[lesuorac]

There really isn't more security and integrity with in person elections versus mail.

Jimmy Carter spoke about this, literally in some town the sheriff watches you vote and chucks it into the trash if you didn't pick their candidate.

[skissane]

> Jimmy Carter spoke about this, literally in some town the sheriff watches you vote and chucks it into the trash if you didn't pick their candidate.

That is a flaw of the American model of allowing local governments to run state and national elections.

In many other countries, local government has no role to play in non-local elections. All elections are 100% run by either a state or national elections agency.

[daveguy]

I believe locally run elections are a good thing. As fraud would have to be perpetrated against multiple election systems. However, I also think there should be standards such as electronically tallied, hand-marked paper ballots saved for potential future audit.

[skissane]

Several other countries have independent electoral commissions running elections, as opposed to elected politicians. It is much easier for voters to trust the people running elections when they are required by law to be apolitical.

Look for example at the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC)

[intended]

Simple diversity doesn’t speak to a level of security. All the attacker needs is time to canvas these locations, identify the weakest and then exploit those. Given an adversary with basically X$s, they can target Y election types.

Having a common system reduces the variety, but ensures that there is an equivalent amount of resources to deal with adversaries.

For what it’s worth, India which has the most complex election requirements by a mile, uses a single system. Entered as an example of how election services are better delivered using a single system.

[daveguy]

> Simple diversity doesn’t speak to a level of security.

Yes. That's where the standards requirements I mentioned come in.

[arcbyte]

> There really isn't more security and integrity with in person elections versus mail.

There's a big list of security and integrity problems inherent with mail in ballots that do not exist for in person voting.

First and foremost: ballot canvasing.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

This problem is quite easily solved via a correct procedure and poll watchers.

[brightball]

You can’t verify a photo ID in the mail.

[lesuorac]

You can't verify a photo ID in person either lol.

There's a whole industry about making fake IDs.

[brightball]

Actually…the ID can be scanned and verified against the photo in the system and the person standing in front of you…just like they do at the airport.

[lesuorac]

Well, there's a lot wrong with your statement.

Lets start with, what "system"? There are a ton of governments that issue their own ID cards. Are you magically going to integrate with all of them or does everybody now also need a voter ID card issued from a singular source?

Next lets go onto "verified"? Historically there have been a lot of instances where the wrong black person was arrested because a white cop thought they were the guy in the photo. People cannot verify that a picture matches a face. This is going to lead to a bunch of discrimination complaints. There's also the big issue of people's appearances changing in less than 4 years. Or the simple case of a lot of people look the same and could just use each other's IDs (or get a fake one of that person).

Next lets go onto "just like they do at the airport". You can fly without ID [1] and you also might not be able to scan your ID [2]. They also don't check the photo against the system; just attempt to verify that the ID isn't fake and that the picture on the ID you gave them matches you.

Finally, the overarching idea that "voting by mail introduces fraud". It doesn't. Make a calendar event for ~1.6 months into the future to volunteer at your local election board and you can get first hand experience of the systems that keep 1 vote to 1 person in place even when using different voting methods.

[1]: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/frequently-asked-questions/i-forg...

[2]: https://old.reddit.com/r/delta/comments/1dpodgd/tsa_id_issue...

[brightball]

A few thoughts as I read.

> There are a ton of governments that issue their own ID cards. Are you magically going to integrate with all of them or does everybody now also need a voter ID card issued from a singular source?

The entire US is now Real ID compliant.

> Next lets go onto "verified"? Historically there have been a lot of instances where the wrong black person was arrested because a white cop thought they were the guy in the photo. People cannot verify that a picture matches a face. This is going to lead to a bunch of discrimination complaints. There's also the big issue of people's appearances changing in less than 4 years. Or the simple case of a lot of people look the same and could just use each other's IDs (or get a fake one of that person).

That's a lot for a HN thread which we aren't going to be able to solve. For purposes of voting, I don't have any real concerns here.

> Next lets go onto "just like they do at the airport". You can fly without ID [1] and you also might not be able to scan your ID [2]. They also don't check the photo against the system; just attempt to verify that the ID isn't fake and that the picture on the ID you gave them matches you.

If we're verifying that the ID isn't fake by scanning it and you want to forge a vote badly enough to get a real, verifiable ID that has been swapped with a photo matching you...we have significantly raised the bar from simply providing any name that hasn't yet been used on a list.

This also makes it a lot harder to infringe of somebody else's right to vote by impersonating them, thus preventing them from being able to vote at all.

> Finally, the overarching idea that "voting by mail introduces fraud". It doesn't.

There have been numerous instances just in the last month of people showing up to vote and being told they've already voted by mail.

[extraduder_ire]

Yes you can. A reproduction of the voter's ID goes in the outer envelope that is sent back.