear what outcome people are contributing to with their votes in current methods.

Plus, with a lack of people watching TV, listening to the radio, or going out of their way to read election coverage (especially at the local level), there is not a good way for people who are not informed to even become passively informed (other than seeing signs with names plastered everywhere that will end up in some trash pile).

Further, unless practices change, making election day a holiday off work may not even have much effect if people just use it as a free day to vacation or relax.

andyv• 8 years ago

Pretty much all candidates these days have websites... Just saying.

throw2016• 8 years ago

Ignorance as a word is only meaningful in a narrow context, usually in context 'of a what' and hopefully with some facts to prove the accusation.

Without any moorings or context the word ignorance loses all meaning and value. Accusing any group xyz or a nebulous 'other' of ignorance is like accusing HN readers of ignorance of history, because it is logically and physically impossible to prove any such assertion of any group, and you are left with circular logic that points to source assertion as evidence ie uninformed prejudice.

Democracy is about everyone voting, it does not seek to make a judgement or value claims on individuals in any way and if you accept the concept your only job is vote and support the unequivocal right of everyone to vote.

Any arguments about individuals that disqualify them in your personal opinion would need a wider argument against democracy as a concept.

rapind• 8 years ago

Voting needs to be localized, easy (convenient), and mandatory (fines). Vote for people who vote for people, etc.

The level of abstraction, indirection, and complexity at a national (and state) level demoralizes and creates antipathy.

You can't blame populism when no one can be informed enough to make an informed decision.

Imagine being asked to make an architectural decision on a 5,000,000 LOC project your first day on the job... then add a bunch of stakeholders telling you that their way is better (and often lying about it, or at least exaggerating the outcomes).

justifier• 8 years ago

I would argue you make it a mandatory piece of the curriculum for voting age, or to be, high schoolers

Researching and reading all of the supportive material for a ballot's fill of decisions is a skill and effort

Detailing how to develop that skill and establishing that effort as habit could affect students to continue to keep an interesting in voting

Take your time with each element of the next vote's ballot

let the students discuss multiple viewpoints and coach a civil fact based discourse

profalseidol• 8 years ago

Today it's a big investment in time to get oneself up to speed, and so making that information more accessible and useful would lower the cost for a citizen to make an informed vote.

And this is why Capitalism is not compatible with Democracy. Especially now that we even call it as 'investment' to be informed to choose who will control our lives. And then there's the fact that it is also an investment to campaign.

However, hopefully, sooner or later, technology will eventually help give the people more information as it did in the past. Pretty sure less centralized medium of information like Twitch or YouTube will eventually replace Fox News or CNN.

cyphar9• 8 years ago

Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society.

I'm not usually one to say this, but this is a very high-and-mighty way of looking at your society. In Australia, voting is mandatory for every citizen. We have just as many misinformed people, but voting is seen as a civic duty in the same way that jury duty is. If you don't show up, you get fined (though skipping jury duty has a much higher fine).

I think the jury duty comparison is quite apt, actually -- in the case of voting (depending on your voting system), most individuals have very little individual power over which way an election will go. But as a member of a jury, you have a very large amount of power over how someone else's life will go. My point is that if you believe in mandatory jury duty (which I do) then you should also view mandatory voting as being no more insane than mandatory jury duty.

I agree with the rest of what you said, but I disagree that only well-informed people should be pushed to go and vote. It should be the duty of everyone to vote, because if you don't uniformly push even misinformed or disinterested people to vote then you are providing a gap for particular parties to push their supporters to out-vote you -- which is a ridiculous problem to have in my view.

These are not the bottleneck.

As an outsider, it seems to me that the bottleneck in the US is laws being passed to explicitly make it more onerous to vote and other various organisational aspects (difficult to do early or postal voting, election day is on a Tuesday, bosses are allowed to fire employees for going to vote, really long lines at polling places, etc).

I'll never understand why so many politicians and citizens in the US view making voting more difficult as being anything other than a move away from a democratically elected representative government.

(As an aside, in Australia we don't have any form of voter ID. You just say your name and address and whether you've voted before and then you get a ballot.)

masonic3• 8 years ago

  voting is mandatory for every citizen

Is voting mandatory, or is simply showing up at the polls mandatory?

If the former, are you required to vote on every issue and office?

antpls• 8 years ago

Making information transparent is only one step. The next step is the simplification needed to make the system understandable by people who work all day long, have kids, entertainment, etc. All the administrative forms, the accounting rules, the history of debt of a country, the geopolitical situation are all difficult to fully grasp if you don't spend full time on it. How could anyone make "informed" decision ?

