> We have just realized that democracy and widespread, instant communication are incompatible.
I'd say that's absolutely not true - it's a demonstration that the republic system is broken. He lost the popular vote, yet still won. That's anti-democratic, whilst being pro-republic.
True democracy would still work fine if done pragmatically - have people, when registering to vote, be given a PGP key. Have them send in a cryptographically signed email with their vote - verify that it's from the right person. Maybe package it in a very simple GUI.
Instantly, everything impractical and or wrong about the current "democracy" we have is gone, and actual democracy can start taking place.
Not sure if you forgot the '/s' tag. Please consider how widely PGP is used, and how capable someone in the bottom decile of technical savvy would be of doing that.
I think it is important that our elections use systems that are readily comprehensible to laypeople.
Cryptography is, at its core, easy to explain to the layman. (PBS explained it fairly well on a kids' show a while back, I believe.) A GUI wrapper made to send secure emails isn't a particularly difficult thing for your average user, either.
You could make it as simple as downloading an app, going to get you physically registered, having the govt. official input relevant keys into the app, and then:
Type In Your Preferred Candidate Here: [INPUT BOX]
[SEND BUTTON]
With an automatic reply saying "Thank you for voting!" at the end of it.
Though it is possible to set up a GUI to do that, I don't think it is possible to do it in a way that makes it easy to confirm that the app is really doing what it claims to. You may be able to create a system where experts can verify the integrity, but I don't think you can create a computerized system where average people can independently verify the integrity of the system.
Paper, managed by trusted humans, really shines in this kind of task. Maybe some of the trusted humans will turn out to be dishonest, but it is much harder to commit large scale fraud and then cover it up.
Open-source the application, and have people check the checksums of the .IPAs and .APKs if they want to verify. A simple GUI wrapper for email wouldn't be particularly complicated implementation-wise, so it wouldn't take a security analyst to vet, either.
But the problems we had with the last election weren't caused by fraudulent voting. Everyone voted properly, it's just that another country spent some money convincing us to vote the way that they wanted us to. Even if we moved to a direct democracy system and gave everybody unbreakable crypto, it wouldn't stop them from watching TV and sharing junk on social media.
Remember, Trump lost the popular vote. If we had moved to a direct democracy system, assuming as little changes as you say will, he wouldn't be standing in the White House now.
The reason for crypographically secure voting is to stop any form of election-interference that could happen, because that naturally would be the biggest concern from moving to a digital solution.
I'd say that's absolutely not true - it's a demonstration that the republic system is broken. He lost the popular vote, yet still won. That's anti-democratic, whilst being pro-republic.
True democracy would still work fine if done pragmatically - have people, when registering to vote, be given a PGP key. Have them send in a cryptographically signed email with their vote - verify that it's from the right person. Maybe package it in a very simple GUI.
Instantly, everything impractical and or wrong about the current "democracy" we have is gone, and actual democracy can start taking place.