A classic. By the way electronic with paper trail gives you faster counts, a way to validate the results and recompute them by hand when there’s an issue.
And doing voting over multiple days and/or by mail in ballots gives you time to count everything.
The people pushing for same day and only that day with all votes counted that day just ignore the logistics and practicality of having people vote. Or, I suspect, rather like that it makes it impossible for highly populated areas to have their votes counted while lower populated areas votes are counted.
I’ve seen pushes for mail in ballots to be held and not counted until Election Day and then only those ballots counted by the end of Election Day counted. Which is absurd. Do mail in, count them up to and after. Or count them up to and give people with mail in ballots access to them a lot earlier. So they can be accurately counted leading up to Election Day.
Of course the logistics of having people able to monitor those ballots over a larger period of time is tricky too. Hence why they’re often not counted until day of and so, by extension, result in ballots not being fully counted for a few days.
It is theoretically possible to devise a mathematically secure electronic voting system using cryptography, but only if everyone can follow instructions perfectly and people can understand how it works and why their vote is secure. In other words, not in any way that would work in real life.
The principal benefit of pen-and-paper voting is that it is really easy to convince people that taking a ballot paper into a booth, marking it, and then depositing the ballot into a locked glass box which is later counted in front of a room of independent observers is a secure way to run elections. It is impossible to convince the average voter that cryptographically secure voting schemes are actually immune from tampering.
Edit: I never understood why we have “election days”. Why not have an “election week”?
Same here. FWIW, it’s built on older, slower, less-reliable tech, which forced ridiculous amounts of resiliency into every layer of the design. It’s still amazing, but perhaps slightly less so if we look back 40 years. I’m convinced that some parts are running just fine over infrastructure no better than wet string.
Having multiple days of open voting would be a game changer for some people. It can be absurdly difficult to actually get the day off, depending on the employer, and I’ve had ones try to treat it as a “perk”, like it shouldn’t be the damned baseline that we’re able to actually take part in the democratic process they’re parading around like a shiny bauble.
Personally I think they should do something like opening the polls on October 1st and then have November 1st be closing day, and all through October we take a page from the aussies and just have a rolling cookout/party at each of the polling places.
Ya get your “I voted sticker” any time in the month and can walk right in for beer and hot dogs and heck maybe even some of Kronk’s spinach puffs if that one guy can make Babish’s recipe work like he said he was gonna at the planning meeting for who’s bringing the goods, and best of all, it’s rolling for a month, so you’ve got every opportunity to stop in and cast your ballot, or just to come back with your “I voted” sticker to keep enjoying the festivities!
Yup, I’m in a state with mail voting, and it’s great! The ballot comes with the “I voted” sticker, you can drop off the ballot any time before election day (or mail it), and you can check if they’ve received and counted it online. It’s great! I’ve never been to a voting booth and I don’t intend to ever go.
In Minnesota, the law requires employers to give employees time off (of their choosing) to vote. At my previous job where they were anal about time in the office, I made a point of voting in the middle of the day which would require another commute. When I got the nasty email about “break too long”. I just replied with a link the statute. And made sure all my co-workers knew what their rights were.
The people pushing for same day and only that day with all votes counted that day just ignore the logistics and practicality of having people vote.
Oh, I can assure you that-
Or, I suspect, rather like that it makes it impossible for highly populated areas to have their votes counted while lower populated areas votes are counted.
A classic. By the way electronic with paper trail gives you faster counts, a way to validate the results and recompute them by hand when there’s an issue.
And doing voting over multiple days and/or by mail in ballots gives you time to count everything.
The people pushing for same day and only that day with all votes counted that day just ignore the logistics and practicality of having people vote. Or, I suspect, rather like that it makes it impossible for highly populated areas to have their votes counted while lower populated areas votes are counted.
I’ve seen pushes for mail in ballots to be held and not counted until Election Day and then only those ballots counted by the end of Election Day counted. Which is absurd. Do mail in, count them up to and after. Or count them up to and give people with mail in ballots access to them a lot earlier. So they can be accurately counted leading up to Election Day.
Of course the logistics of having people able to monitor those ballots over a larger period of time is tricky too. Hence why they’re often not counted until day of and so, by extension, result in ballots not being fully counted for a few days.
One day only in person voting is purposeful suppression of votes.
Also, am coder, 100% agree with xkcd. I’m still amazed the Internet itself works.
It is theoretically possible to devise a mathematically secure electronic voting system using cryptography, but only if everyone can follow instructions perfectly and people can understand how it works and why their vote is secure. In other words, not in any way that would work in real life.
The principal benefit of pen-and-paper voting is that it is really easy to convince people that taking a ballot paper into a booth, marking it, and then depositing the ballot into a locked glass box which is later counted in front of a room of independent observers is a secure way to run elections. It is impossible to convince the average voter that cryptographically secure voting schemes are actually immune from tampering.
Edit: I never understood why we have “election days”. Why not have an “election week”?
Same here. FWIW, it’s built on older, slower, less-reliable tech, which forced ridiculous amounts of resiliency into every layer of the design. It’s still amazing, but perhaps slightly less so if we look back 40 years. I’m convinced that some parts are running just fine over infrastructure no better than wet string.
Having multiple days of open voting would be a game changer for some people. It can be absurdly difficult to actually get the day off, depending on the employer, and I’ve had ones try to treat it as a “perk”, like it shouldn’t be the damned baseline that we’re able to actually take part in the democratic process they’re parading around like a shiny bauble.
Personally I think they should do something like opening the polls on October 1st and then have November 1st be closing day, and all through October we take a page from the aussies and just have a rolling cookout/party at each of the polling places.
Ya get your “I voted sticker” any time in the month and can walk right in for beer and hot dogs and heck maybe even some of Kronk’s spinach puffs if that one guy can make Babish’s recipe work like he said he was gonna at the planning meeting for who’s bringing the goods, and best of all, it’s rolling for a month, so you’ve got every opportunity to stop in and cast your ballot, or just to come back with your “I voted” sticker to keep enjoying the festivities!
Yup, I’m in a state with mail voting, and it’s great! The ballot comes with the “I voted” sticker, you can drop off the ballot any time before election day (or mail it), and you can check if they’ve received and counted it online. It’s great! I’ve never been to a voting booth and I don’t intend to ever go.
That sounds a lot like early voting which I have used in the past.
In Minnesota, the law requires employers to give employees time off (of their choosing) to vote. At my previous job where they were anal about time in the office, I made a point of voting in the middle of the day which would require another commute. When I got the nasty email about “break too long”. I just replied with a link the statute. And made sure all my co-workers knew what their rights were.
As commies would say, you showed class consciousness.
Damn. “Perk” of being citizen.
Oh, I can assure you that-
I never should have doubted you.
When city falls asleep, mafia awakens