I agree the first step is to make the system more transparent, maybe it will surface the almost insane complexity to more people.

Also, more transparency, but not at the expense of sacrificing fairness and privacy

shittyadmin4• 8 years ago

Good idea honestly, the security issues are greatly overblown - especially if we can simply make this a mailer with "if you want to vote for this candidate, enter this code/scan this qr code", where nothing about that code identifies the candidate they voted for.

And it'd definitely help to improve voter turnout, just look at studies on how poll lines impact future voting behavior...

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC5• 8 years ago

So, how do you count the votes each candidate gets if nothing about that code identifies the candidate they voted for?

Also, you think this system is sufficiently secure to secure access to trillions of dollars? Because that is what elections are about.

shittyadmin4• 8 years ago

On an optically isolated (phyiscally receive only) server which only receives codes sent from the application servers.

Also, you think this system is sufficiently secure to secure access to trillions of dollars? Because that is what elections are about.

More secure than Diebold machines to be certain.

lolc• 8 years ago

simply

That one word you can never use to describe electronic voting with secret ballot. Sure it may be made easy, but it won't ever be simple.

mattferderer2• 8 years ago

If this were to ever become a reality I would like to see it be open sourced so all countries can use it & all citizens can test for security breaches.

Our government is meant to be transparent & this is something that I don't believe becomes better by being closed off.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC5• 8 years ago

1. All citizens aren't experts at auditing software, and won't be.

2. In order to achieve anything close to the same transparency as existing voting systems, you would have to open the operating systems of all chips on the devices, the firmware, and the chip design, and then enable any citizen to verify that the device they have in their hand actually was built from those sources.

wasdfff8• 8 years ago

Everything is bugged in some way. If an exploit is found it would be kept secret, and the only way it would be fixed is if a white hat randomly finds it again.

aalleavitch2• 8 years ago

Yeah, this is the opposite of the correct way to solve the problem. What about, instead, you had an app that you could just plug in what time you wanted to vote and it would find the nearest polling place and give you the google maps directions and maybe even allow you to order an Uber ahead of time? It could reminds you how and when to register, it could even help reduce wait times by directing you to polling places with little traffic or at time when most people are not out voting.

We could make voting easier in a million ways that are not literally allowing you to vote on your phone.

malvosenior2• 8 years ago

What about, instead, you had an app that you could just plug in what time you wanted to vote and it would find the nearest polling place and give you the google maps directions and maybe even allow you to order an Uber ahead of time?

Uber basically does this now. It had a big call to action yesterday to take me directly to my nearest polling place.

zaroth2• 8 years ago

My town has annual “Town Meetings” where everyone pours into a gymnasium (turnout is up to 800 voters in a town with population ~15,000) to vote on all the “articles” of which there can be upwards of 20. The annual meeting often extends multiple evenings as much discussion is permitted on each article, and traditional voting can add several hours to the process when vote counts are close.

Instead of shouting aye or nay, raising hands, or standing to be counted, we hand out wireless handsets which have a yes/no buttons and a small display to confirm your vote. Then a screen at the front displays the total.

The cost of renting the devices is non-trivial at around $15-20k (having trouble finding our towns specific budget line item for this) so I often pondered why we couldn’t use smartphones that everyone is surely already carrying, and maybe carry a small stock of devices just for people without phones.

The idea would be a local WiFi network which was not connected to the internet, where an app on the device would connect to a local server over that WiFi network to place the vote, after someone checks you in at the front desk.

I have no reason to trust the devices we use now any more than an open-source public domain phone app and backend container combo that the town could setup.

Over thousands of towns and tens of years the TAM is pretty large, but more to the point a non-profit coalition developing and maintaining this solution could provide a lot of value.

umanwizard3• 8 years ago

~$20 per device to RENT a very basic and simple piece of electronics seems like a huge ripoff. That company must have an amazing profit margin.

Steltek• 8 years ago

Yikes, I can see a lot of our TMM's having trouble with phones. It'd be better to just invest in dedicated phones and not allow BYOD. In fact, I can see some TMM's trying to get away with voting remotely (attendance is sometimes challenging).

That said, the remotes are amazingly useful for going back and looking over the results.

zaroth2• 8 years ago

To be clear, they are wireless remotes, but you have to be in the room. And even these dedicated devices are not entirely frustration free, sometimes they have to revert to hand counting.

