Slashdot Log In
UK Voters Want To Vote Online
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Apr 29, 2007 02:01 PM
from the vote-early-vote-often dept.
from the vote-early-vote-often dept.
InternetVoting writes "A recent UK research survey by NTL:Telewest Business found that nearly half of the younger respondents would be more likely to vote online. This year the UK government has authorized 13 local election pilots including Internet voting. ntl:Telewest Business estimates 10 million UK households have broadband and 4,789 local libraries offer public access. In the US political parties are beginning to test the Internet voting waters with the Michigan Democratic Party to offer Internet voting in their 2008 Presidential Caucus. There were some notable differences in generational interest: 'The YouGov poll of almost 2,300 people, carried out on behalf of NTL:Telewest's business unit, found that younger voters were even more positive about the idea of alternatives to the trusty ballot box. 57 per cent of 18-34 year olds liked the idea of evoting, but only a third of the over 55s were as keen.' Given security and privacy concerns in the states, how likely is this to appeal to US voters? "
Related Stories
[+]
Your Rights Online: UK Government Can Demand You Hand Over Encryption Keys 426 comments
iminplaya writes "The UK government can now demand that citizens hand over their data encryption keys - or face jailtime for obstructing justice. The law only applies to data on UK shores, and doesn't cover information transmitted via UK servers across the internet. 'The law also allows authorities to compel individuals targeted in such investigation to keep silent about their role in decrypting data ... The Home Office has steadfastly proclaimed that the law is aimed at catching terrorists, pedophiles, and hardened criminals--all parties which the UK government contends are rather adept at using encryption to cover up their activities.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
bah (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I won't even bother to mention the potential f
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said, however, I don't think there could be enough security to lock things down to set up such a system in the US, so, I'd rather not go for it at this time. Testing the waters, though, is a good idea at this time, especially in the caucuses where it isn't directly electing anyone into office.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:bah (Score:4, Insightful)
What we're concerned with is, among other ways, someone hacking into the servers and fixing the results. Then there is DDosing the servers and other things. I'm not yet willing to trust voting computers being hooked up to the internet just yet. Dedicated networks, yes. General internet, no.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bah (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd be very careful making statements like this, even if it is jest. I don't think anyone's vote should be discounted for any reason. Slippery slope indeed...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is mildly humorous, but every other class of disenfranchised voter has been until they weren't.
Consider this before you *bah* (Score:4, Interesting)
IF they instituted online voting they could have drop down boxes for each candidate with summaries of opinions and hyperlinks to voting records, speeches... Hell, they could even link in the publically disclosed lists of contributors. I believe most voters don't have the time or inclination to do this sort of research on their own, but might be more inclined if the info was more easily accesible.
A voter could spend all the time they like reading about each candidate and issue on the ballot *while* casting their vote.
All it would take is some legislation and a bit of funding to amass the linked materials.
Political spin would have a reduced effect on anyone with enough motivation to click a couple of links.
Regards.
Parent
Re:Consider this before you *bah* (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Consider this before you *bah* (Score:4, Insightful)
The current mechanism of voting in the UK is:
1. You walk into a small booth, about the size of a telephone box. It's completely open on one side, but the other sides consist of a sheet of board about 7' high.
2. You draw a cross next to the name of the person you want to vote for.
3. You fold your ballot paper once and place it in a locked metal box in the middle of the room.
It would be trivially easy to print out information similar to what you describe and pin it up inside the booth. I suspect the reason why they don't is because if the slightest piece of information that gets put up is wrong, or perhaps somehow unfair to a specific party, then the wronged party would have kittens.
This isn't a problem which can be solved by adding "... on the Internet!" to the voting procedure. About the most detail they'd be likely to provide would be a link to the party website.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And no, you can never, ever, expect to get objective and complete political information from one source, especially a government one. You'll have the same "political spin", but one sided.
I can see it now
How likely? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I keep hearing about how everyone in the UK wants online voting - no one ever asked me and I fear these stories will influence the politically and technically ignorant masses who lack such healthy cynicism!
