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.
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?
Open-source means anyone can look at the code, be it on their machine or at the repository.
Yeah good luck with that. There probably aren’t more than a few hundred people, thousands at best, in the world who understand the mathematics required for properly pulling off electronic voting, because it requires some sort of zero knowledge protocol – you want tamper-evident votes, but you don’t want anybody to be able to connect a specific vote to a specific voter, and you also need to eg prevent the same person from voting multiple times, while also making sure that only citizens can vote.
Super simple. Yeah, sure anyone can look at the code, but 0.00001% of the people looking at it will understand it, and even fewer can actually spot any potential problems because the systems are so damn complex. And what’s worse, you can have holes in your voting system that you don’t know about until way after a vote, and then you may not have any way of knowing if the vote was valid or not
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.
What do you even need the digital system for at that point?
Like, did you even bother to look at that article? Electronic voting is incredibly complex, and if you end up having to rely on physical receipts anyhow because you can’t be sure the result is right, why even bother?
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.
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…?
They’re so enamoured with their idea that they just completely refuse to listen to reason, and they clearly don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about – classic Dunning-Kruger situation.
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.
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.
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.
It’s already being done. If the device doing the hashing is compromised, you still get a valid hash of a flipped vote.
Meaning: even more open to fraud than the current solution.
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.
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?
And they would somehow magically work, unlike the existing laws against corruption because…?
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.
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”?
A lot of assumptions and presumptions going on to get this thing off the ground, no?
Yeah good luck with that. There probably aren’t more than a few hundred people, thousands at best, in the world who understand the mathematics required for properly pulling off electronic voting, because it requires some sort of zero knowledge protocol – you want tamper-evident votes, but you don’t want anybody to be able to connect a specific vote to a specific voter, and you also need to eg prevent the same person from voting multiple times, while also making sure that only citizens can vote.
Here, read this 2025 article on Estonia’s system: https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/506.pdf
Super simple. Yeah, sure anyone can look at the code, but 0.00001% of the people looking at it will understand it, and even fewer can actually spot any potential problems because the systems are so damn complex. And what’s worse, you can have holes in your voting system that you don’t know about until way after a vote, and then you may not have any way of knowing if the vote was valid or not
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.
What do you even need the digital system for at that point?
Like, did you even bother to look at that article? Electronic voting is incredibly complex, and if you end up having to rely on physical receipts anyhow because you can’t be sure the result is right, why even bother?
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.
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.
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!
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…
Estonia is the most digitised country on the planet, what are you even talking about, mate…?
They’re so enamoured with their idea that they just completely refuse to listen to reason, and they clearly don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about – classic Dunning-Kruger situation.
BUT THE LAMINATED RECEIPTS
Lamination is the KEY, dude!