to wonder why we can't have electronic voting?

[ElizabethG81]

I mean, how hard would it be in 2015 to have an electronic system at the polling booths? There'd be no need for counting, re-counting, rushes to declare "first" or all night election coverage. Just close the voting at 10pm, let the computers add up the votes and you're done. Well, you're ready for the bargaining to begin...

Have you not SEEN Scandal?!

To keep the paranoids happy replace the pencil with a pen.

It's never quite explained why the evil conspiracy to steal the election would either (a) just replace the ballots with fresh papers with the "right" vote on or (b) just rig the count. Rubbing the votes out and writing in new crosses seems slow, inefficient and too easy to detect (how would you remove the indentations from the paper?)

wouldn't

I can see why online voting would be a good idea - practical and easy (though open to hacking and fraud).

However, there are families where one member is very dominant and I wouldn't put it past them to stand over their family member checking the way they vote. At least with a booth, once they are in there they can vote however they choose and no-one will know*.

*although it's not a secret ballot as the number of your slip is written against your name so if someone wants to know how you voted they can find out

muminhants Do you seriously think that someone is illegally sorting the papers out by ballot number and comparing the counterfoils with the register?

Who?

And what are they doing with the information?

How are the keeping what would be a very big operation secret?

But I agree about domination in the family and in the wider community which is why I prefer the voting booth and less postal voting.

A thought: if the police find out illegally that PC Bloggs votes BNP shuld they sack PC Bloggs?

*should, damn it.

Hanging chads :)

We have electronic voting, and have had for several years. You put this little credit card thing into a slot, and then vote with a touch screen. When you're done, you print your ballot. It stays inside the machine on tape like cash register tape, but you can see it through this little clear window. It prints one page at a time, so you can check that your vote was accurately recorded.

Just what I was about to say 5446

Cait we know the truth, B613 showed us the way

What country are you in steff13?

However, there are families where one member is very dominant and I wouldn't put it past them to stand over their family member checking the way they vote.

There are some very sophisticated schemes which might work to provide resistance to coercion while still allowing voting from home (see, for example, www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2013/papers/4977a367.pdf - warning, not for the faint of heart) but they're pretty theoretical at the moment.

I love watching the count and all the drama involved in it. For that reason alone I oppose electronic voting.
Here in Ireland a few years back the government spent squillions of euro on electronic voting machines and they didn't work.
They piloted it in one constituency , It was mine actually. We had to go to the polling both and the list of candidates was on a screen and you clicked 1, 2, 3 etc, ( we have proportional representation)
Anyway the results were calculated as soon as the polls closed. It was no fun at all.

The very expensive electronic voting machines are in storage gathering dust somewhere.

I'm from a country where we have had e-voting, for both general and local elections, for 10 years now, and I don't mean just machines at polling stations. You have an ID-card with a chip, card reader and PIN-codes and only need a computer with internet access to vote. Very convenient, works perfectly and there haven't been any reported fraud or hacking cases yet.

You have an ID-card with a chip, card reader and PIN-codes and only need a computer with internet access to vote.

estoniaevoting.org

Full report (and CCS is a top, top conference):

jhalderm.com/pub/papers/ivoting-ccs14.pdf

I'm in the US. If you don't want to do the digital voting, you have the option to do a provisional ballot, which you fill in with a pencil.

How would you garuantee that people vote honestly, as in only cast their own vote, as they choose and are entitled to do so?

I know in Venezuela it is done by thumb print. This is checked against the print held on the data base for the ID card. This means that I couldn't steal someone's voting card and use it.

But the UK doesn't have ID cards and many are opposed to them. For the majority of the population finger prints are not held on file, so no way to check using prints.

Steff how is it handled in the US?

I know if my father were still alive he would be frothing at the mouth if I said I would vote against his will. He was a large and violent man and I refused to tell him how I had voted after almost not voting so as to avoid giving him an excuse to fly into a rage. And my mother was highly manipulative and would instruct me who to vote for.

I also live in the States and the country has my fingerprints on file as I had to offer them to enter the country in the first place. Now that Apple et al are moving towards fingerprint technology, I think the reality of online voting in the western world will happen in the not very distant future.

What about ballots like the multiple choice exams at school, you coloured in your a, b, c or d. Then it was fed through and computer/reader thing?

Yes I'm aware of the report, securitylecturer, the conference may be top but the claims have been debunked. It was for example based on the assumption that the password for administering the voting system servers is the same as the general guest wifi password, just to point out one.
In 10 years, here has been no hacking or other security issues. You can find plenty of cases of electoral fraud with traditional voting in any country you choose though.

In 10 years, here has been no hacking or other security issues.

So what? No one had drilled a hole in the wall at Hatton Garden Safe deposit for ten years, either. As arguments for security go, "it's not been broken into and detected yet" is worthless.

well there's certainly plenty of evidence that traditional voting is not fraud-proof, so I'm quite happy to have the more convenient option available.

lol at the privacy of the booth.

At this election, the queues where I live were such (half and hour to one hour wait, not enough boxes to put the ballots in etc...) that people were voting out of the booth, directly on the table in front of everyone or in the street.
One woman who was in a wheelchair couldn't go into the polling station at all and was told to vote in the street.

And you think you will have less privacy at home?

The issue about voting at home is the same than with postal voting and that doesn't seem to be an issue at all.
Despite the fact ballots are getting lost (I never received mine so anyone could vote at my place)
Despite the fact a controlling partner could force you to vote what they want.
Despite the fact there is very little check ups (eg I do not believe that they check the signature on every single ballot paper).

Oh and I forgot how, with paper it can be so easy to have aunt Sarah who die 5 years ago still or Uncle Ben, who just never existed. Or just Dave from down the road who hasn't reregistered after moving.

If you look at other countries such as Italy (or France), there has been a lot of these occurences and lots of opportunity for fraud, even though all of those are with paper.
At least a system with finger print puts a stop to most of that.

The issue about voting at home is the same than with postal voting and that doesn't seem to be an issue at all.

It's a massive issue, as scandals in Birmingham, Tower Hamlets and elsewhere have shown. But Labour knew that when they removed the requirement to show need for postal votes: one of the reasons they were so relaxed about it is that they knew it would help secure the Biradiri vote. The recent tightening up on postal voting identity is a start, I suppose.