Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile

Computerphile · 2.3M views · 2014-12-18 · 8:21

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Overview

Tom Scott explains for Computerphile why electronic voting is a bad idea, arguing that paper ballots are transparent, auditable and hard to tamper with at scale. He covers why moving voting to phones, tablets or computers undermines trust and verifiability.

On Hacker News

It is the go-to short explainer HN commenters link whenever e-voting, voting machines or online voting come up.

Recommended by 7 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2015–2025

Topics

Security & hacking US politics & elections Cryptography

What people said

marcyb5st · 2018-10 · Strong recommendation
I love [this video]( [VIDEO] ) from Tom Scott in which he explains quite well why e-voting is inherently bad. I am very happy that here in Switzerland, even if we have to vote several times every year, we still do it the old fashion way :).
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ajurna · 2018-08 · Strong recommendation
please watch this: [VIDEO] it has a good list of reasons why software voting is a terrible idea. also the secret ballet is very important to maintaining the fairness of elections.
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pdkl95 · 2015-04 · Strong recommendation
I love Tom Scott's computerphile videos. His frustration grows over a few videos; his videos about the difficulties of internationalization[1] and the problems of electronic voting[2] are even crazier. [1] [LINK] [2] [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by Computerphile, played through YouTube.

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