O noes! The theme is gone!

Vater:

And offering mine would be just as pointless.

First off, I wasn’t looking to debate any answers, just curious what they were, rereading my first post I don’t think that came through at all, I was just curious from a group of above average intelligence folks what the negatives were.
What I meant by pointless was the word salad, and lack of plans, as said above basically the same things the other guy did too. I don’t really feel like much was covered during the forever procession either side, it was more like other side bad. Though I will give credit for the first time homebuyer, if it happened, and the taxing of the 1%, again if it came to fruition. There were some plans there, and ones that would help the majority instead of the minority.

The only conclusion I can draw that at least makes some sense, is that a very large segment are sick of their lives in this country and so they seek to dismantle and break it as much as possible. If someone says that’s why they voted Trump I can understand 100%.

OhioStater:

Which means that roughly 40% of the population is walking around just saying...

Funny, we are doing the yearly survey at work, it’s a biggie and actually anonymous and whatnot, say whatever you want, etc. Our leadership is pushing to get more surveys done before close out, we have stalled at, want to guess what number? 61%.

RCMAC:
In n Out has plans to headquarter their first-ever eastern region in Nashville.

They are a thing, another fast food burger I suppose, however they are a neat company because anyone someone says OMG we can’t raise wages it will raise prices, I just love to compare In N Out to McDonalds.

Chris R:

However, it's worth noting that voting isn't just about willingness—it's also about accessibility.

This is such a solved problem. In Oregon, if you get a drivers license, you're registered. If not, you can do it online or at the DMV. Then they mail you a ballot. It's not controversial, and they've been doing it for years.

However, it's worth noting that voting isn't just about willingness—it's also about accessibility.

For about the first 20 years I voted, there was essentially one way to vote: in-person on election day. Absentee rules were such that few qualified. Vast majority of Ohio voters had one option/day to vote.

Now, you can vote by mail. State sends out applications for mail in ballots to all registered voters (assume everyone received one because everyone in my house did though none of have ever voted via mail). Had 4 weeks to mail ballots. Early voting was available for 4 weeks before election day (and included two Saturdays and two Sundays). Could also vote in person on election day.

Can register to vote online, via mail, at board of elections or at BMV. Other registration drives are also options (were a ton of them on college campuses this election cycle).

Process has become a lot easier over the last 10-15 year or so.

Ugh, voting, there has to be a better solution. Maybe this would be a complete disaster, but could we not give registered voters a token, and then have them use a PIN, or use PKI to verify identify, and then just have everyone vote at home on their computer? Yes, I get not everyone has a computer, but isn't the number of internet connected Americans in the mid 90's? You could probably just do one polling location per city to handle the people that couldn't do it online.

Honestly, and here comes my Bernie part of the post for Gonch, what I would like to see is that we could login and vote for issues present to congress instead of letting the representative do it on our behalf, yes it would take a bit more work, but if you had voting from your home that was already in place, why couldn't the population just make the decisions instead of the congress folks? Yes, I am sure there are tons of counter points and things to consider and it isn't just that easy. But I feel like this would reduce the bribery and corruption that is present in the house and senate and would make this a bit more representative of the population instead of a handful of people.

Having voters get involved in legislating would be disastrous. The wisdom of crowds is not wise.

TheMillenniumRider:

but could we not give registered voters a token, and then have them use a PIN, or use PKI to verify identify, and then just have everyone vote at home on their computer?

Careful now. Libs will say technology is racist or discriminatory against the poor and older Americans.

United States is a republic not a democracy.

The_Orient_of_Express:

Libs will say technology is racist or discriminatory against the poor and older Americans.

OK, I'll bite. What do you really mean and can you give an example?

It would negatively impact the elderly and poor who do not have access to a computer or are uncomfortable with technology.

Shades:

It would negatively impact the elderly and poor who do not have access to a computer or are uncomfortable with technology

Yes this. Generally the poor don’t have access to computers and internet. The elderly are technologically adverse.

but maybe that’s slowing changing over time?

