Dave Lane  🇳🇿
So the cyclical spectre of #onlinevoting has entered my sphere of awareness again today, after a blissful break of a few months. After rearing its ugly head yet again, I've decided to finally try to write a short-but-sweet explanation of why it's still a really bad idea (with references): https://davelane.nz/onlinevoting
Online voting continues to be a very bad idea in 2025 and beyond

I have long been vocal in my opposition to online voting since 2013, when the spectre was first raised by our local government agency, LGNZ, in 2013. See here, here, here, and here.

Dave Lane
Jan 14, 2025 at 5:03amWeb
Show threadBrett Sheffield (he/him)Jan 14, 2025

@lightweight Are you familiar with Vanessa Teague's work on online voting systems?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Teague

She gave an excellent keynote at LCA 2020 about the flaws in online voting, analysing the Swiss e-voting system and NSW iVote etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfpy5c3thQo

Vanessa Teague - Wikipedia

Show threadtimorlJan 14, 2025

@lightweight

Securing a ‘secret ballot’ is nearly impossible

Ah, finally an argument I can fully endorse.  It bothers me so much when people say “it’s completely impossible to do this cryptographically”, because it’s not strictly true, and all the other reasons to avoid online voting are much more important anyway.