An Office Meme

[JimGinPA]

An old friend put on FB

[SheltieLover]

1. Exactly!

repukes are the problem.

[unblock]

2. The problem is anonymity.

If we don't mind the government or an abusive spouse knowing exactly who you voted for, then yeah, online voting would be the same as online tax filing.

But the need have accurate vote counting we can trust, while at the same time preserving anonymous voting and preventing vote selling or coercion is a non-trivial problem that makes it rather different from tax filing.

Not saying we shouldn't do it, just saying this meme vastly oversimplifies things....

[Susan Calvin]

7. .

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. Hmmm. Are you saying that other people can readily access

my on line tax filing?

[unblock]

9. No, but they could coerce you or pay you to show them

Not so much an issue with tax filing, but it is an issue for voting.

If we voted exactly the way we file taxes, I could sell my vote by proving to someone how I voted and get paid accordingly. With anonymous voting there's no way to prove who you voted for so no one can practically buy or sell votes.

Similarly, an abusive spouse can force their victim to vote a certain way. Not an issue with taxes.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. Gosh. Is this a big problem

in the three states that do all of their voting by mail?

Why do I think that simply is not an issue.

As for abusive spouses, unfortunately they are a problem completely separate from voting by mail. If they're bullying the spouse into voting a specific way, going into a voting booth won't make any difference.

If you are willing to sell your vote, go ahead. But your statement about selling your vote says a lot a bout you.

[unblock]

14. Oh ffs

First, why be dismissive of legitimate technical challenges? Computer scientists have worked hard on such problems to make voting systems secure and reliable without sacrificing anonymity.

Vote selling would likely be more of a problem if voting in a way you could prove how you voted was done more in battleground states.

As for "your statement about selling your vote say a lot a bout(sic) you," you know damn well you're twisting my words to say something offensive. I would never buy or sell my vote or anyone else's. If I chose to put those statements in second voice, I'd get flak for offending others. If I put it in third person, I'd get flak for sounding haughty or something. "One could sell one's vote".... And if I put it in passive voice I'd get flak for putting it in passive voice.

Feel free to deny that vote buying and selling could ever exist if you like, but please don't use an innocent linguistic choice as an excuse to suggest I'd ever have anything to do with it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. Oddly enough, the five states that do only voting by mail

don't seem to have much of a problem with the things you bring up.

In all honesty, spreading fear about vote by mail, claiming that there will be massive fraud, is a backbone of Republican opposition to it. If you buy into that crap, then so be it.

Show me the cases where people sell their votes because they're voting by mail, and I'd take your claims a little more seriously.

I have noticed over the years that almost invariably fraudulent voting is done by Republicans.

[unblock]

22. Now just plain putting words in my mouth.

I'm in favor of voting by mail and in favor of voting by internet. Huge difference between my liberal views on voting (including that every citizen should be able to vote free and easily, even felons) and Republican views which are all about disenfranchisement.

All I'm saying is that there are some fascinating intellectual challenges involved, which do have some policy implications, making the problem very different from secure tax filing.

I don't not think the issues I'm talking about outweigh the advantage of making voting more accessible to more citizens, particularly during a pandemic. However, I don't think the problems should be trivialized, mocked, or dismissed. They should be studied seriously and effective solutions implemented.

[aggiesal]

13. I don't believe that what is being communicated ...

but do you really want your government to know what candidate you voted for or
what measures you voted for and against?

Reminds me of the way they used vote in Mexico.
You have to vote for X to keep your job.
X token is green
Y token is red.
What color do you want?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. Do you really think that's a huge problem in the states that ALREADY

do all of their voting by mail?

And yes, I'm very aware of ways in the past that poll watchers could see exactly how you voted.

But really, red and green tokens? I somehow doubt we're going there.

[aggiesal]

23. Yes I do ...

Seeing how the mailed in ballots are counted at the ROV in San Diego county.

The envelopes are immediately separated from the ballot.
That will not happen in online voting.
There is no way to segregate a ballot from an IP Address.
One hack and it's over.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. Same issue with absentee ballots, regarding abusive spouse.

