10-11-2018, 10:42 AM
(10-11-2018, 10:29 AM)welltoldtales Wrote: I would like to see us moving closer to direct democracy and Switzerland has e-Voting, why can't we.
https://www.evoting.ch/en
I think we could also increase voter turnout if we extend the times we can vote. Electronic submissions (the machines we use now) help as well. It would be great if they showed up in more locations though to encourage people to vote. Where the machines turn up remains another nudge for certain types of people. But that makes running an election more expensive.
Online voting could change all that, but as Mark McCardle says it's basically impossible to make it secure.
In Reseach it's all about eliminating noise by increasing the sample and low voter turnouts mean more chance of disruption. It's such a complex problem, but something leads me to believe that somehow we can find a way to maximize sample (eliminate who get's to vote?) so that vulnerabilities in online voting security are less likely.
Direct democracy isn't necessarily better. It requires an informed and engaged electorate, something we clearly don't have here.
The point is, the people know what kinds of things they want, clean air, safe city, etc. It should be up to politicians to figure out what policies to implement to achieve those goals. Putting it up to citizens is very likely to lead to sub optimal results. This board is an exceptionally informed and well educated group of people, but even we don't have time to study and understand every single issue. What is the best math curriculum? What is the best policing policy to achieve safety?
People are more subject to mob effects than politicians. It has good and bad of course, but it is not clear that direct democracy is better.
I think there is more value in tackling the causes of electorate apathy than making voting easier or more direct.
As for online security, increasing the sample size is irrelevant when it comes to online. One of the risks with online voting is that, contrary to in person voter fraud, you don't need a large group of people to cheat. If I find a back door to the online voting system I can possibly generate an unlimited number of false votes. If I found a back door to the in person voting system, I'd be physically limited in the number of false ballots I could actually generate.