Slashdot Mirror
UK Voters Want To Vote Online
InternetVoting writes "A recent UK research survey by NTL:Telewest Business found that nearly half of the younger respondents would be more likely to vote online. This year the UK government has authorized 13 local election pilots including Internet voting. ntl:Telewest Business estimates 10 million UK households have broadband and 4,789 local libraries offer public access. In the US political parties are beginning to test the Internet voting waters with the Michigan Democratic Party to offer Internet voting in their 2008 Presidential Caucus. There were some notable differences in generational interest: 'The YouGov poll of almost 2,300 people, carried out on behalf of NTL:Telewest's business unit, found that younger voters were even more positive about the idea of alternatives to the trusty ballot box. 57 per cent of 18-34 year olds liked the idea of evoting, but only a third of the over 55s were as keen.' Given security and privacy concerns in the states, how likely is this to appeal to US voters? "
I've never had to walk more than 200m to get to vote - maybe if you can't be bothered to make that effort then your vote shouldn't count...
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Should be like you driving test. If you want it , turn up and fucking do it. The world is not there for your wishful may or may not convenience.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
There is no satisfactory way around this basic fact.
Conduct elections online, and you open the process up to massive abuse where anonymity effectively become nullified.
For audits and recounts, computer forensics aren't nearly up to the abilities of traditional forensics. Physical ballots are why the Florida 2000 problems were so readily apparent.
Having computers print out physical (human-readable) ballots is fine. But trying to make an electronic "ballot" work anonymously is sheer stupidity.
One of the major reasons for a confidential voting process taking place in the voting booth is that it is difficult to intimidate the voter or make vote buying effective. As soon as the vote takes place elsewhere all kinds of influences become possible and almost impossible to detect or prevent.
The reason you don't want everyone else to know how other people voted is that knowing for sure how someone voted can lead to intimidation, bribery, and the like. Having an open ballot discourages sincere voting by subjecting people to even more peer pressure. As cliché as it might seem, peer pressure really would have a large effect in a thing such as this. Past peer pressure, there is always intimidation. Vote the wrong way and you'll pay. Ya dig?
Now we will be able to shop, gamble and decide the fate of our own countries education and healthcare systems from the comfort of our fat sweaty arses.. Let me know when i can download fresh air and i'll never have to leave my house ever again.
God Be Gone
Just because somebody says they're more likely to vote online doesn't mean they want online voting.
It just means they admit there are times they might vote online when they wouldn't bother to go to the polls. It doesn't mean they think that online voting is better, or as good.
I've missed a couple elections over the last two decades. They were local elections for offices where I didn't think there was much difference between the candidates, and I was scheduled for business travel. It wasn't worth it to reschedule my trip or get an abstentee ballot. If we voted on line, I'd have voted remotely and I suppose I wouldn't have missed any elections.
So technically, this article would count me as ready to "embrace" online voting, even though I'd fight the idea tooth an nail if it ever came up. If it was the only way to vote, I'd vote that way. I might, over the course of my life, vote in a half dozen elections that I would otherwise have skipped because they weren't important for me. However, I'd never trust any election result again, including the ones that are important to me.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
IF they instituted online voting they could have drop down boxes for each candidate with summaries of opinions and hyperlinks to voting records, speeches... Hell, they could even link in the publically disclosed lists of contributors. I believe most voters don't have the time or inclination to do this sort of research on their own, but might be more inclined if the info was more easily accesible.
The current mechanism of voting in the UK is:
1. You walk into a small booth, about the size of a telephone box. It's completely open on one side, but the other sides consist of a sheet of board about 7' high.
2. You draw a cross next to the name of the person you want to vote for.
3. You fold your ballot paper once and place it in a locked metal box in the middle of the room.
It would be trivially easy to print out information similar to what you describe and pin it up inside the booth. I suspect the reason why they don't is because if the slightest piece of information that gets put up is wrong, or perhaps somehow unfair to a specific party, then the wronged party would have kittens.
This isn't a problem which can be solved by adding "... on the Internet!" to the voting procedure. About the most detail they'd be likely to provide would be a link to the party website.
who said the paper ballot system isn't broken? In the U.S. there are plenty of dead people that vote every year. There are plenty of counting issues, and more to the point, polling station shenanigans to prohibit or inhibit whole groups of people from being able to vote easily. This has been the way since very early on in U.S. history, if not before that.
It's not broken, but there are degrees of brokenness.
The big advantage with paper ballots is that it's very hard to make a substantial change to the outcome without it being pretty damn obvious to even the most lacksidaisical of officials. The same is simply not true of the "magic black box" which the computerised voting systems in common use are.
It's a cliche, but you know the expression about "one bad apple". Perhaps you think I have a somewhat cynical and downbeat view of humanity; well, I probably do, but that's not the problem here. Put simply, there only need to be a relatively small percentage of corrupt, selfish people (basically those with psychopathic or simply selfish behaviour) to subvert and exploit any system which relies on an overly idealistic view of humanity. The "bad apples".
Until the human race fundamentally changes, these people will always be with us, and I certainly don't intend letting them destroy things.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
This is a bad idea, for many reasons.
For every reason that people oppose electronic voting, this is much worse. The machines aren't even visible to the voter, there is no paper trail at all. It's a black box, but there isn't even a box visible to the voter. You have no idea if your vote was counted correctly.
Securing the system will be very hard, with tons of people trying to hack it, and being able to do so anonymously and from anywhere in the world.
People will have to get some kind of password to vote, and will have to register, and at least the former can't be done on the internet. This eliminates the purpose of online voting. I guess you could send everyone a password, though.
It will open new doors for corruption. There will be no secret ballot at all, and selling your vote will be incredibly easy. As will voter coercion.
And last, it has no great benefit. If someone is too lazy and/or apathetic to go to the polls to vote, they don't need to be voting.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.