Slashdot Mirror
University Developing Technology To Vote On Your Tablet, Smartphone
smitty_one_each writes in with this story about a professor developing a new electronic voting system. "A Clemson University professor is developing a new electronic voting system that will allow voters to cast their ballots from home computers, tablets and smartphones. As Clemson's chair of human-centered computing, Juan Gilbert has lead teams of students over the last 10 years to create an online voting system accessible at home or on the go that will be more accurate, have increased verification and make voting more accessible to people with disabilities by offering mobile and voice-command options."
hackers will not only steal my identity, they will steal my vote.
Back when Digg was big and Reddit was new, I wanted to make a factional voting site. Basically it works like this: Everyone votes and downvotes stuff like Reddit. But everyone also has sub categories for their affiliation. An example might be: Democrat/Republican. They'd have a long check list and radio buttons of different affiliations. This way something opposing groups disagree on would be voted up for their own personal faction.
We were going to have petitions where you could negative sign the petition to disagree. So politicians don't see a list of 10,000 signatures when 100,000 people hate it.
The problem we had was determining who is a registered voter. It is hard to verify people as having a real identifier especially if you have no start up capital to send out stamps for snail mail verification methods. And another problem is once you have registered voters, how do you watch out for hackers? We decided we couldn't solve these problems and gave up.
Someone really could make a hyper democracy site though. there's a market for it. Educate the voters on their desires for politics, and tell them which of their elected officials voted for or against certain topics they're interested in! It is real simple in concept. It'd start out as a voter education site, but if it seriously got powerful, politics could be different with an educated voter base.
God spoke to me
As long as there is the ability for someone to stand behind you and make sure vote a certain way, I won't support it. No one knows how I vote when I step into a voting booth.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
All hail the ruling party of AT&T
839*929
Their...
I think you have it backwards. According to the Maxwell Poll, 60-80% of welfare recipients voted Democrat. Generally speaking, welfare recipients receive welfare because they have low income. People with low income can't afford as much gadgetry. Thus it will make it even more convenient for a higher percentage of Republicans to vote compared to Democrats because more of them can afford the hardware. You can expect Democrats to resist this far more than Republicans.
(I know, I took your post insulting the intelligence of people who disagree with your political viewpoint literally, but you are wrong regardless of your motive)
Better known as 318230.
Nah, it isn't that at all. Many people who would vote for republicans frequent the interweb and even this site. Generally, the smarter a person gets, the more republican they tend to lean in ideology even if they insist on remaining democrats or liberals. And before anyone marks that down, I said lean as in their positions tend towards but doesn't necessarily hit. Many people will find their natural position on any given topic will lean in a direction they don't consider to be the democratic or republican and will correct their initial assessment once they find out what others in their favored side state.
What they fear is- and why they won't allow it is that the people who don't vote will end up casting a vote anyways and it will always be for the democrats running. That is why they want ID of some sort to be presented when you cast your vote- to prove you are who you say you are and not the guy who got you to register knowing you would be too stoned to get off the couch and go vote on election day.
Your biggest problem is in counting on a strong federal government in order to implement your will. That is never likely to happen because you will be competing with over 250 million others in at least 50 other states (depending on if you want to count DC's honorary representatives or not). This is why the federal government was originally limited in it's roles and everything else was left up to the states. You are competing with a fraction of the same amount of people in order to get your ideals and policy wishes recognized and chances are that people around you will have similar goals and concepts. You can control the state and local legislation much easier then the federal and you can whip enough people into a frenzy in order to replace your representatives on a state and local level if they do wrong.
Instead, for some odd reason, people think the federal government is the end all and they are the ones who have to do anything and everything but when they do not, it is because they aren't listening to anyone- even if the only ones thinking the way you do are around you and not in the rest of the country.
Going to college doesn't make you smart or stupid. It allows you to learn and you can become smart or remain just as stupid. You are a fool if you think you know it all when you leave college or that just by showing up, you are somehow smarter. When it teaches liberalism, the people will end up being more liberal, when those fresh out of college kids end up learning something in the real world, they gravitate back- even if they remain identifying as liberal or democrat.
