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Kaspersky Says Lack of Digital Voting Will Be Democracy's Downfall
hapworth writes "Eugene Kaspersky, founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, has warned that one of the greatest cyber threats facing the world is the lack of effective online voting systems, claiming that unless young people can vote online they won't bother at all and the whole democratic system will collapse. Not everyone is buying that theory, however (and there's reason to suspect Kaspersky has a vested interest in online voting, which may need his firm's cybersecurity products). As producer James Lambie writes, 'Ultimately, the digital native's disenchantment with voting is based less on a lack of suitable technology and more on disillusionment with the craven and anemic political choices they are presented with.'"
People are jiggering electronic voting machines, online polls get stuffed more than a dimestore pornstar, contentious elections are par for the course every four years.
Seems like digital voting is eroding democracy more than anything else, Kapersky.
Good!
I’ve always hated this push to get people to go out and vote. That’s not what’s important. The message that should be going out is to educate yourself enough to make an actual decision, THEN vote! Going into a booth (or online) and selecting a random choice because MTV told you it’s your duty to vote is only going to make things worse.
If someone won’t vote unless they can do it in less than 10 seconds... their opinion is probably worth very little, and would rather not have it diluting the already thin pool.
In Australia getting to the polls on voting day is mandatory. You're fined otherwise. This really gets people to vote. Digital only leads to vulnerabilities.
Do you think the current crop of politicians WANT people to be engaged and empowered to pick their governments?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I say stop making excuses for and pandering to "young people". If they can't integrate with the "real world" IRL then they can just starve to death in their pathetic little digital corners. There are plenty of things in life that require one to get off one's own ass - voting is one of them.
>>>unless young people can vote online they won't bother at all and the whole democratic system will collapse
Ron Paul seems to be doing alright, and his support is mostly young people. He now has close to 300 delegates thanks to young people willing to drive to the caucuses, stand-around for hours one end, & vote.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The official stats seem to disagree, or at least suggest that there's more to consider than just age/membership in a wired generation.
Consider for instance the breakdown in voting participation over the last 4 presidential elections (.pdf warning) - voter participation of those between 18 and 34 (what I would consider to be the net generation) has increased, in many cases markedly. Consider for instance that 18 to 20 year olds in 1996 had a 31.2% rate, 2000 saw a 28.4, 2004 had a 41% and 2008 had 41%. Similarly 21 to 24 saw 33.4, 35.4, 42.5, and 46.6. Similarly overall participation has increased across the board - 50.3% in 2000 to 57.1 in 2008.
If anything one could argue that the rise of the internet has increased participation through the development of targeted demographic outreach like that popularly attributed to Obama's campaign success. Combine that with the ready stream of polarising online news, politicised communities, and use of social media and you've got a recipe for maximum outreach with minimum investment.
I dunno. Crud Puppy might make an excellent governor.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's like unless it's easy and set up just for them they refuse to do it
I uses to walk 2 miles to the video rental store to get a VHS tape. Kids whine if something is not available in 2 seconds on their cheap service if choice
vote online = vote the bosses way at work or get fired.
That is may be a worst case but on line voteing opens up that kind of abuse.
...digital voting will be democracy's downfall.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This is from a company that is Russian, and by coincidence discovers the US might be at fault for Flame just as there is a tug-of-war between ICANN and a Russian/Chinese backed UN body for control of the Internet.
If anyone has any clue at all, electronic voting is just ripe for being hacked. Look at what the Black Box voting site reported, from monkeys hacking voting booths, to standard keys that fit any RV fitting the locks on the voting computer. Without a solid paper component, it is a heck of a lot easier to forge results in a way that is completely detectable. At least with hanging chads, someone somewhere had to hold up pieces of paper and say they were not usable. Just being electronic means that a country's elections can be completely compromised by a foreign body.
Hmm... I'm sure there are plenty of countries who don't like the US who would love to influence elections. Making voting electronic just means the hack will be untraceable. I'm sure advocating E-voting would help lots in this department.
Hell with e-voting. We need paper trails, as what was shown with the voting machine stories.
This sounds suspiciously like preliminary marketing buzz for a new Kaspersky Labs software venture: create perception of a problem so they can then leap in and solve it. As irredeemably cynical as I am about human motives, behavior, and so-called intelligence, even I don't believe that a lack of e-voting will be a significant deterrent to people voting. The proximal cause of most people not voting, as demonstrated time and time again, is disillusionment with the whole process and the mediocre - at best - results... "why bother when my vote doesn't count and I have no idea who the 'better man' actually is?"