I don’t think anything is saved within each device, just the totals. They say there’s no way to know how each individual device (and therefore device-holder) voted.

I doubt strongly there is any actual crypto guaranteeing this though.

gpm• 8 years ago

I have reason to trust that device more than your phone. Your phone is exposed to malware over the internet 24x7 and is basically known to be vulnerable based on history.

On the other hand I'm not sure I'm too worried about hacking of in person town meetings. It seems high risk/reward and relatively likely to be caught.

Novashi• 8 years ago

Touch screens are a really great idea for voting.

No really.

https://twitter.com/The_UnSilent_/status/1059962688338583554

</sarcasm>

king078283• 8 years ago

Could the Monero system be modified to create a voting system that maintains the secret ballot? From an engineering perspective, It seems like the currency and monetization aspects be pulled out/minimized and the untraceable transactions aspect used to record votes.

monocasa• 8 years ago

No. Vote buying and vote cohersion attacks have historically been the largest form of attack on voting systems. We need a voting system where you can be sure your vote was counted without being able to prove how you voted, even to yourself.

Shivetya2• 8 years ago

Smartphone voting is no more bad than absentee voting is for people who are actually in their voting area. We have/had people voting with absentee ballots who just didn't want to do early voting and stand in lines

weegee101• 8 years ago

Haha, that "sample security test" is hilarious. Basically just a link to SSL Labs saying they meet industry standard. That's great, glad they can meet low hanging fruit. How about proving that they can do better?

mattnewton• 8 years ago

I think the way the private sector solves problems and the way voting should be done are diametrically opposed- the more inefficient voting is, with the more people involved, the larger a successful conspiracy must be. Trust a lot of people a little over a few people a lot.

dalbasal• 8 years ago

The problem with "meta" democratic decisions is that we can only discuss them honestly in the abstract. Once it's a live agenda decision, gerrymandering implications are all that will matter. The quality of the proposal becomes irelevant.

Lets imagine that security issues are 100% solved. The app can go live. Pollsters will figure out how this (inevitably) changes voting patterns. Young, or rural or some other group will vote more, to the benefit of some party.

At this point the only relevant factor determining most politicians' stance on this will be determined by good/bad for my side, in the short term.

matty_makes• 8 years ago

There needs to be a paper trail. Newer technology is not the answer for voting.

What would be a good idea is a team to do UX on voting ballots, nationally. Solve this problem once and take into account all the variations of local things (bonds, amendments, etc.) Then pick a company to make ballot readers, open source the software and use best in class info-sec practices.

We don't need instant results, people don't take office at midnight of election day. We need accurate, transparent and verifiable results.

Also, make it a national holiday, close schools and just use them all as polling places.

rsync• 8 years ago

"There needs to be a paper trail. Newer technology is not the answer for voting."

I agree. Voting systems need to be extremely simple and understandable - and auditing the system, or the votes, needs to be a task that any person pulled randomly off the street could accomplish.

mosselman• 8 years ago

Voting is a solved problem: fill in some box on paper. What is automating it ever going to solve?

throwawaylolx6• 8 years ago

Increasing participation? I won't drive out of my way and queue somewhere to vote. Sure, many people think the solution to this is shaming me for not caring enough about democracy, but it is obviously not working. If it were easy and safe to vote from my phone, I may be more inclined to vote.

CrlNvl• 8 years ago

So this is clearly a funding problem and a date problem. I don't know what the situation is in the US, but in France it never took me (or my parents) more than 15 minutes to cast a vote. Most of the time I'm in and out within 10 minutes. Vote always happen on Sunday.

thrower123• 8 years ago

Would you be more inclined to educate yourself on the candidates and the issues on the ballot? If increasing voter participation is just about having more ignorant voters, or stuffing the ballot box with people from given demographics, then quite frankly, I am not in favor of it. I wouldn't qualify myself to be sufficiently educated to really vote on any of the issues I voted on yesterday, but hey, I did my civic duty and got my sticker. I don't have the foggiest idea what the difference between the two candidates for county clerk is, or what the material results of amending one sentence in the state constitution with what reads to me as different synonyms will be...

I don't think that is a solvable problem.

