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Voting Drops 83 Percent In All-Digital Election
For the first time ever, Oahu residents had to use their phones or computers to vote with some surprising results. 7,300 people voted this year, compared to 44,000 people the previous year, a drop of about 83 percent. "It is disappointing, compared to two years ago. This is the first time there is no paper ballot to speak of. So again, this is a huge change and I know that, and given the budget, this is a best that we could do," said Joan Manke of the city Neighborhood Commission. She added that voters obviously did not know about or did not embrace the changes.
We need more all-digital elections. I don't trust people who are not intelligent enough to use a computer to be informed enough to vote in my jurisdiction.
7,300 people voted this year, compared to 44,000 people the previous year, a drop of about 83 percent.
If all you're concerned about is number of votes, put each candidate on prime time television belting out the worst songs they can think of. Then instruct viewers to vote with their cell phones. Don't forget to charge them 99 cents a call and limit them to 10 votes ... the populace seems to love that.
Granted, they might not be the best candidate for the position, there will be 10 million votes and you'll have a $9.9 million surplus to decide what to do with. On top of that, your elected official will be able to sing "Oops, I Did It Again" by Britney Spears whenever they screw anything up.
My work here is dung.
Or they had just heard about how abysmally inaccurate previous all-digital elections had been and figured, "why bother?" I can't say that I blame them. I would probably have a similar attitude. What's the point of voting if you have no faith in the accuracy of the results?
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
I suspect the feeling is that any election taking place over the net or the phone system is so easily hackable as to become laughable.
There is no changeable paper trail for this, contrary to the trend nationally to require same.
How long till botnets on the island (or elsewhere) start selling election stealing services?
Ok, now expect the defenders telling us this is all impossible and calling me a Luddite in 3, 2, 1...
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Give them a couple of years and the digital ballot stuffing software will get better. The voter numbers should be waaaay up.
Election Day is traditionally a social event - it brings a neighborhood, a community together. The girl scouts will have baked goods on sale. There will time to meet and talk with friends. Kids will get their first taste of "voting" on their own. For seniors it is a matter of pride that they still have the wit and will and strength to participate. These things are important in a democracy.
paper voting: cheap
electronic voting: expensive
paper voting: 10x attack vectors to corrupt it
electronic voting: 1,000x attack vectors to corrupt it
the richest, most advanced, technophilic nation and the poorest most backwards nation should all vote the same way: paper ballot
anything else is simply paying more $ just for more ways to corrupt the vote. a democracy is based on legitimacy of the vote. if you cast doubt on that legitimacy, if there is any taint in the process of voting, and electronic voting allows for myriad more ways to do just that, then you destroy people's faith in their own government
this is not a joke, please stop with the electronic voting. its downright dangerous as it threatens the legitimacy of elected officials in the eyes of the people due to its black box nature: votes go in, leader comes out, who the fuck knows what kind of sausage is in the middle
yes, you can still fuck around with stacks of paper with checkmarks on them and mess with the vote thataways. but in a lot less ways, and a lot less opaquely, and you need a lot of cooperation and hard work. one well-placed hacker can change millions of votes in untraceable ways in milliseconds with electronic voting
in the case of close elections, you have ballots to fall back on that many human eyes can see and hold in their hands and tally for themselves. what do you have with electronic voting? a bunch of bits of doubtful provenance on a hard disk and some easily corruptible bureaucrat saying "trust me". fuck that. i'd rather a close vote take 3 months to tally on paper than a 3 second tally of votes of a black box nature
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
was that those 7,300 votes were all cast by the same person.
This side up.
And this is the first I've heard of this election. I had no idea this was happening. My guess is that too few people knew about the election in the first place, and that it was just a failure to advertise it properly.
Why should someone have to pay for technology in order to vote?
/., you should already be aware of all the security implications involved with voting-by-wire.
I (and you, apparently) am fortunate enough to have both phone and Internet access, but there are many citizens who don't. Homeless people have the right to vote, too, without having to seek out some technological proxy.
If this ever hits my area, I'll look forward to writing off my Internet access and computer costs when I do my taxes.
Finally, if you're "intelligent" enough to hang around
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law