The scary thing about elections is that, by design, nobody can ever “prove” they won.
Votes are designed to be anonymous. They have to be. If they’re not, they’re very vulnerable to manipulation. If someone can prove how they voted, then they can either be bribed to vote a certain way, or threatened to vote a certain way. If you can check that your vote was counted successfully for the candidate you chose, then someone else can check that you voted for the candidate they chose.
That means that, by design, the only security that elections can have is in the process. In a small election, like 1000ish votes or fewer, someone could supervise the whole thing. They could cast their vote, then stand there and watch. They could watch as other people voted, making sure that nobody voted twice, or dropped more than one sheet into the box. They could watch as the box was emptied. Then, they could watch as each vote was tallied. Barring some sleight-of-hand, in a small election like that, you could theoretically supervise the entire process, and convince yourself that the vote was fair.
But, that is impossible to scale. Even for 1000 votes, not every voter could supervise the entire process, and for more than 1000 votes, or votes involving more than one voting location, it’s just not possible for one person to watch the entire thing. So, at some point you need to trust other people. If you’re talking say 10,000 votes, maybe you have 10 people you trust beyond a shadow of a doubt, and each one of you could supervise one process. But, the bigger the election, the more impossible it is to have actual people you know and trust supervising everything.
In a huge country-wide election, there’s simply no alternative to trust. You have to trust poll workers you’ve never met, and/or election monitors you’ve never met. And, since you’re not likely to hear directly from poll workers or election monitors, you have to instead trust the news source you’re using that reports on the election. In a big, complex election, a statistician may be able to spot fraud based on all the information available. But, if you’re not that statistician, you have to trust them, and even if you are that statistician, you have to trust that your model is correct and that the data you’re feeding it is correct.
Society is built on trust, and voting is no different. Unfortunately, in the US, trust is breaking down, and without trust, it’s just a matter of which narrative seems the most “truthy” to you.
Oi, no you have to have your name on the rolls and there is a dedicated building were you as an individual are required to cast your vote. Go the the wrong building and you wont be on the roll.
You can vote multiple times if you own homes in multiple states but:
When you register to vote you generally ID. at the polls you just give your name and address. generally everyone in the room lives in the area. I certainly know who are my neighbors. you can of course lie about who you are, and you might even be able to cast that vote; if someone doesn’t call you on it. but if that person shows up shit is going to hit the fan.
Can you prove that your vote was counted and that the number of votes for your candidate went up by one as a result? If you can’t prove it, then it’s based on trust.
In France we get an anonymous code and we can plug it into a website and it tells us if our ballot was counted or not, and if it wasn’t counted why.
(markings on ballott, multiple candidates selected for one spot, etc.)
And, you have to trust that the website is telling you the truth. You have no way of verifying that it always gives the same answer to everybody. I guess someone could test that there’s some connection to their real ballot by intentionally screwing up their ballot. But, that doesn’t mean that there’s any way to prove that when it’s counted that the actual tally for the person / people you voted for are going up not down.
The scary thing about elections is that, by design, nobody can ever “prove” they won.
Votes are designed to be anonymous. They have to be. If they’re not, they’re very vulnerable to manipulation. If someone can prove how they voted, then they can either be bribed to vote a certain way, or threatened to vote a certain way. If you can check that your vote was counted successfully for the candidate you chose, then someone else can check that you voted for the candidate they chose.
That means that, by design, the only security that elections can have is in the process. In a small election, like 1000ish votes or fewer, someone could supervise the whole thing. They could cast their vote, then stand there and watch. They could watch as other people voted, making sure that nobody voted twice, or dropped more than one sheet into the box. They could watch as the box was emptied. Then, they could watch as each vote was tallied. Barring some sleight-of-hand, in a small election like that, you could theoretically supervise the entire process, and convince yourself that the vote was fair.
But, that is impossible to scale. Even for 1000 votes, not every voter could supervise the entire process, and for more than 1000 votes, or votes involving more than one voting location, it’s just not possible for one person to watch the entire thing. So, at some point you need to trust other people. If you’re talking say 10,000 votes, maybe you have 10 people you trust beyond a shadow of a doubt, and each one of you could supervise one process. But, the bigger the election, the more impossible it is to have actual people you know and trust supervising everything.
In a huge country-wide election, there’s simply no alternative to trust. You have to trust poll workers you’ve never met, and/or election monitors you’ve never met. And, since you’re not likely to hear directly from poll workers or election monitors, you have to instead trust the news source you’re using that reports on the election. In a big, complex election, a statistician may be able to spot fraud based on all the information available. But, if you’re not that statistician, you have to trust them, and even if you are that statistician, you have to trust that your model is correct and that the data you’re feeding it is correct.
Society is built on trust, and voting is no different. Unfortunately, in the US, trust is breaking down, and without trust, it’s just a matter of which narrative seems the most “truthy” to you.
This makes me think we are on the same path as many countries who routinely have significant civil conflict every election cycle.
Not a great look for a country. Not a great group to join. Yet here we are.
You know how people outside the USA vote? They go there, show their ID, get a tick on the list of voters, and do the voting.
Same as inside the USA.
Interesting, given the stories of people voting several times by just going to different places.
Oi, no you have to have your name on the rolls and there is a dedicated building were you as an individual are required to cast your vote. Go the the wrong building and you wont be on the roll.
You can vote multiple times if you own homes in multiple states but:
Interesting. Thank you. How do you ID?
When you register to vote you generally ID. at the polls you just give your name and address. generally everyone in the room lives in the area. I certainly know who are my neighbors. you can of course lie about who you are, and you might even be able to cast that vote; if someone doesn’t call you on it. but if that person shows up shit is going to hit the fan.
go work an election as a poll worker.
“stories”. Yes. Fascist media is full of stories.
Yes, and again, it’s all based on trust.
How is trust involved in that process?
Can you prove that your vote was counted and that the number of votes for your candidate went up by one as a result? If you can’t prove it, then it’s based on trust.
That’s on the level of “everything could be made up to fool me” or matrix kind of stuff. You can simply be a poll worker yourself.
Hardly. Historically there has been a lot of cheating in elections. Look at Chicago up to the 1970s. Election fraud was common there.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/1973/05/08/how-the-chicago-tribune-exposed-city-vote-fraud-in-1972-and-won-a-pulitzer-prize/
Nobody can prove that there’s less cheating in Chicago elections today than in the 1970s, but people trust that it’s more honest.
In France we get an anonymous code and we can plug it into a website and it tells us if our ballot was counted or not, and if it wasn’t counted why. (markings on ballott, multiple candidates selected for one spot, etc.)
Right, but no way to verify who you voted for.
And, you have to trust that the website is telling you the truth. You have no way of verifying that it always gives the same answer to everybody. I guess someone could test that there’s some connection to their real ballot by intentionally screwing up their ballot. But, that doesn’t mean that there’s any way to prove that when it’s counted that the actual tally for the person / people you voted for are going up not down.