Voting machines represent the most problematic election technology imho. All voting methods have inherent vulnerabilities, but paper ballots and mail-in voting are maybe the most reliable options?
For me, the critical missing element is comprehensive verifiability: Creating tamper-proof systems that allow voters to verify their votes were counted correctly while maintaining ballot secrecy. All that while elections must be publicly verifiable by ordinary citizens without special technical knowledge.
Arnt · 9h ago
Maybe, or maybe not. Look at India's for a different outcome. They had many problems related to paper:p printing enough voting forms, transporting them on village roads, storing them until election day in villages where there might or might not be a door with a lock, etc. I wrote this during a HN thread long ago, IIRC: https://rant.gulbrandsen.priv.no/indian-election-machines The MSB is perhaps that the machine is very simple and the counting happens at once, observed by people who have a good idea of whether the result is correct.
It seems to me that the Americans have set themselves up to lose by having too complex elections, where people are asked to cast a vote for dozens of things at the same time. That's going to be a strain for both the vote counters and the voters, and paper won't make the strain go away.
nabla9 · 8h ago
> Look at India's for a different outcome.
And you know it was not tampered with how?
Arnt · 8h ago
I think the most important facet in India is that it produces totals in the voting place, immediately after voting ends, and those don't surprise the well-informed observers who are generally present.
This mechanism is difficult to use in the US, of course, where observers have a much less clear picture of how the voting went.
The-Old-Hacker · 9h ago
Jump to 53:08 in this video to see the hack in action:
It's a very important point about transparency in voting systems, whether paper-based or digital. I can't see why closed source systems should be acceptable.
For me, the critical missing element is comprehensive verifiability: Creating tamper-proof systems that allow voters to verify their votes were counted correctly while maintaining ballot secrecy. All that while elections must be publicly verifiable by ordinary citizens without special technical knowledge.
It seems to me that the Americans have set themselves up to lose by having too complex elections, where people are asked to cast a vote for dozens of things at the same time. That's going to be a strain for both the vote counters and the voters, and paper won't make the strain go away.
And you know it was not tampered with how?
This mechanism is difficult to use in the US, of course, where observers have a much less clear picture of how the voting went.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTtZgN9oYVQ&t=3188s