I have voted in every election I could right up until the BC-STV vote of 2009 when it became really clear that the people enjoyed vote splitting. I did some research and realized that every single vote I had ever participated in the worst candidate won (in my opinion) because of the first past the post (FPTP) system and vote splitting. I'm fairly confident in my assertion because of how there were usually 2 strong liberal candidates vs 1 awful conservative candidate who would win in every election despite most people voting for liberal candidates. As such I am confident my vote has never counted, and will never count in the future. There is no longer a point in voting for me, it just seems to exacerbate the problem. If I can't vote for the candidate I want and instead have to vote "strategically" the system is broken, and I will have no part of it. Democracy needs to evolve to something better then what was invented before the horseless carriage. You know, we have instant communication now, right?
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
Which candidate promises to give me more tax money taken from other people?
a) BreadAndCircuses-crat
b) CircusesAndBread-lican
c) CrankyOldCoot-itarian (never happen)
Votes are bought and sold every day. How do you think the US deficit got as high as it has? Greek foreign debt? Spanish public debt? Voters, when offered a chance to tax anyone except themselves, do so.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Voting isn't what's important. Having an informed opinion is.
There, fixed that for you. And exactly how do you propose that people get informed, when 90% of what they read and see and hear is mis-information?
Moving voting online provides no guarantee that citizens will seriously consider the choices. It'll just become another button, another "survey", on Facebook that keeps flashing until you respond. In contrast, forcing citizens to vote and requiring them to physically move to a voting location, appears to have far greater success in getting people to think about, and discuss, their actions.
Negative campaigning works. But not in the way you probably think. To make as generic of an example as possible. Nothing an R says will get a D to come vote for him. But if you can demoralize him enough he just might stay home. And that is exactly half as good as getting them to vote for you. On the other hand positive ads can sway unattached voters who bother to show up and inspire your own team to get out. So you need both.
> Ideally no-one would "go negative",
What a silly notion. If you aren't going to bring up the flaws in character, positions and record of your opponent who will? If you are an R that is, if you are a D you can leave the attacking to the legacy media but even for them it is risky since they might wander off the message you are wanting to hit hard on. And some of that 'negative' stuff truly is legitimate to an election. Admittedly some of it isn't important and hell, half of it isn't even true. But I'm defending the principle more than specific usages.
Democrat delenda est
Actually, the two are closely linked. As Duverger's Law tells us, the reason there are few choices is because our plurality voting system favors a two-party system. Because preferential systems like Instant Runoff and Condorcet work best with electronic ballots, suitable technology is almost a prerequisite for overcoming Lambie's "anemic political choices" problem.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Mod up please
Digital voting is voting that can be done with a gun to your head. It's voting that can be directly paid for. Much as I can't imagine having to do banking offline, I can't think of any good way to move voting online.
All this time I've been worrying about the technical aspects of e-voting security and I didn't even consider this. But you're right: even if you were to somehow ban voting at the workplace, you'd still have no control about the voting environment at home. There just is no way to guarantee a safe, secret and pressure-free vote unless you actually require the voter to go to a voting booth where he can in solitude and secrecy colour one box red. It's that simple.
I've voted in every presidential, senatorial, and congressional election in the U.S. since 1975. It would be great to be able to vote online! Unfortunately, even the "eletronic voting machines" used in some precincts in the U.S. have been shown to be unreliable and "hackable". Until someone can show me that online voting is 1000 percent secure, I will urge anyone in the U.S. and around the world to get off your lazy butts and go vote! I can only hope your precinct, whatever, uses paper ballots and not insecure "electronic methods". Kapersky has the right idea, just, not the security required.
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
If the old people can't be bothered to realize how broken the system is to begin with I wish they would not vote either.
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
Disclaimer: I am biased and no longer trust Kaspersky.
