Using the Internet To Subvert Democracy

david_adams writes "All the recent talk about various polls and elections being pranked or hijacked, serious and silly alike, prompted me to write an article about the technical realities behind online polling, and the political fallout of ever becoming subject to online voting for serious elections. Even if we were to be able to limit voting to legitimate, legal voters, the realities of social networking and the rise of Internet-based movements would dramatically alter the political landscape if online voting were to become commonplace."

Dumb article.

[tpgp]

Stupid article - a transparent attempt to get his friend a new bicycle. I strongly urge everyone to go to the Kona website [konaworld.com] and vote for the Tanuki (if you don't understand why, RTFA).

Oh, and TFA states: That's why no country practices direct democracy. Wrong [geschichte-schweiz.ch]

Re:Luddite alert

[laughingcoyote]

So ultimately, it is all about how secure the process and implementation are, and not whether the medium is on a piece of paper or through the internet.

I program computers for a living. They are an excellent tool for a lot of things. Totally electronic voting (whether at a polling place or over the Internet) is not a good use for that tool.

Here is a user interface. Push some buttons on it. It is going to send some data somewhere. Did it send the data you thought it would? Did it send it at all? If so, was it properly received at the other end? How would you know? Even if the UI tells you so, it could be saying so incorrectly, by either accident or malice.

Here is a piece of paper with readable language on it. Are the dots in the columns where you wanted your votes to be cast? You can answer that.

Here is a data file with a million entries in it. 35% of those entries are for value A. Change that to 60% with little to no evidence anything was changed. A well-designed script can do that in a blink.

Here are one million pieces of paper, 35% of which are (marked in ink or with punches) for value A. Change that to 60% with little to no evidence any changes were made. Now you've got a laborious and intensive process ahead of you, that aside from the fact that the papers are watched and you are very likely to leave evidence of tampering.

Recognizing a technology's legitimate limitations does not a Luddite make. The Internet is great for informal polls. It is not a good tool for serious ones such as an election where the results must be accurate and verifiable.

Re:Polls != Democracy

[Maelwryth]

MMP [wikipedia.org] and is currently in use by Bolivia, Germany, Italy, Lesotho, New Zealand, Romania, South Africa, United Kingdom, and Venezuela in one form or another.

Can't really talk about the other countries, but in New Zealand the biggest downfall seems to happen when the major parties are closely matched and have to form coalitions with the minors for trade offs. This appears to be both a benefit and a disadvantage, depending on who you agree on at the time. :)

Re:Dumb article.

[foobsr]

Democracy redefined

Quote [historyguide.org]: "The citizens of any given polis were an elite group of people — slaves, peasants, women and resident aliens were not part of the body of citizens."

Any attempt of 'change' would indeed disturb the process of finding the roots again.

CC.