[arlort]

That's only viable in countries/situations where secret ballots are not a strict requirement and vote buying is not perceived to be a problem

With paper ballots if you want to be sure that your vote was counted correctly you generally can go and see the counting process, as a bonus like that you help ensure that every vote is counted correctly

[filoeleven]

It’s possible to keep it secret, it’s just more complicated. I proposed one such setup in an old comment. Quoted here with some fixes.

“What if you get the receipt with UUID and your voting choices, then at a separate kiosk only in the polling station, you can enter your UUID to view the full results as posted online (meaning electronically recorded and stored). Along with your UUID and results, a hash of the two is displayed and can be printed onto your receipt. Before leaving the station, you must detach and dispose of the plaintext voting choices portion, but you can hang onto the UUID + hash.

At any time in the future, you can enter your UUID into the site, which will compute and display only the hash, giving you verification of no tampering but not disclosing any results to nefarious third parties.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14921442

It’s not foolproof and still requires more trust in maths than just showing your voting choices would. But it does solve vote buying and voter intimidation.

[pydry]

The only time vote buying was historically a problem was when it was decriminalized or legal and done out in the open. The instant it was criminalized it evaporated completely.

Doing it on a scale that is large enough enough that it becomes meaningful quickly becomes impossible even if the police only do a few half hearted sting operations.

Im not particularly in favor of electronic voting but i wish this particular meme would die coz it's mainly gonna be used to excuse voting systems corrupted at the source that the voter cant check.

[arlort]

From Wikipedia:

> The 2010 and 2012 surveys for the Americas Barometer showed that 15% of surveyed voters in Latin America had been offered something of value in exchange for voting a particular way

> 16% of voters [in Africa] were offered money or other goods in exchange for voting a particular way in the most recent election

And yeah, in developed countries and stable democracies it probably wouldn't be an issue, but then maybe it would eventually be, and it's a pretty big flaw to introduce in order to achieve something that is not an issue

You can already check that your vote is being counted with paper ballots, you sign up as a poll observer or worker and you look at the vote counting operations

[pydry]

Brazil was a clear example of where it started out legal (until 1999!). After it was made illegal it declined a lot in spite of really inconsistent enforcement.

Where it happened it was perfectly obvious who was doing it, but the cops wouldnt touch them. It was a crime committed out in the open.

A similar pattern played out in America in the 1800s where it was widespread, made illegal, started out not particularly well enforced and then it gradually became extinct.

Everywhere it's been a problem it's basically been officially tolerated. The crime quickly becomes impossible to commit if it isnt.

This is in stark contrast to many other crimes (e.g. drugs) where even strict enforcement doesnt do much.

[IshKebab]

No, you could do it in a way where the voter can verify their vote was recorded correctly but can't prove it to anyone else. Trivial method: require the voter to assign random numbers to each candidate. They remember the number of the candidate they chose. The voting system later says "you voted for 6".

[arlort]

And how do you avoid a scenario in which you assign 6 to candidate X but the machine secretly assigns 6 to candidate Y?

[IshKebab]

You have all of the recording done to a paper tape that the user can inspect as their vote is made. That paper tape is read by machine later. That means you only need to trust the counting machine, which is pretty easy because you can easily do random samples to check it is working, or have both parties count or whatever.

You can't eliminate the possibility that your paper vote is completely discarded and replaced by fake ones. But that's not really any different to existing non-electronic voting.