They should know that computers are merely tools and that they are a tool that is poorly suited to free and democratic voting. This is a simple conclusion to come to, and something that I'd expect a well-bred security company to understand. You don't utilize a hammer to drill holes. I'm sure you could compromise in some situations, but it won't be a pleasant experience.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
unless young people can vote online they won't bother at all and the whole democratic system will collapse
first, the democratic system has already collapsed. that's the past. second, there are not enough informed voters to make a significant amount of votes matter. all people, let alone young people, let along young people in the US, need complete and accurate information, and to understand that information, to make an informed choice. the lack of informed choice among all peoples of earth, not just the US, is the greatest threat to democracy. giving uninformed voters more access and encouraging it is not a valid way to promote democracy. if they don't have informed choice it doesn't matter how many young people go out and vote their ignorance. democracy or not people get the government they deserve.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
This won't work because we would need to verify that people are eligible to vote, and this discriminates against a huge segment of our population!
(...or so the lawsuits here in Florida would seem to indicate.)
Can someone explain the difference?
Well, we're already using hard drives to store digital vote data instead of ballots. The drives go into a suitcase which is then carried off in a secured government vehicle as it is transported to another location where all digital votes are tallied up. There's no way of guaranteeing the whole operation isn't being run by biased & corrupt party members or bribed government workers, and we have no way of knowing the suitcases aren't switched for phonies with different votes while those vehicles are on their way to their destinations. Its a private ride and the windows are tinted.
And even if none of that happens, the voting software itself could already be buggy and casts votes for the wrong candidates. Maybe the tallying software doesn't even doesn't count accurately. Heck, most govt technology I've seen anywhere is usually cheap old buggy crap, so why should I expect the voting system to be any better?
So, for all we know, elections are already a big charade and democracy is already dead. Once something is dead, it cant get any more dead, so I guess I can''t see how taking it online could make things any worse. Might as well go on and do it and save everyone gas money. We could all sure use it I'm sure.
I want to go back to voting with punch cards. It's cheap, simple (unless you're a retiree in West Palm Beach), there are less opportunities for shenanigans, and there's an archive to go back to for a recount rather than "oops, district 733 crashed; they don't count this year".
bah.
and the whole democratic system will collapse
"Collapsed" is the only condition in which any "democratic system" was ever allowed to exist.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The most important things they see are definitely real. Like for example, the price of Gas and Groceries. And the job situation. Can't hide any of those for very long.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
The first time the votes are tallied, and in a write-in landslide, "7337 H4X0R" wins, we'll go to "Show your face at the poll, show ID, and mark your vote on paper" a lot faster than you'd have ever believed Congress could move.
This will probably happen the first time there's Internet voting. Definitely by the second.
Can it fall down any more? Nothing visible, so far has it sunk!
But those are the problems; of course those are obvious; there's no mis-information potential there, really (well, unless you count global warming). The mis-information abounds concerning WHO exactly is capable of coordinating a resolution of those problems. EVERY candidate will claim he can resolve them, but are any of them telling the truth and not embellishing the heck out of their own abilities? Quite often it's the case that NONE of them can actually resolve the problems, and we truly are voting for mediocrity without being the wiser.
If I were going to look at "democracy" as it stands today, I would say that if is not dead yet is at least at it's death bed. And is not due to lack of digital voting, but due to lack of education. Most people lack basic abilities to perform any kind of analysis, let alone to be thorough and analytical enough to determine if a person is fit to represent them politically or take control of the government of a country. Until people learn to analyze and question the motives behind the words and actions of the politicians, we have little (If any) chance of democratic success. Machines are certainly not the answer, but most likely a significant part of the problem. We have incompetent voters, result of a mediocre educational system and they are producing mediocre governments.
And you'd listen to them and figure out, based on the present information, and historic record, who is more likely to be correct. If none of them can resolve the problems, then I guess we will just have to wait until people are adequately motivated to find a a solution.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
But eventually the truth did get to some extent, and some people got egg on their faces. The erosion of credibility is gradual.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
A very important factor in a democracy is the secret of the vote. If I can prove my vote was cast for a given option, then the gate is open for parties buying it â" Or punishing me for voting according to my will.
A cyber-security executive wants elections supervisors to go down a path that would require heavily investing in cyber-security.
Look at our electronic voting issues in Alaska (total tallied votes FAR exceeded individual districts added up) and Anchorage (oversight telling workers to ignore broken tamper seals). This is the foundation of online voting. Sure it might work in someplaces but all it takes is for a few voters to lose their vote. It's far better for apathetic citizens to not vote then for voters to not have their vote counted.
They come in the dark, only in the darkest.