And I would be terrified of throwing smartphones into the mix, because they are just terrible (I think the iPhone has made the world a worse place, on balance...). Any API endpoint that is setup to handle the traffic is going to be attacked, and it is going to be broken; people are going to be on shitty LTE connections, and their votes aren't going to go through. The data is not going to be properly anonymized. Software is terrible, and it is going to have bugs and fuckups and gaping holes that would be horribly exposed under the stress and scale of a real election.

Voting is basically a solved problem, and I don't see that piling complexity on top of it is a worthwhile endeavor. You go to your polling place, you grab the sheet of paper, you fill in the bubbles with the sharpie, you drop it in the slot. There are some simple, low-tech ways to improve things if you want; make voting day a national holiday, open more polling places, hire more people to staff them. None of that requires a boondoggle IT project.

quotemstr• 8 years ago

I strongly oppose vote-by-mail and vote-by-phone, but for a different and underappreciated reason: the secret ballot is absolutely essential for escaping from preference falsification traps.

"Preference falsification" is a social phenomenon in which, between choices A and B, most people prefer thing A but believe that everyone else prefers B, making it socially unacceptable to express support for A. If votes are public, then everyone feels compelled, upon threat of ostracism, to vote for B, leading to enactment of policy that's actually extremely unpopular. Under a secret ballot system, people can profess support for B while secretly voting for A, and if everyone does so, policy A ends up being enacted, concordant with the true preferences of the population.

If you can vote by mail, or vote by smartphone, nothing stops people from supervising each other's votes. That there's currently a norm against doing in vote-by-mail jurisdictions is purely a cultural holdover from the days of the true secret ballot, and it's only a matter of time before this norm erodes.

We live in an age of moral panic and socially enforcement of beliefs that are both unpopular and, in many cases, scientifically incorrect. Let's not make the problem worse by making it even harder to escape from the preference falsification trap.

VikingCoder• 8 years ago

Critics call it “the Theranos of voting.”

I'd go so far as to call it the "Thanos of Voting."

With just a snap of the fingers, half of all of the votes could be wiped out.

captainbland• 8 years ago

Oh goodie. If you think the internet of unsecured things revolution was fun to watch, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

knowThySelfx• 8 years ago

This will happen though. Will seem like a bad idea initially.

ddingus2• 8 years ago

Voting Tek isn't the problem. In fact it's going to make a lot of problems. There is no real way to establish trust without making those votes personally identifiable.

Low turnout is because people do not feel compelled to vote. They need something to vote for. Policy better aligned with the needs of ordinary Americans will improve voter turnout.

nmeofthestate• 8 years ago

No offence to Americans reading, but speaking as an outsider, it seems to me that voting in the US is fucked up in so many ways that need to be fixed first before starting on "smartphone based voting".

I saw this short twitter thread listing some of problems that are especially apparent from a foreign perspective:

https://twitter.com/MackieJonathan/status/105996240724471808...

specialist2• 8 years ago

That's a pretty good list. (Copypasta below.) I can only think of a few omissions (eg poll taxes, destroying all the evidence asap).

No one considers the USA's elections fair, transparent, accountable. Why most foreign election observers don't even bother.

And yet, American exceptionalism. Point out the emperor has no clothes and the serfs lose their minds.

If British elections had:

Parties drawing up constituency boundaries

Polls closing at 6pm

Councils recording voters party support

Government-funded selection meetings

Returning officers standing for election

Zero regulation on election spending

Votes counted in secret

Hours-long queues to vote

Barely surmountable criteria to stand for election

No national rulebook for national election admin

Lunatic criteria for voter registration

A minimum of a dozen elections happening at once

Referendums to approve building a school

Voting machines hackable by 10 year olds

Electoral data sold to the highest bidder

Etc etc etc

Folk would go ape. But here we all are watching CNN as if this were a proper democratic election with a stats guy using a giant iPad and everything.

And that results are declared while some states are still voting

jillesvangurp• 8 years ago

It worse than that, some of the flaws are actively protected by both parties because they believe they are benefiting from it.

There are differences of opinion about discarding votes, how to count votes, who is allowed to vote, etc. E.g. the debacle with the voting machines with the first Bush election had a whole circus around it involving recounts and how to count. This election was so close that every little argument mattered.

Technically, it is not that hard to come up with electronic voting systems. The hard part is making them auditable, privacy sensitive, and robust against malicious attacks. It's not impossible but it seems hard enough that this gets messed up consistently.

gambler2• 8 years ago

I know how to solve this problem. Upload a speech by each candidate to YouTube on election day. At the end of the day whomever gets the least downvotes wins.

