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Comment by pytester | Hacker News Reader

>That is worrying. How do you know that the voter could vote freely and didn't sell their vote?

Historically, vote buying in the UK and the US used to be rife until it was cracked down upon (which came after it was made illegal). Once that happened it completely disappeared.

For voters to sell their votes, somebody needs to advertise that they are willing to buy their votes. That advertisement makes them easy to detect, track down and prosecute.

Vote buying doesn't worry me in this system but hacks certainly do. It gives the impression of being a very insecure system.

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When did they stomp out vote-buying in the UK? There is a steady stream of substantiated irregularities around postal ballots (like this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/440..., this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/86..., and this: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-19397157).

Postal voting should be restricted to the certifiably homebound, if it's open to everyone the opportunity for abuse will be taken.

I think 19th century? Not too sure of the exact dates. I do know that it persisted for a while after it was made illegal and then disappeared completely once it actually started being prosecuted.

Vote buying could still re-emerge but it can only flourish in an environment where you can do it openly with impunity - i.e. it's legalized or the cops for some reason think they can't touch you.

Your first link doesn't appear to be about vote buying (looks like low level postal fraud which is something else), the second is only about allegations (and again, postal fraud) and the third link looks like a 404 to me. I would be surprised if anybody's seriously attempted vote buying in the UK in the last 70 years.

It also became much less cost effective after the franchise was extended - when UK Constituencies had a small number of voters it was more practicable - see the Blackadder episode "Dish and Dishonesty"

yeah but part of cracking down on vote buying has to do with making it difficult to track if you actually did vote for who you said you would, with online voting it becomes totally possible to track you did the vote, give it to the guy who has promised to pay you, forgive your debts, the debts of your son, not beat you up, allow you to keep your job etc. etc.

>yeah but part of cracking down on vote buying has to do with making it difficult to track if you actually did vote for who you said you would

That isn't necessary to prevent vote buying. Vote buying is easy to detect because advertising in secret is impossible. All that's required is the political will to look for people wanting to buy votes and come down hard on them when they're detected.

Moreover, if you do do away with the ability to track then you open up the electoral system to other forms of abuse that can't be trivially eliminated with police and stiff sentences.

>it becomes totally possible to track you did the vote, give it to the guy who has promised to pay you, forgive your debts, the debts of your son, not beat you up

If I were to define "secretive electoral fraud that could never possibly scale" I would define it as "I promise not to beat you up if you vote for me".

how far did Tammany Hall have to scale?

How big is Estonia?

Do you think every election ever held that can be worth money and power is the size of the U.S National Election?

As far as the political will to come down on people for vote buying or intimidation etc. I'm sure that making things illegal when there is a profit to be made at doing it has always succeeded in driving that illegal thing out of existence without any untoward effect on society whatsoever.

I mean definitely making it not worthwhile to buy votes because you will not be able to tell if you got what you paid for seems a more foolproof strategy than make it possible for people to determine what they paid for but threaten to throw them in prison if they do.

on edit: corrected second use of word money to power.

>How big is Estonia?

Are you saying that it's small enough that you can sway the election by threatening to beat up every voter?

That's a brave claim.

>As far as the political will to come down on people for vote buying or intimidation etc. I'm sure that making things illegal when there is a profit to be made at doing it has always succeeded in driving that illegal thing out of existence without any untoward effect on society whatsoever.

there is ZERO profit to be made in vote buying if you are thrown in prison after purchasing your 9th vote. You'd have to be enormously stupid to even try.

that's why vote buying doesn't exist. that's why it's not like drugs. It's not because you "can't tell people" who you voted for. It's because it's trivial to detect, easy to crack down on and there's nothing to be gained by risking it. The only time when there was something to be gained by doing it, it was because it was COMPLETELY LEGAL.

Let me repeat that: the only time in history it was ever a problem, it was because it was LEGAL.

I want proof that my vote counted because that helps protect against the kind of threats which DON'T disappear just because they're made illegal. I don't need people like you telling me that I'm not responsible enough to get proof because I might sell it.

>Are you saying that it's small enough that you can sway the >election by threatening to beat up every voter?

>That's a brave claim.

No, generally the way it works is letting the word get out that if people vote for X you will come kick their ass later. For example if go beat up vocal supporters of X before the election and shout we're going to kill you if you vote for X, we know who votes for who because our hackers can see it online fools. Then people might be, oh I don't want anyone coming by my house and kicking my ass after X wins. So I will either not vote, or I will vote for Y so I don't get my ass kicked or even killed, sob.

If we think you voted for X and we come by your house you better be able to convince us you voted for Y! That actually scales pretty good because you only have to publicly hurt a few people before the election, and then hurt a few people after the election if X actually loses so the next election people will be well I better vote for Y and prove I did it. And people now have to actually vote for Y and show they did.

For example, take the following paper into consideration https://www.aisre.it/images/old_papers/MafiaViolence_Oli&Sbe... and then think, huh what would it be like if they could tell who voted for whom?

I mean the thing you're saying about the only time people ever bought votes was when it was completely legal, maybe that was true - was it also possible to prove who you voted for? I mean I don't know what you are actually referencing with your completely legal vote buying line but the implication that people would not buy votes to get power seems if it were illegal to do so seems incredibly silly given all the other illegal things people do to get power.

> with online voting it becomes totally possible to track you did the vote

Not necessarily. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19355603

ok it is true that with sufficient technical prowess one could fake that they did the vote, but as a general rule hold your iphone up in front of the monitor and make a video of you doing the vote would be a good enough solution for most criminals.

Prohibition of vote buying does not prevent Bulgarian train style attacks.

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