It will be through digital voting fraud that democracy will suffer its worst blows. There are two good reasons. Any group who cheats their way into power can close the door behind them and make it so that only they can cheat. The best you could hope for after that is a better cheater or a revolution; neither being that great for democracy. The second reason is that any group who cheats will probably be a combination of unpopular, slimeballs, and absolute disbelievers in democracy.
But the worst part of all this is that while wrapping themselves in a false blanket of having a mandate of the people the cheaters will have no worries about public opinion as that only matters if the public can say, vote you out of office. Normally it is when the government forgets that they are there at our pleasure that we kick the bums out; but post cheating they will just get worse and worse.
But if we could get viable digital voting we would be able to remove much of the power that we handed over to "representatives" in the days of the horse and buggy when the levers of government were so very far away.
The only digital voting that I would trust is where you make your selections and out pops a piece of paper with your choices. You can then check your paper to verify that the computer got it right. The final count would rest with the paper. But the advantage of the computer would be that it could allow much more complicated voting such as ordering candidates or voting on dozens of referendums or piece by piece on a budget while enforcing rules such as you can't vote for two people at once. This would then result in an instant tally seconds after the election ends but then people would count the paper ballots to verify the computer results with the paper ballots being the final authority.
The only hope is that when the first cheaters get caught that they are small in power (say a state) and that it sets an example for how not to trust electronic voting.
There just is no way to guarantee a safe, secret and pressure-free vote unless you actually require the voter to go to a voting booth where he can in solitude and secrecy colour one box red. It's that simple.
No, not really. You can still go to a voting booth and cast an electronic vote. Solitude and secrecy depend on having the voting area controlled, but on what technology's used to cast the vote.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Forget about democracy, the biggest threat to civilization is people refusing to go out of their basements to do a simple thing like voting. If the relatively safe act of voting is too inconvenient, then what more a protest action against the powers-that-be. Democracy will turn out to be a three-, four- or five-year ritual.
However...
I'm cautiously in favor of an online voting system that for the most part gets rid of representative democracy. Something like an American Idol sort of democracy where the citizens vote not for the cutest stars but on proposals. Want nuclear power? Yes or No? Want to nuke Country X? Yes or No? Want to send humans to Mars? Yes or no.
Some cooling off mechanism can be provided, of course. Or we might have the equivalent of the Supreme Court, consisting of thousands of legal experts similarly voting online to rule on the constitutionality of a proposal. Similarly military and economic experts could vote on the feasibility or readiness of the nation to go to war and veto it.
Alternatively, such system of direct democracy could be used only for veto purposes, negatively to overturn an unpopular law.
I've long thought that voting ought to be at least somewhat difficult in order to cull out the people who don't bother to acquaint themselves with the issues before they vote. Chances are if you're motivated enough to overcome a few obstacles in order to vote, then you're more likely to have informed yourself as to what you're voting on and why. I'm not saying make it like walking on broken glass, but having to get yourself physically to a poll, drive to the registrar's office and vote early (because you'll be out of town on election day, which is something I've done) or have the foresight to request a mail ballot seem like small enough barriers to put in somebody's path.
Not a new vector, I think every state in the USA allows mail in ballots. Any boss that could make you vote at work in a e system could today force you to request a absentee ballot, and turn it over.
The biggest problems that I see are that the electronic voting, as it is currently done, is not anonymous and takes significantly more manpower to process.
I filled out my absentee forms, scanned them (really I took a picture of them with my digital camera), and emailed them to the county clerk. She then sent me an email stating that they have been received and, when printed, were legible.
It worked well; but, as stated, if many people were to do this the system would choke. It would also not work well for people who are afraid of having others see their ballot choices.
You realize then you'll just get fired for not voting online in the boss' sight? Making voting even potentially visible to others has bad results, end of story.
Great Intellect...
Digital voting votes you!
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
If people cannot be bothered to vote because they cannot do it online then fuck 'em and their opinions.
Elderly people in wheelchairs and oxygen masks can and do get out to vote every election, so convenience isn't a valid excuse.
I do subscribe to the disillusionment with the choices as a reason for people not voting, but it becomes a self-fulfilling act.
Paradoxically, I'm also sympathetic to the view that if voting could change the system, it would be illegal.