Google's CAPTCHA and profiling will protect us from election tampering and make sure only the people who are allowed to vote will vote.

Might need CAPTCHA 4, though. The one where you go through a DNA test to verify your uniqueness, then get an RFID implant for truly secure 2-factor authentication. I'm not sure where blockchain and IoT will come in play, by I'm sure we will will find a place to plug them in.

(If by this point you didn't catch on that this was sarcasm, I'm not sure there is anything I can do.)

There is a much simpler solution for increasing participation. Don't punish busy people. Hold voting on a weekend, over the entire 2 days. You will get a massive surge in participation. Yes, it will be more expensive, but that can be optimized. Heck, just add a checkbox on tax forms that says "if you support weekend elections, check here and we will charge you extra X dollars". You will get tons of money for this initiative.

AaronM• 8 years ago

You can early vote one weekend here in Texas, and that doesn't seem to radically increase turnout. This year i believe turnout was lower on Saturday/Sunday than during the week.

gambler2• 8 years ago

Do people generally know about this option? Nov 6 date was advertised everywhere.

fooyc2• 8 years ago

Who prevents Google from changing the number of votes here ?

jkaljundi• 8 years ago

As an Estonian who has voted online and via mobile ID for years, couldn't imagine going to vote in a physical location, using pen and paper.

nabla9• 8 years ago

What is your attitude towards significant percentage of population loses their freedom to cast vote independently (often women).

Is coercion or vote buying acceptable trade off for mild inconvenience?

wasdfff8• 8 years ago

Pen and paper is hardly done in the US except provisionally. All my votes were cast on a touchscreen with a printed paper recipes that I could look at and confirm of my choice. The paper ballot is kept by the board of elections.

Whose to stop bad actors from manipulating electronic votes? Whose to say your vote was even tallied? It is far easier to manipulate elections electronically. If Russian operatives are able to penetrate election systems in the behemoth of the US, do you feel confident that they are leaving your Estonian system in their immediate sphere of influence alone? It would potentially take one engineer and one computer to manipulate an electronic election. It would take a team of people, equipment, trucks, incinerators, fake ballots, whatever to do the same manipulation to millions of physical paper ballots stored in secure facilities.

octorian2• 8 years ago

Pen and paper is hardly done in the US except provisionally.

Every state in the US can have a different system in place for the actual voting process. These systems also change over time. Pen and paper is used in plenty of the US, just not necessarily in your district.

Of course the pen-and-paper system is designed to be electronically scanned, at least.

viggity• 8 years ago

IIRC, when parts of Hawaii offered online voting - participation plummeted. People want to be seen voting as they view it as virtue signaling, and nobody sees you vote online. However, this could be contraindicated by Oregon+Washington State who have mail in ballots only and have very high participation.

tim333• 8 years ago

It seems hard to vote electronically in a way that can't be hacked and is fully private but for those that are not too bothered by privacy it seems ok. I mean I voted Labour in the last thing and aren't bothered if someone finds out. You could still go do the paper ballot thing if worried.

wasdfff8• 8 years ago

The worry isn’t how you voted; in the US your party affiliation is already public. It’s ensuring the vote count is correct.

fallingfrog4• 8 years ago

This particular idea seems bad from a security standpoint. But we do need to make some major changes to level the playing field so that people who have small children, move often, work odd hours- in other words, everyone except for propertied old people- are able to vote.

I can see a few ways to make this happen:

1) make voting day a national holiday

2) automate voter registration when you file a tax return and make same-day registration the law nationwide

3) automatically mail everyone an absentee ballot

mnx• 8 years ago

Just curious, why do Americans always talk about making it a holiday, wouldn't moving it to a sunday create similar effect, while being much simpler? This is how we do it here in Poland.

fallingfrog4• 8 years ago

That would work too, but most customer serving businesses are open all weekend, so moving it to the weekend would mostly help people working 9-to-5 jobs, but not the young frequently moving people you are trying to target, who are also the ones working weekends and late nights. Whereas on federal holidays like Christmas, only gas stations and hospitals are open.

fallingfrog4• 8 years ago

One thing to note here is that it's not as if it's just coincidentally difficult for young people to vote, it's not just an unavoidable fact- it's part of an intentional strategy. For certain portions of the American ruling establishment, democracy itself is an enemy to be vanquished by any means necessary. Review the history of racial segregation and you will see obvious parallels to many forms of voter suppression today. This is the next big issue facing the USA, from my point of view.

partiallypro4• 8 years ago

Democracy only works with a well informed voting base, and while you may disagree with the current state of politics, it has always been my belief that people that do not know the candidates or issues should abstain from voting. I will often vote in some races but abstain from others, simply because I don't know the issue or candidate well enough. I wish more people would do that.