Generally, the smarter a person gets, the more republican they tend to lean in ideology even if they insist on remaining democrats or liberals.
Except that studies consistently result in findings contrary to that assertion. Higher intelligence is associated with politically liberal views almost across the board, with a secondary emphasis on movement toward the political center. Conservative ideology does not become more prevalent with increases in either intelligence or educations.
Decent survey of literature here:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unique-everybody-else/201305/intelligence-and-politics-have-complex-relationship
Also:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/millennial-media/201304/do-racism-conservatism-and-low-iq-go-hand-in-hand
Your bias also shows in your anecdote about voter ID laws--empirically, Republicans are responsible for most election-related shenanigans. But then again, someone getting preemptively defensive about accusing people of an impliedly illogical "insistence" on "remaining" liberal might simply prefer to ignore the evidence and make unsupported claims.
However, those two years have brought on voter registration laws designed to disenfranchise, laws so blatantly racist that it's pants-on-heads insane that anybody let them get away with it.
Voter turnout in Texas nearly doubles under new ID law
Minority turnout increased dramatically after Georgia voter-ID law
New Analysis Shows Voter Identification Laws Do Not Reduce Turnout
Voting fraud is an important question since so many elections are now decided by margins of victory less than the margin of fraud.
Al Franken May Have Won His Senate Seat Through Voter Fraud
Poor and minority votes seem especially vulnerable.
Poor and Disadvantaged are Most Likely to Have Their Vote Stolen
Officials Plead Guilty in New York Voter Fraud Case
Mississippi NAACP leader sent to prison for 10 counts of voter fraud
New York Investigators Obtain Fraudulent Ballots 97 Percent of Time
The “snowbird vote” takes wing
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Your argument: "Being poor does not stop people from buying smart phones". The evidence for your conclusion: seeing many panhandlers and other assorted "street people" using smart phones. While your anonymous anecdotal evidence is compelling, the counter argument "poor people are less likely to own a smart phone" is backed by actual "research". For instance, a Pew study published in 2011 that considered the adoption rates of smartphones among different demographics concluded that
Smartphone ownership is highly correlated with household income.
(link), drawing this conclusion from the 22% ownership rate among households with an annual income of less than $30,000.
Wow.. Just wow. I understand your need to post AC after all that. Smart does not equal intelligence. They are not the same things. Intelligence is the ability to learn new things and concepts and smart is the ability to use or apply what you already learned. Answering a comment about someone or something being smart with a post about intelligence is the opposite of smart.
And for your attempt to link racism with voter ID laws, you fail big time there too. Unless you can show that voter ID is racists in that somehow minorities are not capable of getting IDs or something and the republicans know this, all you are doing is mud slinging in hopes that it distracts enough from the issue presented that your concept wins out. I don't even think it qualifies as a straw man tactic either because it relies on a complete fallacy that you failed to connect to the concept presented in order to exaggerate the concept out. In short, you just applied the equivalent of "nuh uh, your mean so I win". This is something I would say lacks both intelligence and smarts.
And who are these masses and why cannot they produce an ID? I mean every voter ID laws I have seen allows bank statements with addressed on them, credit card statements, utility and electric bills, cable bills, and so on as the ID required. I mean some of the states even went as far as to offer free state IDs that you need in those states to get welfare benefits and similar things.
So what specific is inherent in these people you claim are targeted for disenfranchisement that they cannot produce something to prove their identity and residency?
Generally, the smarter a person gets, the more republican they tend to lean in ideology
I love how members of both parties believe they have superior intellect because they've chosen red or blue. It's too bad report cards stop after we leave school, because everyone in this country is a self proclaimed genius from the moment we stop getting them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR3A9rG022M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmsdSVQSXLg
Sure it will happen. The nice Democrat candidate will come down to skid row with a truck of booze and a computer and "help" the poor downtrodden cast their vote. Or the Republican business manager will invite everyone to come into his office and cast their votes, and don't worry about that Christmas bonus- those that don't get laid off will do well.
