Using the Internet To Subvert Democracy

david_adams writes "All the recent talk about various polls and elections being pranked or hijacked, serious and silly alike, prompted me to write an article about the technical realities behind online polling, and the political fallout of ever becoming subject to online voting for serious elections. Even if we were to be able to limit voting to legitimate, legal voters, the realities of social networking and the rise of Internet-based movements would dramatically alter the political landscape if online voting were to become commonplace."

Comments

Dumb article.

[tpgp]

Stupid article - a transparent attempt to get his friend a new bicycle. I strongly urge everyone to go to the Kona website and vote for the Tanuki (if you don't understand why, RTFA).

Oh, and TFA states: That's why no country practices direct democracy. Wrong

Re:Dumb article.

[DreamsAreOkToo]

I like how it says that internet based movements would alter the political landscape (translation: people would be heard again) but the article is "Using the Internet to Subvert Democracy."

Since when was Democracy redefined to, "What the rich and powerful want?"

Re:Elections and online voting.

[symbolset]

Until computers are granted suffrage they ought not be trusted to count votes.

Re:Polls != Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

~ Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States

Re:Polls != Democracy

[damona]

Democracy is the force of the majority over the minority. It doesn't matter if you have elections or not.. that's just a formality.

That's just a facet of first-past-the-post democracies.

There are actually democracies where it's virtually impossible to get a majority.

Americans...

Re:Elections and online voting.

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

True story: When I was an undergrad I saw a table setup at the quad with a large sign that said "End Woman's Suffrage" I went up to talk to the guys and they literally had an entire clipboard of signatures, primarily from women thinking that "suffrage" was some bad thing akin to suffering. They were sponsored by the psychology department, I don't know what they were trying to prove, but I learned that day how stupid most people are.

Re:Luddite alert

[laughingcoyote]

So ultimately, it is all about how secure the process and implementation are, and not whether the medium is on a piece of paper or through the internet.

I program computers for a living. They are an excellent tool for a lot of things. Totally electronic voting (whether at a polling place or over the Internet) is not a good use for that tool.

Here is a user interface. Push some buttons on it. It is going to send some data somewhere. Did it send the data you thought it would? Did it send it at all? If so, was it properly received at the other end? How would you know? Even if the UI tells you so, it could be saying so incorrectly, by either accident or malice.

Here is a piece of paper with readable language on it. Are the dots in the columns where you wanted your votes to be cast? You can answer that.

Here is a data file with a million entries in it. 35% of those entries are for value A. Change that to 60% with little to no evidence anything was changed. A well-designed script can do that in a blink.

Here are one million pieces of paper, 35% of which are (marked in ink or with punches) for value A. Change that to 60% with little to no evidence any changes were made. Now you've got a laborious and intensive process ahead of you, that aside from the fact that the papers are watched and you are very likely to leave evidence of tampering.

Recognizing a technology's legitimate limitations does not a Luddite make. The Internet is great for informal polls. It is not a good tool for serious ones such as an election where the results must be accurate and verifiable.