I phrased my reply poorly. You can require that people only vote in a polling booth, while still using electronic voting. Electronic voting and online voting are not the same thing, and it's only online voting that has that vulnerability
Also note that with public key encrypted online voting, you could presumably just vote whatever the boss tells you, then go home and cast another vote, voiding the coerced vote.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Kaspersky Says Lack of Digital Voting Will Be Democracy's Downfall
Good thing the US is a Republic and not a democracy, then.
Digital schmidgital.
Until we get rid of binary voting and instead have choices among many variables, we're screwed.
This space available.
Why?
Vote buying.
Right now, if someone "buys" my vote, they have no idea if I actually followed through. Which means vote buying doesn't occur.
With online voting, they can watch over your shoulder and pay you after you've voted for their preferred candidate.
No need for expensive campaigns, just hand out cash to enough voters to get elected.
If the system is always raised to the point where anyone can vote, then those who "cannot" vote do so by choice, which is itself a vote.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Electronic Voting cannot be democratic as it doesn't conform to the minimal standards.
So far nobody has proposed an electronic voting system which can be proven to not be manipulated by anybody. If you need a degree in math to understand how the security works, it may be suitable for an election in the maths department of an university, but it is not suitable for the general population.
The pen an paper system can be checked by everybody, not just specialists who might fear for their job if they became politically active.
The problem with online voting is not and never has been a technical challenge. That part is - in theory - easy to solve and workable protocols have been around for at least 20 years.
The problem that no software will ever solve is that online voting can not protect your vote against tampering. All the bad guy needs is to stand behind you when you put down your vote and shoot your family if it is not the one he likes. Something he can't easily do in poll booth.
Yes, the same problem exists with absentee votes, but they have always been a small enough number to not matter, plus there is the time delay you can use to inform authorities.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I think the downfall of democracy is the lack of educated voters. We should go back to the 19th century when only educated men were allowed to vote. Of course nowadays educated women should also be allowed to vote, but the keyword here is 'educated.' This rules out most extremists and people who vote for a one-topic party.
-- Cheers!
Freedom and Democracy are incompatible with each other, that's why USA was most free when it was a democratic representative republic, but not a 'democracy', so there were limits on who could vote and this was the right thing to do (but I do take exception to the fact that Constitution was ratified with slave language in it, I wouldn't have ratified it like that).
In a democracy people eventually vote all of their freedoms away in exchange for perceived security and perceived economic stability.
You can't handle the truth.
Don't confuse the lack of accountability for those shady, problematic voting machines with online voting. A voting machine is a terminal connected intermittently to a central server that tallies up the key presses on each of its terminals. Being allowed to vote is nothing more than being given exclusive access to a terminal for a brief period of time. The possibilities for fraud with such a system are...enormous...and unpreventable. Online voting, OTOH, would be a remote browser client that would each have to be authenticated with a unique user ID of some kind. Once authenticated, the voting preference of that ID would be updated according to the voter's selections and the result saved in a database. Each ID would be anonymous but could also be used by the holder to check on his vote at a later time to ensure that the vote had been registered correctly and was being maintained correctly.
My co-worker recently looked up every politician that was running that was NOT in office and that was how he voted. If they were in office they were crap, otherwise they needed a chance. Yes, between terrible choices of qualified idiots and feeling like it won't matter anyway it makes it all seem like a waste. Technology is just the tip of the iceberg.
Cronyism will be the downfall of democracy. It's all become a game of the powerful, and whether votes are actually counted or conveniently discarded or even flipped is anybody's guess.
The solution is a real democracy, based on truly secure voting: secure, reliable, trustworthy, and verifiable votes. Expert law makers would be in the business of crafting laws and discussing their merit, and would put up the laws for a vote when ready. The votes would be cast by the people and nobody else. All the special interest groups would have to come out from behind the scenes and lobby everyone in the open. No more sly little contributions to line the pockets of a few law makers in order to serve those with the most money.
Open Democracy, wouldn't it be nice? Of course they're not going to allow it, those in power never want to give up that power...
--Udo.
A very recent report from NIST: http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/nist-internet-voting-not-yet-feasabile/2012-05-20 argues persuasively that while internet voting may appear to be a desirable goal, we just aren't anywhere near being ready to implement it yet securely. It is indeed surprising that Kaspersky might think otherwise, given how many high-profile online casualties there are...
Then they'll vote.
First off the US is not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic. If we were a democracy, we would have a vote in every act and bill that goes through congress. Unfortunately, true democracy is what big business, lobbyists and the political elite DO NOT want. They would lose their influential power on our government
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority prefer you to be poor/subservient/defenseless so that they can promote their hegemony in the pretext of patriotism/democracy.