Making voting easier for the highly ignorant is not a good path. If someone isn't willing to mail in a ballot, drive to the poll, etc I don't think they care enough to know the issues.

I know there are some circumstances where people can't get off of work, but those people generally just don't know their own rights. Most states legally obligate employers to give people 2-3 hours off to vote.

coryfklein2• 8 years ago

The "highly ignorant" are showing up at the polls just as much as the highly informed. Making voting easier doesn't exacerbate that problem.

partiallypro4• 8 years ago

Can you prove that? Just logically, if you could vote from your smartphone at 7PM on election night from your couch, do you think that would make people who are more informed vote or that it would attract people who are less informed? I know it sounds insane, but sometimes making people have some sort of motivation to physically move, can be a good thing.

49531• 8 years ago

This sentiment is a part of what drove literacy tests as part of voter law.

Making voting harder tends to benefit one political party over another; it doesn't across the board lower turnout evenly.

Sometimes it's enough to understand the macro issues of the party. You can't really know how an elected official will vote on your behalf, so it's all guesswork. But making voting harder is just going make our government less democratic.

masonic3• 8 years ago

  his sentiment is a part of what drove literacy tests

No, racism is what originally drove literacy tests as a result of manumission. Whites were generally exempt. See the origins of "Grandfather Clause".

partiallypro4• 8 years ago

No one is saying to make voting "harder," the question is when does it become so easy that you no longer take your civic duty seriously. Mob and cult mentality are incredibly common in online and reality TV voting, do you honestly think people don't devolve into that in national politics? I think that is a naive world view.

Also, that sentiment was driven by racism, not by actual intelligence. If you look up those old tests, there were some questions with no right answer, etc.

camgunz5• 8 years ago

VBM and compulsory voting is basically the only way to get turnout > 90%. You can try to get people fired up about elections, but we're well past diminishing returns on that front. You can try to lower barriers to voting, but even in states like Oregon with auto-registration and VBM it's still lower than 70%.

If you look at any place with > 90% turnout, they have compulsory voting. And once you have that you have a strong impetus to make voting as easy as possible, so you get stuff like holidays, VBM, early voting, etc. The fixes are obvious, simple, and they'll save money; Republicans just want turnout to stay low so we won't get them. End of story.

onychomys• 8 years ago

Minnesota had 78% turnout this year (for votes cast in our governor race, anyway). We have VBM but you have to request an absentee ballot specifically, and we have some early voting in person but it's not super widespread yet. Instead, what we have up here is civic pride. We've been the top turnout state for years, and we're darn proud of that.

camgunz5• 8 years ago

Yeah Minnesota is unexplainable (although same day registration goes a long way), and yeah it is something to be proud of. But it's still no Australia, who in their lowest turnout year since adopting compulsory voting still broke 90% (I think it was like 92%?)

tomjen37• 8 years ago

Denmark has 85+ without compulsery voting, because we have more than one party.

The US only issue is that you have fpp. Solving that will solve the rest, compulsery voting will just hide it and make sure it is never sold.

camgunz5• 8 years ago

Yeah I do think there is definitely disillusionment in US politics that drives down turnout. If we did something like ranked choice voting that might help a lot, and if you think about compulsory voting without a robust set of political parties, it starts to feel a little corrupt.

But Denmark is a lot different than the US. I don't mean to come off like a "USA #1" asshole here but there's maybe 6 million people there. It's a lot harder to set up an election system for some 200 million voters spread across thousands of miles of wildly different environments.

lolsal• 8 years ago

Your comment was interesting until the very last two sentences. Please don't make low-quality generalizations like that, punctuated with dismissal.

softawre• 8 years ago

If more people voted, we'd have more liberal votes. I thought this was a well understood phenomenon.