Article on the security issues with internet voting. Notes that about 300,000 ballots were cast online in 2020. Notes that it doesn't mean they were securely cast though.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09...-explainer

Internet voting (without an auditable paper trail) is a terrible idea. One of my colleagues is an expert on voting systems (and has broken several of them), and has testified before Congress on the matter.

https://verifiedvoting.org/...elligence/

More about Alex's work:

https://alumni.umich.edu/mi...-the-vote/

Edited to add--I've always said there are three types of systems I would never work on, because I did not want to get people killed: software for medical devices, air traffic control, and internet voting.

Terrible idea? Or very difficult/costly to implement and operate?

Brian Noble:

Internet voting (without an auditable paper trail) is a terrible idea. One of my colleagues is an expert on voting systems (and has broken several of them), and has testified before Congress on the matter.

Thanks for posting those links. Very interesting. Still makes me mad how alot of politicians propagated the “2020 election was stolen” myth. Unbelievable how many people still believe it.

It’s alright, they stole it back in 2024.

Terrible idea. Software is essentially impossible to get completely correct. The chances of building a system that an adversary cannot manipulate are vanishingly small. That’s particularly true if that adversary is a nation-state.

I write that as a computer science professor. Computer software is just bad because humans get things wrong. Any moderately interesting system will have errors and some of those errors will be exploitable. Worse, if that happens, there is no way to tell that it happened.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use technology to speed things up. You can. It also doesn’t mean that paper based voting systems are infallible, because those machines have software and are still vulnerable. But if the underlying voting system uses paper ballots, you can audit the vote by sampling it to detect attempts at manipulating the machines that help count the vote.

Indeed, NPR article (from 2023) starts with:

The advice from cybersecurity experts is clear: Widespread internet voting at this point is a bad idea.

Noted that a group of computer security professors and professionals met regularly for over a year at Berkeley a couple years ago with goal of at least setting a baseline of standards of how ballots could at some point down the line be returned online.

The result:

The UC Berkeley working group met regularly for more than a year and at the end produced a 12-page report that essentially said what security experts have been saying for years: Secure internet voting is still impossible, and the group couldn't even draft a set of standards by which to begin considering it.

"The current cybersecurity environment and state of technology make it infeasible for the Working Group to draft responsible standards to support the use of internet ballot return in U.S. public elections at this time," the group wrote.

Article notes that some overseas citizens and military voters and in some cases voters with disabilities. Notes that the systems put into place to allow limited online voting were put in place (in late 90s/early 2000s in most cases) before the security risks were well understood (though sounds like cyber security people always knew of them presumably it was politicians enacting the systems into legislation). And article notes those systems have expanded (with more states enacting and others expanding who can return ballots online).

Article notes the difference with online financial transactions (people look at trillions of dollars being transacted online as reason for allowing online ballot returns). Article notes:

But voting requires a secrecy not needed in financial transactions, where both parties can confirm accuracy.

"In most transactions, the results of a failure are traceable and often obvious to all parties involved in a transaction: a bank account balance is wrong, a car is delivered in an unexpected color, a tax burden does not match expectations," the working group wrote. "The intentional lack of traceability of a cast ballot back to a voter due to the requirement of a secret ballot demands different technical controls than other types of online transactions."

Even more abstract, but critically important, is that the stakes with U.S. elections are higher.

Article indicates that Michigan was looking to allow limited online ballot returns for 2024 election (not sure if that happened). But in support of the initiative, plans were to print electronically returned ballots by local clerks to be run through tabulating machines to create an audited paper trail. But, as noted, if the electronic ballot was altered in transit over the internet, you would be printing the altered ballot without anyone knowing.

Machines counting paper votes in states are not connected to the internet. By definition, online voting requires a connection to the internet.

I don't believe that it's impossible to make a secure Internet voting mechanism, but I would agree that what's needed for people to participate in it would be over many voters' heads. Now, if computing gets better at breaking cryptography, then all bets are off (and voting would be the least of our problems).

Quantum computing is eventually going to be a thing? Will render all our current algos for encryption obsolete rather quickly. Should be a fun time.

I imagine that it will be.

While actual democracy is mathematically impossible, the problems with online voting are actually understood fairly well. Compensating for those problems is not straightforward.