Generally, the smarter a person gets, the more republican they tend to lean in ideology even if they insist on remaining democrats or liberals.
There's at best no evidence for that assertion. And there's also serious counterarguments.
What is definitely true is that the richer a person gets, the more conservative they tend to lean, because of simple self-interest. People who are poorer tend to lean liberal for the same reason. This can appear like a person gaining wisdom with age and success, because your average newly minted young adult has approximately $0 in assets (-$25,000 or so if they have a college degree) while middle-aged and older people have had the time to accumulate assets and demand higher salaries for their work, but it is actually simply a matter of flipped social and financial position. Conservative values like deference to elders also are a lot more popular among 65-year-olds than 25-year-olds.
I am officially gone from
if your key is as attackable as a mailed ballot, but unlike in a mail in system, you can prove your vote was counted in the final tally, prove fraud (to the media, auditors, whatever) if its not, and have much stronger guarantees about the robustness of the secret ballot its still an improvement.
You're incorrect about this being a secret ballot. It's not a secret ballot if you don't do it at a polling place (that's not the only criteria, but it is one).
Voting on your computer at home, or on your cellphone, or anything like it, means the elimination of the secret ballot.
The point of the secret ballot is not only to allow you to vote without any person knowing how you voted, but to compel you to vote secretly, and thus prevent bribery, coercion, and other evils.
That's not just me talking, that's The American and English encyclopædia of law, Volume 10, from 1899, page 585.
But voting on your own device on your own time opens up for possibility all manner of coercion. This is probably where we're headed, and if you don't care about the issue, fine, but at least educate yourself about it first. I hope that's not too much to ask.
That already happens in some states in the US. When I was an admin at Microsoft, our boss's boss told us to bring in our ballots one day. Yes, in this state, we are not allowed to vote securely like in much of the country. Instead, ballots are mailed to us then are returned by mail. Several women's groups claim a large portion of husbands votes with ballots intended for their wives or children over 18. I know that working for a huge tech company means that you will have to vote the way you're told. A friend's church has their members collect ballots then a group of volunteers fill-in the forms for the members and drops them off in bulk. It's a shame that the Republicans that rule this state care so little about the right to vote that they decided to destroy our rights by making voting 100% insecure. The Democrats may have the majority, but they always do what they are told to by the Republicans.
The poor being targeted by these laws generally don't travel much.
Sorry, here you go: Snopes wrecked at least one lie-filled list that was going around.
Or maybe some more: Very little as a whole, keeping in mind those are cases and not confirmed fraud.
So not only do you refuse to accept actual journalism on the matter (why bother asking for evidence, them?) but you pop off that completely nutty bit at the end there that is rather apples to oranges.
I do, but compared to the largely minimal hazard of vote fraud we have a far greater threat of gerrymandering and disenfranchisement being pursued aggressively by the GOP.
I know what they say about assuming, but I assume you mean that 20-40% of low income voters would vote Republican. I'm not familiar with minor US parties (my excuse: not living in the US) but surely there are other parties that they could be voting for, like a socialist party that would at least seem like a better option for poor voters?
it would not be democratic, at least not by German standards, since the layperson cannot check it. Even if it's secure, which it cannot be, you need at least a degree in mathematics and several days of work to understand and check it yourself. Since a voting system must be resistant to large scale attacks, i.e. the government conspiring against the voters, it is vital that everybody can check it for themselves.
With pen and paper everything is easy to check. You look into the ballot before it is sealed, you check if everyone just throws in one ballot, and on the end you can count the ballots easily. This is something which can be checked trivially.
You need ID to drive a car. You need ID to have a bank account. You need ID to buy compressed air, cigarettes, alcohol, medication... ID is issued to us at birth or when we become citizen.
Please explain to me WHY black/Hispanic/poor people don't have IDs and why they can't get them.