We have them anyway, and yes, I'm sure some votes are revealed, or even coerced.

If online voting is accessed via a govt-supplied unique key, like the online census, it should be fairly safe.

Same-day voter registration might be a bit of a sticky problem.

[RVN VET71]

16. I see your point but think there are solutions

Maybe have a coded envelope with the actual votes inside the envelope that has the voters ID. Check the envelope to make sure it contains a valid ballot. Then place that envelope in a separate file to document the vote. Then open the interior envelope with the actual vote -- only coded without voter identifying information on it.

Yeah, I know, this would be a clumsy way to do it, but it can be refined to protect the voter's anonymity and tally the vote.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. I believe that's more or less how it's done in some of the states

that already vote by mail.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. It ought to be possible to split it into a 2 stage process

and if that's then given to 2 organisations that would not have a reason to collude, you should be able to prevent the government from tying a person to what they voted for.

1 organisation receives a coded vote, that it verifies comes from a registered voter. But it can't read the vote; it just passes it on as "voter 939099a9b9e99f has cast this encrypted vote" to the next organisation, which can decrypt it because it has the appropriate key for that voter number, but never has the ability to match the number to a specific person.

And I think I remember a good system linked to once on DU which allows a voter to check if their vote got tampered with, though finding that link again is going to be too difficult. It effectively gave the voter a 'receipt' during encryption, which they'd later be able to use as proof that they cast their vote a certain way. That, of course, means that voter would have to publicly show how they voted, but if enough are willing to do that, then someone trying to alter votes won't know which ones to alter.

[live love laugh]

27. 💯anonymity and the absence of a paper trail nt

[Blue Owl]

3. K&R

[CrispyQ]

4. Another one I saw:

If the government can send you the census by mail then they can send you a ballot, too.

[Duppers]

17. Another good one!

[2naSalit]

5. Republicons...

AKA fascists. That's the problem.

[IronLionZion]

6. Yeah but there are viruses online!

[bronxiteforever]

11. Kick and recommend.

[Pepsidog]

15. F'en Brilliant!

[iluvtennis]

21. Indeed. nt

[tinrobot]

24. No! Online voting would be way too risky - no paper records.

Last edited Sun Apr 19, 2020, 09:43 PM - Edit history (1)

Mail-in voting is great. I'm all for vote by mail and absentee. All of these produce paper ballots and records.

The EFF and most computer organizations oppose online for a number of reasons.

The first problem with Internet voting is the most basic: If citizens vote with their own phones and laptops, and those phones and laptops have malware on them, that malware can manipulate the vote. Consider all the spam in your inbox every day. Lots of it comes from compromised machines. Voting on such compromised computers would mean handing our elections over to whoever controls the biggest botnet.

Relatedly, any Internet voting infrastructure is vulnerable to DDoS attacks. The Commonwealth of Virginia seems to have forgotten that just two years ago, the Mirai botnet took down big chunks of the Internet. A botnet operator could perform DDoS attacks against election servers, making it harder to vote. Or they could attack home Internet services in specific neighborhoods, tilting an election in favor of one candidate or another by selectively suppressing votes.

There’s also the risk of spoofing attacks: If an attacker can convince enough people to vote through a fake site or a fake app, they have effectively suppressed those votes and potentially changed the election outcome. We’ve already seen “vote by text” scams in previous elections. Those scams will only become more potent if Internet voting is real. Just think back to the last time a friend or relative was phished, or had their account hacked, to understand what a widespread problem spoofing could be in an elections context.

Finally - there are no paper records. We've seen this problem with voting machines for the last 20 years. Online voting would just compound the problem.


[link:|

[Hermit-The-Prog]

26. Yes! Online voting is just as stupid as any other electronic voting.

People can't see, hear, taste, smell, or feel what electrons are doing in those handy devices.

Abstractions should not come between a voter and a ballot, nor between the electorate and the collection of ballots.

Elections are much more important than a grocery store checkout or an online game.

[live love laugh]

28. I'll take "things RW propogandists say" for $100 Alex. nt