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Comment by darawk | Hacker News Reader

The problem here isn't private equity control of the industry...it's state & local governments choosing to actually use these things. PE can call a lemonade stand a voting machine, that's what it means to live in a free country, but that doesn't mean we have to use the damn thing. It's a joke. It's not like we don't know how to design reasonably secure electronic voting mechanisms[1]...these companies just don't bother. There is no reason anyone should ever be using these things.

[1] https://crypto.stanford.edu/pbc/notes/crypto/voting.html

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I disagree with the notion that false advertising is a right characteristic of free countries. Free does not mean anarchy.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that. My point is that these companies ought to be able to sell 'voting machines' that suck, and we ought to be free to not buy them. They should not be free to make false claims about them.

absolutely agree on all three points. unfortunately it's well known that governments often go with the lowest bid for a plethora of goods and services, and it's all to easy to lowball a bid to push machines that suck.

In California at least there were ballot iniatives that mean the CA government must go with the lowest bid, even if it is from a company that has consistently run far over budget.

Honestly I feel the solution to this is: lowest bid, but the company cannot charge more than their bid and needs to have completion/bankruptcy insurance. That way companies that routinely under bid will go bankrupt/have the bankruptcy insurance bills increase until it becomes unprofitable to underbid.

It can. If that's what the people want.

Unless the definition of free has changed.

Which, in this world, it seems to have.

> It's not like we don't know how to design reasonably secure electronic voting mechanisms[1]

It’s exactly like that. No one knows how to solve this problem. The link you added are merely class notes and assume away fundamental technical problems, without even getting into practical issues.

This one, then: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1264852?reload=true

But I will also add that the methods described in my original link are perfectly viable from a technical perspective, just slightly impractical from a UX perspective.

Does that private equity lobby state & local governments to use these machines?

Probably.

If I sent an open letter to Congress and the Senate asking to be made dictator and they said yes, the blame would fall on a spot a little broader than my shadow.

> the blame would fall on a spot a little broader than my shadow.

Can you explain what you mean? I've never heard that expression before and it's.. confusing.

While lobbying can be bad, it can also be good. It comes down to the judgement of those holding office.

For example, if I were running for a relatively high office that took a lot of funds to compete, I'd openly take funds from any legal source. And that might make me more inclined to meet with those organizations over given issues. However, it would be up to me to decide what is best for my constituents in my votes/actions over specific things.

We talk all day about corruption of the money/companies, but way too little voting out all the congress-critters that should not return. More people need to start voting against incumbents regardless of party to stir the pot and get some new blood into things.

"For example, if I were running for a relatively high office that took a lot of funds to compete, I'd openly take funds from any legal source. And that might make me more inclined to meet with those organizations over given issues. However, it would be up to me to decide what is best for my constituents in my votes/actions over specific things."

It's a feature, not a bug...applied empirically to the modern electoral mechanism.

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