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-would-it-look-like-if-e...

camgunz5• 8 years ago

I get where you're coming from, but it's a matter of fact that Republicans at all levels of government are consistently against expanding voting access. Take some time and look at what happens to those bills. It's 100% a partisan issue. It shouldn't be, but it is.

gibsons77• 8 years ago

The only way 'blockchain' would be beneficial is if it was on a public ledger.

bigtech• 8 years ago

I would be in favor of software that makes it easy to pre-vote. Then, when I go to my polling place I could quickly print, review and submit my votes. Where I vote the process is tediously manual. If we could get, say half the voters in and out quickly, there would be more time for the election commissioners to assist everyone else.

tapatio• 8 years ago

How about we do Smartphone Taxes first?

craftyguy• 8 years ago

Also a horrifically bad idea.

wasdfff8• 8 years ago

The IRS could file your taxes for you automatically tomorrow if they weren’t legally restricted from doing so. You can thank intuits lobbying.

AnthonyWnC• 8 years ago

It is hilarious and idiotic to see all these modern luddite think that somehow electronic X (in this case, voting) won't work or can't be secure.

And yes, paper voting has to be the best solution ever. /s

wasdfff8• 8 years ago

Every piece of software can be exploited given enough effort and time. Things are only secure until they are broken. In the year of spectre and meltdown exploits, you balk at the idea that electronics are insecure?

simplify• 8 years ago

Paper ballots are objectively more secure. If an electronic voting method becomes widespread, one vulnerability can compromise the entire election.

Compare that to paper ballots. How many humans do you need to compromise all paper ballot counts?

slantaclaus• 8 years ago

Oh no then everyone would be able to vote, even the renters!

lelelelelele• 8 years ago

Why is HN harping on the blockchain aspect of this so hard? Vote counting IS actually one of the appropriate uses of it, considering it provides non-repudiation in a manner that can be verified by anyone. The biggest issue here is the initial assignment of 1 "vote coin" per person during the initial roll-out. Assuming they can solve that problem (and that's a big if), they can simply create new block chains for each election in which every potential voter is again assigned 1 vote.

I realize that this has the side-effect of killing off anonymous voting (at least to whoever doled out the tokens, you'd still be anonymous to your neighbors), but I think that is a good thing. While you can argue about what the side-effects that has on individual voters in extraordinary circumstances, fact of the matter is, anonymous voting makes it effectively impossible to verify the percentages each candidate achieved.

jrs95• 8 years ago

Making election day a holiday could help, but let's be honest - a lot of people are just going to smoke weed and play video games if they get that day off. It would help but it's not a solution to other issues like voter suppression & general lack of voter engagement. Although it seems like the increasing toxicity of our politics is at least getting more people involved.

xte• 8 years ago

Oh yeah, so voting it will be no more anonymous and only the company holding the service know really who vote who...

Corporatocracy is coming, someone watched "Continuum" TV series and think it's a nice idea...

drawkbox2• 8 years ago

We trust our financial system and it already has decades of fraud detection. Our voting system should be through something similar with all history, fraud detection, voter verification and more.

Our current voting system is already rife with fraud with little remedy and recounts are difficult, we need to expect fraud and move to a digital system that does have fraud detection in it similar to our financial system. This system can track all your votes and have a paper trail, you can opt out if you want and deliver it in person.

Our current system is such a patchwork of systems it it security by obscurity and broken, recounts are difficult and if we moved to a common system that has records for every vote in every state in a consistent format, then research could detect anomalies and fraud as well.

Digital records that are as secure as financial records, and tracked, are easier to find fraud and recount, no security by obscurity. Noone would trust banks that keep paper records and aren't verifiable anymore today, voting shouldn't be that way either.

We all use the financial systems, credit systems, and trust them. Even with their problems people trust that the amount they have and what they use is recorded correctly in terms of financial data. We should expect the system to be hacked and have fraud detection to match it just like in the financial system. Until we do move to digital voting with fraud detection then our elections will be secure only by obscurity, and lots of games being played with no recourse and lack of trust in possible fraudulent counts and recounts.

ajb• 8 years ago

Banks solve a different problem. The reason why banks can be computerised does not apply to voting.

Bank functioning is observable by the people concerned: You can see if money you didn't spend left your account, and if you failed to get paid. Failures are detected very quickly.

Voting has two key differences:

* Voting is anonymous (to render intimidation and bribery of voters ineffective).

* It's not sufficient that citizens votes are counted correctly, it is necessary that no spurious votes are also counted.

The means by which electronic banking is rendered safe are therefore much harder to apply.

Voting must also not just be secure, but be demonstrably secure to the voters. With paper voting, you can go and watch the votes being counted. At every stage of the process, the answer to 'how do you show the public that the process has integrity' is helped by the fact that the votes are on macroscopic objects whose movement is obvious. Electronic voting systems lack this feature.

drawkbox2• 8 years ago

Banks solve a different problem. The reason why banks can be computerized does not apply to voting.

