[kwlug-disc] Say No To Electronic Voting ...

[Mikalai Birukou]

On 2020-08-25 6:37 p.m., Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 23, 2020 at 3:18 PM Mikalai Birukou via kwlug-disc 
> <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org <mailto:kwlug-disc at kwlug.org>> wrote:
>
>     If paper votes were always counted correctly in Belarus in the
>     last 4 to
>     8 elections, there would be no problem. But they weren't. Mere
>     presence
>     of Austrian paper vote system doesn't guarantee the happy ending.
>     Hence,
>     problem exist, may be not in Canada (note, in Belarus every vote has
>     equal weight, unlike here, leaving only miscounting as a mischief
>     tool).
>
>     Actual change that now takes place in that country was helped by some
>     tech solutions coupled with mass action. Tech is a tool. Tech is
>     never a
>     solution to a problem that not all people abide by rules. But tech de
>     facto helped the defending side. Let me rephrase it, can we have high
>     tech pitchforks? :)
>
>
> The problem here is that the system is rigged. It has the appearance 
> that it is
> fair and open, while it is neither. The reason is a dictator who 
> refuses to cede
> power and manipulates the voting process to get his way.
>
> The problem here is not voting, it is the power grip, which will 
> corrupt any
> voting system (paper or computerized) to get the same result.
>
> As an example, Egypt before the 2011 uprising had similar problems: voting
> was rigged at many levels, starting with requiring special government 
> issued
> IDs to be eligible to vote, to excluding candidates who are not 
> aligned with
> the government but have a chance to win (imprisonment the month before
> the election, and released after it is over), to centralized ballot 
> counting (and
> boxes were discarded and swapped en route), to a rigged parliament 
> that put
> obstacles for someone to run for president (must get a majority of 
> votes in
> parliament or other impossible conditions).
>
> Most of that changed over a few weeks, when people rose to depose Mubarak.
> No special voting ID was needed. The regular ID that everyone has was 
> valid.
> Everyone was registered to vote by default. No insurmountable 
> conditions for
> someone to run for president. Distributed ballot counting (in sito, 
> with all
> representatives present), and so on.
>
> That worked for the 2012 elections, which were mostly fair and open.
>
> But quickly the military got their act together and with intimidation 
> and exclusion
> managed to leave most of these measures in place, but again exclude 
> candidates
> that have a chance to win.
>
> What will happen down the line? Perhaps another uprising, in due time.
>
> But the point here is that: don't expect dictators to follow the rules 
> if they
> are the ones making them, and they ones gaming them. Belarus has momentum
> in the streets that may change that. I hope it does, and that it is 
> long lasting,
> unlike Egypt.

Let's note that everyone now is trying to have elections, even faked 
ones. Why dictators do this? They want some feel of legitimacy, and for 
that some rules from democratic places are used.

If democratic places adopt even stronger approaches, then it will ripple 
out. Unfortunately, places like Estonia manage to adopt worse solutions.


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