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TIL that last month, a rich man in New Jersey killed a pedestrian and left the scene. He was put on trial. The jury found him guilty. 15 minutes later, he walked out free. (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by to c/til@lemmy.world
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[–] 2 points 6 months ago (10 children)

Buck and Darlene don't have financial incentives to attack Iran. Our richest and 'wise' leaders who had the resources and time to better the world, failed to do so. The argument you present is looking pretty frail, in light of the last decade. Also, in previous centuries, it wasn't possible for direct voting to be effective in the US: The nation is huge in size. It wouldn't have been easy to collect votes quickly. With a (free) smartphone in hand, anyone can instantly check out a voting measure and cast their opinion on it.

Secondly, I mentioned that there should be laminated receipts from the voting machines. Every voter may ask for it after casting their vote. Their cellphones can also have a QR code, so they they can go into the local print shop to immediately have their voting record printed out. Plus, open-source voting. That means instead of Diebold making the software, the federal government does, which has to allow inspectors from any state to make unannounced audits of the software chain.

Thirdly, I already mentioned who the voters are: the ones who cast an vote. Requiring absolutely 51% of EVERYONE is unrealistic. Instead, the voting pool should adjust according to how many people cast a vote. So if 5,000 people cast votes, 2,501 have to say 'Nay' to prevent a pardon. We can require pardons and other voting things to have 60 day deadline. The first 30 days are an announcement and commentary period, the later 30 days are for the actual voting. This helps prevent secret 'riders' and whatnot being free of scrutiny or getting a surprise vote.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago* (9 children)

    Buck and Darlene don’t have financial incentives to attack Iran

    Financial? No. But they're using Facebook, and the military industrial complex has been bombarding their feed with rage-bait of how Iran is going to rape their children, so they decide that US has to bomb Iran first.

    Our richest and ‘wise’ leaders who had the resources and time to better the world, failed to do so

    Mate, that's not a problem with democracy. That's a problem with the fact that you currently have an organised crime ring that's taken over the country, and your entire rule of law got kicked in the balls.

    With a (free) smartphone in hand, anyone can instantly check out a voting measure and cast their opinion on it.

    Mate...

    First of all: digital voting is famously difficult to pull off. Source: last two US elections, especially the 2024, where - somehow - the guy who’s friends with the guy whose company makes the majority of the voting machines, and who provides them all with Internet access, somehow knew the result 4 hours before the count ended.

    Did you miss this part?

    Secondly, I mentioned that there should be laminated receipts from the voting machines. Every voter may ask for it after casting their vote. Their cellphones can also have a QR code, so they they can go into the local print shop to immediately have their voting record printed out

    You seem to be under the impression that "vote fraud" means Belarusian or russian levels of comedy, where the person committing fraud wins by taking 90%+ of all votes.

    How it actually happened in your case was by flipping a couple thousand votes here and there.

    Which means one of two scenarios:

    1. Nobody gives a shit because the difference looks realistic enough to not suspect anything.

    2. People get salty and call for re-counts for every single vote they lose.

    Also: people get receipts? Great. How do you anonymise their votes?

    Also-also: people can call for a re-count? How many people? One person can cause the re-count of all votes? Do you need a percentage? If so, how is it collected? Via an online service, such as change.org, famous for being botted non-stop? What happens if most people forgot to take their receipts? Or threw them out?

    Plus, open-source voting. That means instead of Diebold making the software, the federal government does, which has to allow inspectors from any state to make unannounced audits of the software chain.

    Open source doesn't protect you from exploits, mate.

    Thirdly, I already mentioned who the voters are: the ones who cast an vote. Requiring absolutely 51% of EVERYONE is unrealistic. Instead, the voting pool should adjust according to how many people cast a vote. So if 5,000 people cast votes, 2,501 have to say ‘Nay’ to prevent a pardon

    Right. So, knowing that the vast majority of people would lose interest after the second vote (it's already difficult to drag their arses into the booths once every four years), you'd end up with big businesses offering thousands of votes for whatever case in exchange for a payout.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (8 children)

    It is my assumption that an America that has been overhauled, would have UBI. Thus free smartphones, because they make it easier for people to do stuff. Anyhow...

    1: Open-source means anyone can look at the code, be it on their machine or at the repository. With things like hashing, it can be verified at each step of the voting process that the vote remains intact by auditors. The voting software should be device agnostic, and be something used in all elections and voting. By making the software itself uniform each year, it is easier to notice when something is off. This is very different from Diebold and other physical devices, because those are black boxes.

    2: The receipts are not about anonymity. They are laminated so that people can keep them in storage, and bring them to a poll verification booth if the call goes out. The digital vote is anonymous when cast, the physical ballot reserved for when volunteers are willing to reveal their vote in public. While obviously not fool proof, it is an extra step against corruption if needed.

    3: Obviously, there would have to be laws against corruption to go with a redefined nation. Also, a UBI-based society would have less corruption, because money is associated with luxury, rather than necessity. The punishment for being bribed to vote for an interest, could be to have UBI income penalized. UBI supplies, such as beds, food, housing, internet, ect, aren't taken away - just the money for buying fancy stuff that UBI doesn't provide. People who are greedy, would have to think about whether they want to lose their guaranteed income for a potential bribe.

    4: When it comes to calling for a recount, it could be something like 20% of previous participants of a voted measure calling for it, or 30% of eligible voters, whichever milestone is reached first. Presumably, frivolous calls for a recount would automatically fail if they haven't garnered support. Presumably, the open-source voting software would be used for collecting the voting metrics.

