this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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I have said it before and I'll say it again, electronic voting does not work and is a bad idea.
The election system is dependant on trust, trust that the votes are not changed nor counted incorrectly.
This works with paper ballots, you keep the ballot box sealed and under observation by observers from different parties, they can then verify that the ballots have not been changed after voting, you count the ballots together, in front of everyone, they can then verify that counting was done correctly.
With electronic voting the votes are cast by interacting with buttons on a black box, no one is able to verify that the votes are recorded correctly nor that they are counted correctly during the actual election.
Electronic voting works wonders. All you need to sacrifice is anonymity.
Which is why it doesn't work in real elections.
Voter anonymity is critical to a functioning democracy.
Uh, no. We already have dozens of publicly characterestics to discrinate people against, we can handle one more for a huge benefit of never ever doubting election count results again.
No, just no.
The moment voter secrecy is gone, you will have a far, far , far worse situation.
The moment you can verify what a person voted for, then you have opened the door for violence, intimidation and voter bribery.
The point of voter secrecy is to prevent others from being able to force you to vote on your own.
Immagine a wife of a MAGA husband, with voter secrecy she would have the option to hide voting for the Democrts, without it she would be able to be forced by her husband to vote for the republicans.
This is simply because he would be able to verify her vote, with voter secrecy he has to trust her. (Obviously there are ways he still could come close to verifying her vote, but there remains options for her)
I'm coming from an oppressive dictatorship that kills people for disagreeing with them. One thing to enables them to is voter anonymity. An oppressive MAGA husband example is cute, ofc, but I wasn't solving "how do we make people vote with there heart is", this is kinda out of scope and definitely not crucial for a functional democracy, but wishlist-grade at best.
Now, voter bribery is a good one. Never thought of that and can see how this could be a much more sizeable problem.
Ok but how would a lack of voter secrecy prevent the government from killing people who voted "wrong"?
To me that just seems like it would make it easier.
I am a Swede and have luckily never had to think about these things, if I am being arrogant with my staunch support of voter secrecy, I want to know.
You can't kill 12+% when you're in a demographics hole.