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Comment by daenz | Hacker News Reader

>Washington state has been using that system since forever ago, and the world didn’t end.

I don't think you're fully considering the implications of what the outcome would look like if voter fraud was used effectively. The world wouldn't "end" because nobody would be the wiser. The whole point of cheating is to do so undetectably, so nobody realizes it and everyone agrees that the outcome is fair.

So it's our moral obligation to ensure that undetectable cheating is as difficult as humanly possible to ensure the integrity of elections. Not just say "oh, well nobody has detected anything bad so far, so it must be fine" because things would also appear fine in a severely compromised voting system.

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No election system is totally proof against voter fraud. Our current election system isn't perfect either. If you'd like to make the case that this is worse, feel free to make it. But I know some serious voting nerds that are not just fine with vote-by-mail; they think it's way better.

Personally, I would rather vote the traditional way. But that's more because I enjoy the collective civic duty feeling, and not because I think it's actually better at getting a more accurate representation of the will of the people.

>If you'd like to make the case that this is worse, feel free to make it.

Better or worse depends on what your goals are. It's "better" if your goal is making it easier to vote. It's "worse" if your goal is making it harder to cheat. My point is that it is easier to cheat undetectably the more indirection you introduce into the process.

Both are sub-goals, with the primary goal being that the outcome reflect the democratic will of the people. For example, if we turn up the "impossible to cheat" knob high enough that, say, only 10% of people bother to vote, then that's definitely worse.

Anybody who wants to argue against vote-by-mail needs to make the case that the overall outcome is worse, not just that vote-by-mail has some flaws that are different that the ones in-person voting has.

Disagree. Since the vast majority of states do not offer vote-by-mail only (which is what we're discussing here, to be clear), the onus is on proponents of it to make the case that it is better than the currently majority-adopted solution of voting either in-person or by mail. You don't require others to prove why your change is worse, you have to prove to others why your change is better.

There are already safeguards that make it difficult to cheat undetectably in vote by mail. Perhaps you can fill us in with your tips for avoiding them? The guy in NC sure flunked that test.

>There are already safeguards that make it difficult to cheat undetectably in vote by mail.

The majority of Americans still trust in-person voting over vote-by-mail. Perhaps you can share the safeguards that will assuage their concerns.

>Within the coronavirus context and questions of safety with in-person voting in November, voters are not very comfortable changing their method of voting. Voters across the country generally trust their current voting process, with 55% trusting primarily in-person voting, compared with 20% who do not trust the current process. When asked about mail balloting, 47% said they would trust a national vote-by-mail process in November, while 31% lack trust in this system. When voters were asked about online balloting, only 33% said they would trust an online system, with 45% not trusting online voting in November’s election.

http://emersonpolling.com/2020/04/28/april-national-poll-tru...

Sorry, my mistake. I thought you wanted to have a discussion in good faith about the details you were unaware of. In hindsight, I was foolish.

I think you indicated that you were already not speaking in good faith with the condescending "perhaps you can fill us in on your tips" and pretending that nobody would notice.

Ah. No wonder your followup was so pointless. If you ever do want to know about the numerous existing safeguards that are built into our bi-partisan-designed election system, you can probably educate yourself online.

The existence of any safeguards was never in question, but thank you for pointing me in the right direction. Have a blessed day.

You said:

> My point is that it is easier to cheat undetectably the more indirection you introduce into the process.

It's not just "any" safeguards. It's existing safeguards that work well at the level of indirection that "vote by mail" represents. Even with ballot pickup.

And I'll go back to my other point, which you again condescendingly dismissed (see a theme here?) as "pointless": the general public needs to be convinced of the safeguards--safeguards which you are suggesting thwart any attempts at indirection-based potential fraud-- in order for them to be effective.

Voting isn't about simply voting, it's about faith in the system itself. You could have a perfect voting system, but if nobody trusts it, it is as bad as a corrupted system because nobody will agree on the outcome. And currently, whatever safeguards you claim are "good enough" clearly are not good enough to convince the general public to trust them, so they aren't good enough.

You really don't come across as somebody interested in convincing the general public here. Or particularly aware of what the general public actually trusts. 71% of Americans say that “any voter should have the option to vote early or absentee without having to document a reason." And the areas with the most experience with more relaxed approaches to voting are the ones most likely to agree with that.

It is true that pure vote-by-mail is the thing that that people are most skeptical of. But almost nobody is 100% opposed to mailed votes; people are fine with absentee voters, military voters, etc. And California's experience shows that people get more comfortable with mail voting as they have more experience with it. Since 2012, the majority of votes have been cast absentee (which is a mix of mail and drop-off): https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/historical-absentee/

So if you'd like to convince the general public, the thing to do is to allow both approaches and let people pick. Especially during a global pandemic, I think we'll see a lot more people liking the idea of mail-in voting than they did in past surveys.

I have been talking about vote-by-mail only, and I made that clear in a previous reply to you, so arguing for any vote by mail, as though I oppose it, comes across as a strawman.

>So if you'd like to convince the general public, the thing to do is to allow both approaches and let people pick.

That's exactly what the majority of states do, but CA is forcing vote-by-mail only. Also, I was courteous enough to post my sources when talking about public opinion, I would appreciate the same courtesy.

The bit of data I didn't cite comes from the 2018 Pew report.

You have also worked yourself into a tizzy over nothing. CA is not forcing vote-by-mail only. Newsom's order is only about requiring everybody to receive a ballot. Rules for in-person voting will be determined county by county, and those rules are still being developed.

If you aren't opposed to vote by mail, you did a poor job of making that clear. This chunk of the discussion started out with "Voter fraud ahoy!" You jumped in to fret about "undetectable cheating". If you don't think that vote by mail is any less secure, I have no idea what your goal is, and rereading your posts doesn't help.

Also the people who stand to benefit from cheating, then are elected and tasked with preventing it. How is that incentive structure going to work?

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