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  • [+] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)
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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (5 children)

    The point of laminated receipts, is to allow a voter to give physical proof if something is wrong with the digital system. If there are enough people who reveal their votes, they can use it to force an investigation. By having every physical ballot laminated by default, people can just toss it into a storage box and not worry about it falling apart if something comes up some years later.

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  • [+] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)
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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (3 children)

    The digital part is to make it so that voting is fast and convenient. People are busy critters, so we want them to vote, preferably by quickly filling out a form on their smartphone and instantly sending in their vote.

    As they do so, they can order a voting station to print out the physical ballot, which can be picked up or sent by mail to the voter. That ballot exists to verify that the digital voting is intact, if people start feeling like something is up. If people have good vibes about the voting, they won't show their ballot on social media. However, if someone like Elon is fucking with things, people can assert that he is a cheesehead, and have the receipts to prove it.

    It ain't perfect. But it is important to try to at do "mostly good", rather than being fundamentally sucky. As it is, the logistics for getting people to the booth, weird rules, and concerns like ICE intimidating people are issues.

    Also, America isn't Estonia - it is a much larger nation, so there are more resources all around to tackle the problem. Heck, Estonia probably wouldn't mind becoming support staff and selling a license to make a fork of their system. FDR's administration invented social security, did the Manhatten Project, and many major social works. Government, when it is willing to, can pull off major feats. So the same philosophy can apply to voting systems.

    A well designed voting system can last centuries, if we are willing as a society to put in the effort.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    The digital part is to make it so that voting is fast and convenient

    But it wouldn't be, would it? People would still have to line up and wait for their laminated receipts. The entire point of your "digital voting" system is defeated by this one element. If there's a physical component required anyway, might as well do the more secure version, and have everyone voting physically too.

    As they do so, they can order a voting station to print out the physical ballot, which can be picked up or sent by mail to the voter

    I'm struggling to imagine the sheer amount of paper going through the postal services with this set-up. At this point it kinda' sounds like you're a lobbyist for some paper company. New York City Hall alone passes 50-100 bills per month. And you want people to be voting on their city, state, and federal bills and laws!

    It ain’t perfect. But it is important to try to at do “mostly good”, rather than being fundamentally sucky

    I'm sorry to say this, but this systems is fundamentally sucky.

    It requires the exact same things to go right as representative democracy, but introduces so many things to go wrong....

    Also, America isn’t Estonia - it is a much larger nation, so there are more resources all around to tackle the problem

    Estonia is the most digitised country on the planet, what are you even talking about, mate...?

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    It is my assumption that an America that has been overhauled, would have UBI. Thus free smartphones

    OK, so if you're dreaming of a utopia, why complicate things? Just assume America doesn't have greedy businessmen and then even capitalism works perfectly fine.

    Open-source means anyone can look at the code, be it on their machine or at the repository

    We already have that and there already are OSS projects that have been compromised. The most famous of which, the SSH backdoor, was discovered by the skin of our teeth. We have no way of knowing if there are more backdoors like it that went through undetected.

    With things like hashing, it can be verified at each step of the voting process that the vote remains intact by auditors

    It's already being done. If the device doing the hashing is compromised, you still get a valid hash of a flipped vote.

    The voting software should be device agnostic, and be something used in all elections and voting.

    Meaning: even more open to fraud than the current solution.

    This is very different from Diebold and other physical devices, because those are black boxes.

    OSS is not a magic "fix security issues instantly" button. True, it can protect from a malicious company wanting to do a take-over, like with what Thiel/Musk did, but it opens you up to so many other attack vectors. Again, learn about the SSH backdoor.

    The receipts are not about anonymity. They are laminated so that people can keep them in storage, and bring them to a poll verification booth if the call goes out. The digital vote is anonymous when cast, the physical ballot reserved for when volunteers are willing to reveal their vote in public. While obviously not fool proof, it is an extra step against corruption if needed.

    Your "extra step against corruption" is just a worse version of what we currently have. The votes can be recounted as needed, only the voter anonymity is preserved.

    Do you honestly believe that malicious actors wouldn't make "calls for recounts" just enough times to learn exactly who votes how and then use that for spreading propaganda and sway the votes?

    Obviously, there would have to be laws against corruption to go with a redefined nation

    And they would somehow magically work, unlike the existing laws against corruption because...?

    Also, a UBI-based society would have less corruption, because money is associated with luxury, rather than necessity

    Everybody on the planet wants more. Maybe you can't corrupt 300k UBI-receiving citizens, but you can corrupt the 10 businessmen who operate their news-sources.

    When it comes to calling for a recount, it could be something like 20% of previous participants of a voted measure calling for it, or 30% of eligible voters, whichever milestone is reached first.

    Got it. So, you get votes, on top of votes.

    People would be doing nothing but voting, mate. You get to vote on your city laws, state laws, federal laws, then their recounts. In order to vote you need to read the laws you're voting on, and these can be easily 500+ pages long, all in lawyer-lingo.

    BTW - how would be re-writes of laws done? Also direct democracy, where the population has to read the law, understand it, see the pitfalls in the budgetary situation, international laws situation, international market agreements situation, human rights laws situation, and a billion other, and then agree that "the comma placed here makes the statement ambiguous, opening an avenue for fraud"?

    Presumably, frivolous calls for a recount would automatically fail if they haven’t garnered support. Presumably, the open-source voting software would be used for collecting the voting metrics.

    A lot of assumptions and presumptions going on to get this thing off the ground, no?

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