Barbara Simons: The Computer Scientist Who Prefers Paper Voting

theatlantic.com

5 points·jrepinc··3 comments

One, I think the article doesn't underline why a paper based system would be better than a paperless method other than giving examples of hacked paperless system and weird claims like paper methods are bullet proof provided they are marked clearly and properly(what? That is one of the reasons for starting off paperless methods in the first place) A method that relies a lot on human based management and logistics is bound to fail in more ways than methods that use less of the same. Paper based methods involves a lot of human pieces than a paperless method (electronic methods and the likes). I may be wrong, but our shift towards automation clearly highlights the former. Any thoughts anybody?

Human based systems can fail in more ways, but are more resilient. There is less likely to be a systemic failure in a human based system.

Similarly, assuming a nefarious actor it is much more challenging to hack a vote using a distributed human system than a digital one.

Resilient in what sense?able to come back and pretend like nothing happened or gloss over and hope things will be alright? Isn't that why we are trying to do away with people?

About the second thing you've surely that cannot be true in all cases. A vote guarded by a mathematically difficult number theory problem can be hard to crack than a ballot box guarded by a grumpy human who feels he/she has better things to do. I believe one must not forget the cost of assembling such problems and maintaining such problems

Curious to know your take and redefinition do

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