No way to make it secure (Score:2)
Why should politicians (you know, the guys with the tubes) have more success in securing something that doesn't really bother them too much?
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.alternet.org/story/50941/ [alternet.org]
More specifically, they were concerned that the Ohio Secretary of State was hosting, tallying, and reporting election results with hardware / software architectures developed by companies with partisan connections.
Re:How likely? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not broken, but there are degrees of brokenness.
The big advantage with paper ballots is that it's very hard to make a substantial change to the outcome without it being pretty damn obvious to even the most lacksidaisical of officials. The same is simply not true of the "magic black box" which the computerised voting systems in common use are.
Parent
Scariest shit i have heard in ages (Score:5, Insightful)
Computer voting = StupidByDesign (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll say it again: Computer voting is Stupid By Design.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They'll never do that (Score:3, Insightful)
Presidental elections are mandatory here, and by custom the first thing the new president does is declare a general amnesty for all those who didn't come to vote. It would be a farce anyway.
If it were more open... (Score:4, Interesting)
So, my question is: what's wrong with everyone knowing what everyone else voted? Does it create bias in the workplace? Do Liberal bosses see their Conservative employees votes and thus not give them raises, or worse, in an at-will state such as mine, just fire them outright?
Is this the kind of person you want to be your boss anyway? Wouldn't the system naturally cleanse itself from people like that? Sure, at first it'd be a bumpy road and a lot of chaos would ensue, but it seems to be the final state of things would be a lot smoother than the state of not even knowing if your vote was counted right, or if the people counting the votes stacked them somehow. It just seems like hiding votes has always been a crutch.
But please, correct me if I'm wrong...
TLF
Re:If it were more open... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Mark the ballot for who the other party asked you to vote for, take the picture, then tell the poll worker you spoiled the ballot by accident. Poll worker takes the "spoiled" ballot and destroys it, gives you a fresh one. You fill out that one for who you want. Even easier for electronic voting, where the final confirmation screen says "You voted
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the only way you can be sure everyone's vote was really counted how it should've been. The moment you start hiding votes and secreting them away you introduce the possibility for corruption from the organizers.
Some of what I studied in my computer science degree course was just how people could find out their vote had been counted correctly; can't remember how it was done, but it certainly wasn't "just show everyone's votes".
So, my question is: what's wrong with everyone knowing what everyone else voted?
It creates the potential for intimidation on the basis of voting, and the ability to skew the vote that way. Jesus, in some countries simply *voting* is enough to make you the target of violence. (Please don't use that as justification for saying "well, it won't make any difference if they
Re:If it were more open... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a cliche, but you know the expression about "one bad apple". Perhaps you think I have a somewhat cynical and downbeat view of humanity; well, I probably do, but that's not the problem here. Put simply, there only need to be a relatively small percentage of corrupt, selfish people (basically those with psychopathic or simply selfish behaviour) to subvert and exploit any system which relies on an overly idealistic view of humanity. The "bad apples".
Until the human race fundamentally changes, these people will always be with us, and I certainly don't intend letting them destroy things.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
How many people will vote "their principals" rather than with their wallet?
It would be almost impossible to prevent this sort of thing once you make voting verifiable in any way after voting. Sure, there might have to be a bit more subtlty with the offer, but it would be impossible to stop completely.
Paid for votes? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
So your argument for openly encouraging v
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Or how about this: the local union holds an "online voting party" and invites all its members. Of course, they'll be able to see how you vote, and if you decline the invitation, well, you must be trying to hide something, right?
Consititionally busted voting (Score:3, Interesting)
For anyone to trust online voting, we would need some sort of paper trail or other form of accountibility. Can I print out a vote receipt? Not in the US.
Heck the only reason that we kinda trust the voting system we have is tradition and a lack of other choice. No the two party political system here is actually reliant on the electoral college and the untrackable vote to hold their two faceted monopoly on US Government. For further reading: http://gning.org/electoral.html [gning.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Anonymity requires a physical ballot. (Score:4, Insightful)
Conduct elections online, and you open the process up to massive abuse where anonymity effectively become nullified.