Casteism
Voting is a right that citizens have. You are supposed to go out and vote. The whole civil duty thing. I know not all of people work places allow people to show up late or go home early since they are voting. I have had to take a day or half a day off to vote. I do not remember anything about voting being convenient. Get up, go to the voting place with your voter reregistration card and ID and vote. Where I live you need to show ID to vote. That may not be the case where you live.
People pretty much have discovered the nasty truth about democracy: that they can vote for people that promise them whatever it takes to get elected. "Campaign promises" have been a joke for at least a century, but of late people seem to be taking them seriously. Probably from a lack of historical context. To most young people anything that happened before they were born is somehow irrelevant to their lives.
The end result is we will certainly have an endless series of politicians that figure out they can promise the world to voters and get elected. Of course their ability to fulfill such promises may conflict with reality, but I am sure this series will result in the US Treasury being used to fund a lot. We will certainly have government-paid healthcare within the next 10 years or so, but it will be funded like Medicare and Medicaid which means there will be huge shortages of providers. But nobody will stop to ask how this could possibly work - they just want the goodies.
We are going to have to have Federal Permanent Unemployment. Face it, we just don't need as many employees as there are workers available. There will always be 20-30% of the population that isn't working and we are going to have to take care of them. Certainly if we are throwing open the doors and not even pretending to not be the world's caretaker we are going to have to support more and more people directly.
And what will all of this mean? It means "democracy" can't die as long as there are people that know they can vote themselves onto the gravy train. Sure, it will be an even smaller minority of people voting than it is today, but these people will know deep in their hearts that all they have to do is vote for the "right" people and they will get manna raining down on them.
Sort of like a cargo cult, you see.
Anonymous and proven to be secure.
that is a lot of work but on line is easy
If you have the secret random number proving you voted for Mr. X, then you can show it for Mr. X's party, so they give you the "support" pack they bribed you for your vote with.
Or your boss, who is a Mr. Y supporter, can ask for the number showing you voted for Mr. Y - And you are fired!
The vote must be secret.
The idea of elections with no forensically unique paper ballot or running printed tape -- ridiculous the day it was proposed. Where were the smart people then?? Now??
Being an established computer consultant, I got to provide input when the US Virgin Islands' election system was upgraded, a good friend on the Board of Elections brought over a bunch of brochures for me to review one evening in 1985. There were chad systems ("Punch cards? You must be joking!") There were optical zoned page scanners and push-button machines ("Where's the paper trail? Do you know what a 'hacker' is?" "It's available but 'costs extra'. Are these people for real??").
My friend and I agreed -- his vote on the Board of Elections -- was to keep the paper ballot. People are used to it. If anything, beef up the security and oversight surrounding transport of ballots cast; use bleeding-edge technology cautiously and wisely: do the counting of paper ballots with optical readers. Because just like the money counter machines, you can do it again quickly to see if you get the same result. And if the machines break and the power goes out -- the election process is 'safe', breezes along as smoothly as ever -- only the results are delayed.
Just WHEN was it decided that election results needed to be tallied in hours or minutes? From where did the pressure arise such that hand counting of paper ballots (or in the least, optical scan of same) is too slow? That we instead impose few-vendor centralized no-paper systems that are inherently hackable?
Here's the test I impose. A paper ballot system may also have its problems -- BIG BUT -- any given layman you bring in off the street to observe the tally process will have a clear view of a ballot box's chain of custody. Any layman observing the subsequent counting of those ballots (by hand or optical reader, with verification of random batches to test the reader) has a clear grasp of the process, and can tell whether the system is honest.
If it's Democracy you want, use as simple a voting/tally system as possible; for the tally process use as many human beings as possible, local volunteers as participants and observers.
If it's Oligarchy you want, go ahead and totally castrate the process of transparency by implementing insecurity through obscurity, touch screen BS with no hope of verification or recount.
The idea of all-electronic voting really should have been laughed out of the room, once upon a time. This is coming from a techie who favors modernization in other areas of society.
My friend on the Board was voted down: they decided to purchase push-button machines from Shouptronics... but at least the each station had its own built-in battery backup and built in receipt-type printer that ran a paper tape. Unlike most today.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
are suffering from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
Casteism