I trust computers… to do what their potentially untrustworthy programmers tell them to do. Because it’s computer code that could be corrupted, there’s little means for the layperson voter to verify they aren’t being swindled.
That said, online voting is becoming inevitable, and may be required to pull young voters into participating in our democracy. The election results will swing wildly to the Green Party and others favoured by those under 30, once voting can be done from anywhere.
“Would you vote over the Internet?” That’s the FUNNIEST poll question on cbc.ca EVER. Everyone who doesn’t click Yes, but votes, is lying ;-)
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 
What happens after the omnibus bill is passed, do ISP providers have to provide information about who voted and how they voted if asked? http://stopspying.ca/
Excellent point SM. This shows that Harper’s crew doesn’t think things through.
Or maybe it shows that they do think these things through, and thoroughly…
There’s so much that can go wrong with online voting that it just isn’t funny. Paper ballots have been around long enough that there’s lots of experience in how to prevent all different kinds of vote fraud. Think of all the viruses and botnets on the internet, and then imagine if they could all vote. Without a physical paper trail, voters will have to trust a limited number of experts and that the experts haven’t been tricked themselves.
Well… I would vote on a CBC poll, but not for a federal election.
What if everyone around you is voting online, would you boycott? It will probably come to that decision.
“Everyone who doesn’t click Yes, but votes, is lying”
Um, no. What thejf said.
And your rejoinder is, while interesting and worrisome in itself, irrelevant to his point.
Personally, I’m basically agin’ the idea. But the specifics do matter. If it’s controlled by Diebold or similar, then hell yeah I’d boycott it. And your Green surge would mysteriously never materialize, and the NDP would never again break 20% of the vote. Under those circumstances what we’d have would be pretend elections. The state would be illegitimate; I would consider many things to follow from that.
If the process uses open source software auditable by outside groups and your vote goes separately to three different arm’s length agencies with guaranteed public funding, who count separately and get watched when preparing for and conducting the count by computer-savvy scrutineers from each major party, then I wouldn’t boycott.
PLG, the lying joke is a joke, I’m not completely serious.
You’re right that the system would be ripe for the picking by both a corrupt government that could learn who voted what way (especially with ISP spying laws) and simply by programming the system to ignore votes that are not being double-checked by the concerned voters.
Pingback: Angry Voters | Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff
It would be a dream come true to vote without even get out home.
there is no way to ensure a the secret ballot in internet voting. You can never be sure the person who did the voting was alone and voted completely in private.
For this reason, internet voting is not a good idea. It is too subject to abuse. You will never know if a person was paid to vote and the person who paid them to vote that way were there watching when they cast their vote.