For audits and recounts, computer forensics aren't nearly up to the abilities of traditional forensics. Physical ballots are why the Florida 2000 problems were so readily apparent.
Having computers print out physical (human-readable) ballots is fine. But trying to make an electronic "ballot" work anonymously is sheer stupidity.
There is a good reason to retain the voting booth. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There is a good reason to retain the voting boo (Score:2)
One of the major reasons for a confidential voting process taking place in the voting booth is that it is difficult to intimidate the voter or make vote buying effective. As soon as the vote takes place elsewhere all kinds of influences become possible and almost impossible to detect or prevent.
There are already problems with the postal voting system; intimidation, coercion and fraud. Throw in the issues of traceability and massively insecure and trojan-ridden computers half the country have and online voting is a damned stupid idea.
Re:There is a good reason to retain the voting boo (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Insecure by design? (Score:2)
The only thing I can think of was a story here sometime ago which mentioned a design of a ballot which provided a voter verifiable receipt without revealing their vote, but I recall it being quite complica
I deem that highly dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
How much more interesting would it be to change his vote cast to a party you deem more desirable than the one that he actually wanted to pick?
Democracy is too valuable a thing to hand it to a machine. Money, fine. Business, ok. But not politics.
Brilliant (Score:4, Insightful)
ha, i'm a cynic (Score:2)
Really bad intference here (Score:5, Insightful)
It just means they admit there are times they might vote online when they wouldn't bother to go to the polls. It doesn't mean they think that online voting is better, or as good.
I've missed a couple elections over the last two decades. They were local elections for offices where I didn't think there was much difference between the candidates, and I was scheduled for business travel. It wasn't worth it to reschedule my trip or get an abstentee ballot. If we voted on line, I'd have voted remotely and I suppose I wouldn't have missed any elections.
So technically, this article would count me as ready to "embrace" online voting, even though I'd fight the idea tooth an nail if it ever came up. If it was the only way to vote, I'd vote that way. I might, over the course of my life, vote in a half dozen elections that I would otherwise have skipped because they weren't important for me. However, I'd never trust any election result again, including the ones that are important to me.
Security of the vote? (Score:3, Insightful)
One major reason to have polling places is to attempt to guarantee a situation where a voter can go into a little room and cast his ballot without any threat and with deniability. There's nobody in the booth with him ensuring that he's voted the way he's been told or paid to vote.
Allowing people to vote from wherever they want MAY still grant anonymity, but we'll never be sure of the circumstances behind the vote. There could be a man with a gun or a checkbook watching the ballot being cast.
Even if all of the engineering and political challenges are overcome, this sort of voting has more fundamental issues that may not be solvable.
A Bad Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
For every reason that people oppose electronic voting, this is much worse. The machines aren't even visible to the voter, there is no paper trail at all. It's a black box, but there isn't even a box visible to the voter. You have no idea if your vote was counted correctly.
Securing the system will be very hard, with tons of people trying to hack it, and being able to do so anonymously and from anywhere in the world.
People will have to get some kind of password to vote, and will have to register, and at least the former can't be done on the internet. This eliminates the purpose of online voting. I guess you could send everyone a password, though.
It will open new doors for corruption. There will be no secret ballot at all, and selling your vote will be incredibly easy. As will voter coercion.
And last, it has no great benefit. If someone is too lazy and/or apathetic to go to the polls to vote, they don't need to be voting.
Re:What difference does it make (Score:4)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I predict a landslide.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in France we are in presidential elections right now. Politics used to say that French were not interested in politics because we had a very low participation rate in 2002, that voting was to hard, that people weren't educated enough to understand how important it was to go voting. Never, ever, they wondered if it could be because French felt that political parties had no interesting propositions to make. This year, nothing changed in the way of voting, but we broke participati