I disagree, fraud detection and security is the best we currently have and people trust it due to these areas.

Bank functioning is observable by the people concerned: You can see if money you didn't spend left your account, and if you failed to get paid. Failures are detected very quickly.

I can observe my votes were recorded correctly, others can't see them, data would be anonymized/fingerprinted/hashed when counting.

Voting is anonymous (to render intimidation and bribery of voters ineffective).

Financial systems do not allow other people to see your data/account amounts and more.

Who people vote for is easily determined by metadata and you really think security by obscurity on our current system is really that private? Lots of holes and ways to get voter data in security by obscurity. You don't think the voting machines and secretary of state offices/recorders have that data? No need if digital and verifiable.

I think people have a false sense of security how private their votes are.

It's not sufficient that citizens votes are counted correctly, it is necessary that no spurious votes are also counted.

You can easily anonymize data when running reports and fingerprint/hash results. Patterns and anomalies are much easier to find in a data based system, just as fraud is detected by the digital financial system.

The means by which electronic banking is rendered safe are therefore much harder to apply.

Agree to disagree.

Voting must also not just be secure, but be demonstrably secure to the voters. With paper voting, you can go and watch the votes being counted.

People trust their financial system but wouldn't if it was all on paper by some individual counted and just given their word that it was correct...

There can still be a paper trail and reports/vote records can be kept forever.

At every stage of the process, the answer to 'how do you show the public that the process has integrity' is helped by the fact that the votes are on macroscopic objects whose movement is obvious. Electronic voting systems lack this feature.

There wouldn't be any blackbox or hackable machines to trust, you trust that your vote was securely counted online, in an app or if you want down at the paper ballot and entered into this system. But again, financial transactions are trusted, I don't trust random ATMs that are like random voting machines, I trust the app/site where my financial data resides. The middle man is security by obscurity and more insecure currently than if it was truly online/digital.

Our current elections system are all a patchwork of hackable areas. If we had a better standard voting system that expected hacking and fraud, like financials, we'd be better off on security, verifiability and reliability without election day games and suppression filled with security by obscurity.

Votes currently go into the ether, into various unverifiable counting systems, counted by people who have biases, entered into black box voting systems that are hackable, transferred differently from these precincts to the recorder and there are so many holes along the way it is not trustworthy in any way. Your vote could go down the memory hole and you'd never know.

Tsubasachan3• 8 years ago

People who can't be bothered to donate 20 minutes of their time every 2 years should think about what democracy means for them.

FredrikMeyer• 8 years ago

In Norway we can prevote several weeks before the election. Result is more people voting and shorter voting lines on voting day.

overthemoon• 8 years ago

Why are people not turning out to vote? This is the key question, and I really, truly do not think it has anything to do with whether you can do it on your phone. This is a technological solution to a multifaceted problem.

amingilani2• 8 years ago

I don't like how this article tries to generalize smart-phone voting itself as the problem. The trouble is this particular app.

I personally think blockchain powered voting solutions with a PKI backed ID Card like my Estonian e-Residency card could be a fairly strong way of authentication.

fooyc2• 8 years ago

Just like this app, you seem to focus on protecting against the voter (or someone using the voter's phone).

How do you protect against a compromission of:

* The mobile phone's OS (by a virus, by the manufacturer)

* The app's server code

* The app's hosting providers

We are speaking about governments, or very rich parties trying to change to outcome of elections here.

amingilani2• 8 years ago

All wonderful questions, and maybe some of the tech needs to be refined. But I can already cryptographically sign transactions on my hardware Bitcoin wallet.

Embedding displays into cards isn't impossible, BofA does it for OTPs already. A combination could ensure that users know the vote they're casting by confirming it on a secure hardware token.

With that done, you could upload that vote to a blockchain based system that's auditable, but anonymized.

But I can't give you a good answer to "what if someone steals the phone and card". One solution is to have remote election officers that verify your identity via the camera in real-time as you cast the vote. They could look at your face, or even read your fingerprint off the camera (I know that's possible because my country lets banks do that).

You'd only be able to cast the vote through devices with good enough cameras and under good enough lightening and you may have to wait a little while, but it'll be secure and you won't have to travel — especially if you're registered in a distant state or district.

It's better than nothing.

“A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

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