[csydas]

I'm not sure it's fair to hand-wave the concerns presented in the article with your argument of "just make it fail-proof". How often is software really fail-proof? The more complex software gets, the more difficult it is to ensure that it's bug free enough to be fit for purpose, and that's what the article is effectively arguing; software for voting on a national scale (the size of the US) is going to have an incredibly difficult time finding a level of security and stability that is fit for purpose.

Also, I question the statement that a high percentage of voting is unambiguously good for democracy, especially with how people treat voting like making birthday wishes. I'm paraphrasing from Robert Heinlein here, but too many people think voting is like making a wish, and they want the results without any work or dedication to themselves, their goal, or their country. There are a lot of times when public opinion, in hindsight, was clearly in the wrong, yet a full public vote would have resulted in downright unconstitutional and oppressive results. We saw it with the civil rights movement, we saw it more recently with the right for two consenting individuals in the US to marry, and we'll continue to see how the public is more than willing to weigh in completely on subjects they know nothing about or how certain members of society are willing to throw away the rights of other citizens without a care in the world.

Please understand that I'm not advocating for tests or saying certain people can't vote; but I am saying that just adding more votes doesn't make democracy better, it in fact often works to reserve the power of democracy to an elite few.

And we've already seen how news organizations of all political bents, social networks, and so on have influenced public opinion with their outlets and software.

[alexandercrohde]

1. It's not fair to hand-wave and say "make it fail-proof." It's also not fair to hand-wave and say "It could never be fail-proof." It's also good to ask how secure the current system is.

2. As for the advantages of a minority voting, the fact is that any rational agent would never vote. Your argument that "an elite few" might be better than the masses is irrelevant, the fact is the current turnout isn't the "elite few" it's predominantly old people (i.e. people who are bored).

[csydas]

1. I didn't advocate or posit that it could never be fail proof, I was just responding to the original idea of "just make software fail-proof" as if it addressed all the concerns within the article. The article did bring up a lot of issues that had nothing to do with the actual voting software, which would naturally not be resolved by "fail proof" software. I also do question the very idea of "fail proof", since bugs and errors are an inevitability. For the most part, software works, as I said, fit for purpose. When it does fail, it hopefully fails gracefully (like OSes do quite frequently), but even if the software was 100% bug free, the non-software related issues with a national Internet vote still need to be addressed.

2. I also never suggested that an elite few would be better. I made no particular opinion on standards for voting or who should vote, instead responded to the OP's suggestion that more votes is automatically good. The mention of "elite few" was to address the overwhelming influence that a few wealthy individuals and corporations have when it comes to elections in the United States, and how view points on voting issues are greatly distorted by the imbalance of power/the "loudness" of certain voices in a democratic society.

I made no suggestion as to how to vote so much as a criticism of the current system in which, while all people are able to voice their position, individuals and groups are able to effectively drown out the voices of others by means of wealth, not by the merit of position or through debate and discussion.