Voting Online

MagicMarker

Surely in this technological age we find ourselves in this wouldn't be so hard to implement?

This morning there were about 12-15 people working at my polling station and a Guard err, standing guard, multiply that by a couple of thousand? Seems like an awful lot of man hours to be paying for!

We all have a unique I.D in the PPS number, so why not just give everyone with a PPS number who is over 18 a login (PPS) and password and give them a vote? This would mean any Irish citizen worldwide could have their say. Name, address, constituency, voting register would all be irrelevant as it's all anonymous anyway and results would more or less be instant.

Think of all the money that would be saved, no more wasted paper, ballot boxes, pencils, little strings that are attached to the pencils, rulers that are used to draw a straight line through someone's name on the register, ink on paper, paying a premium for the coloured paper (not a racist).

excaliburhc

2 reasons spring to mind

1) you loose anonymity - all votes can be traced back to at least where they came from - what ip address- going even further could be tied to your pps number - would you trust any irish government to not try to use this info ?

2) how difficult is it to hack ? with ssl now hacked , how secure could it possible be ?

Oranage2

On the face of it not a bad idea.


But I'm sure it would be easily hacked aswell nothing stopping somebody robbing your ID and voting without photo proof -

Also I'd asume it would be harder to 'fix' elections so our politicians might not like that.

mackg

Implement online voting and watch as everyone complains that atari jaguar isn't an option

Seriously though, if you can do your banking online why not?

Artur Foden

I suggest a mobile voting van, that would go around to all the lazy peoples houses.

MagicMarker

excaliburhc wrote: »

1) you loose anonymity - all votes can be traced back to at least where they came from - what ip address- going even further could be tied to your pps number - would you trust any irish government to not try to use this info ?

Use the info for what though?

excaliburhc wrote: »

2) how difficult is it to hack ? with ssl now hacked , how secure could it possible be ?

Surely it can be at least as secure as my online banking and Revenue online services?

Xenophile

Yes you are on to something here. A lot of merit to exploring your suggestion, in particular the PPS, Passport number is good, more can be added to this for people who are not afraid of tranparency driving license number etc, to make it as watertight as possible:)

Snakeblood

MagicMarker wrote: »

Surely in this technological age we find ourselves in this wouldn't be so hard to implement?

This morning there were about 12-15 people working at my polling station and a Guard err, standing guard, multiply that by a couple of thousand? Seems like an awful lot of man hours to be paying for!

We all have a unique I.D in the PPS number, so why not just give everyone with a PPS number who is over 18 a login (PPS) and password and give them a vote? This would mean any Irish citizen worldwide could have their say. Name, address, constituency, voting register would all be irrelevant as it's all anonymous anyway and results would more or less be instant.

Think of all the money that would be saved, no more wasted paper, ballot boxes, pencils, little strings that are attached to the pencils, rulers that are used to draw a straight line through someone's name on the register, ink on paper, paying a premium for the coloured paper (not a racist).

You can make the argument that people who don't live here shouldn't be allowed vote here though. so someone who emigrated to Europe would be able to vote in a country he doesn't pay tax in. No representation with taxation, to reverse the phrase.

Personally, I think there should be a 1 general election limit on people who are outside the country voting. It'd at least hammer whichever government was relying on emigration to get rid of its problems.

jester77

The should meet half way and introduce electronic voting... oh wait

seamus

MagicMarker wrote: »

Surely it can be at least as secure as my online banking and Revenue online services?

It needs to be a million times more secure than that. If someone breaks into either of those systems, it's no major biggie. Credentials can be changed, losses compensated.

If someone manages to compromise a voting system and swing the result of an election, then it most likely will never be caught and corrected. Or even if it is caught, those who've now been elected will have the power to quash any enquiries.

Electronic voting basically opens a massive door through which electoral fraud can be carried out, without providing many benefits.

You get the results of an election 2 days earlier than otherwise. It would probably be no cheaper since you would need a fair whack of people to ensure the security of the devices and their software on an ongoing basis. Every single election would require a few hundred thousand voting machines to undergo a full audit to check for tampering.

The primary difference between paper voting and electronic voting is that there is no middleman in paper voting. My ballot is cast, it goes into the box and from there until it arrives to be counted, it cannot be tampered with. It can be lost, torn up or defaced, sure, but it cannot be changed. With electronic voting, my vote gets stored as magnetised atoms on a steel plate. My vote can be changed at any time before counting without my knowledge.

Sulmac

Estonia has internet voting for their elections, and it seems to work okay.

Voter registration should be based on PPS Numbers, regardless (in fact, a national registry should be set up, like in most countries, with some of your basic details like address and nationality so they can send out voting cards automatically).

I'd also support electronic voting generally, especially if the machine prints out the ballot which is put into a ballot box so there is a paper trial (that is counted and compared with the electronic results to ensure there is no hacking). How you could do this with an online voting system, I'm not sure, though.

MagicMarker

seamus wrote: »

It needs to be a million times more secure than that. If someone breaks into either of those systems, it's no major biggie. Credentials can be changed, losses compensated.

If someone manages to compromise a voting system and swing the result of an election, then it most likely will never be caught and corrected. Or even if it is caught, those who've now been elected will have the power to quash any enquiries.

Electronic voting basically opens a massive door through which electoral fraud can be carried out, without providing many benefits.

You get the results of an election 2 days earlier than otherwise. It would probably be no cheaper since you would need a fair whack of people to ensure the security of the devices and their software on an ongoing basis. Every single election would require a few hundred thousand voting machines to undergo a full audit to check for tampering.

You had to ruin the dream didn't you?

Hedman

Aside from the obvious security concerns, it would be feasible only if every single person in the country had internet access. They don't, so you would need to keep polling stations open regardless. So the whole thing would cost more.

pauldry

And there are still many OAPs who vote who dont know how to use internet

Buford T Justice

We couldn't manage electronic voting when we spent millions on it a few years ago.

What makes you think we could entertain something like this with any sort of success?

Mike 1972

pauldry wrote: »

And there are still many OAPs who vote who dont know how to use internet

I know people in their twenties who cant use the internet

bonzodog2

Excellent idea, it did occur to me before, after the voting machine fiasco. Since most polling stations are schools, most of the necessary hardware is there already.

amacachi

In America they haven't even been able to secure electronic voting machines that only go online for a few seconds to send their votes for counting and collating, having something constantly connected would be a helluva lot harder.