Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile
Why Hacker News recommends it
It is the go-to short explainer HN commenters link whenever e-voting, voting machines or online voting come up.
What it is
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.
Recommended by 7 HN commenters across 6 different months, 2015 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec pdkl95 · 2015-04 · on “Unit tests fail when run in Australia”
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] [this video]
Strong rec ajurna · 2018-08 · on “Ask HN: Could programmers convince society not to use software voting systems?”
please watch this: [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.
Strong rec marcyb5st · 2018-10 · on “US mid-terms: Hackers expose 'staggering' voter machine flaws”
I love [this video]( [this 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 :).
Recommends mcast · 2017-04 · on “Election Commission of India throws “open challenge” to hack voting machines”
Having open source voting systems is a great thing, but electronic voting is inherehently flawed and is a terrible idea. There's no way to prove the checksum of your software is real unless you have root access to the voting machine and are assuming the OS is not compromised. Decentralized electronic machines that print paper ballots for you (which you can physically verify), and submitting to a tabulator seem to be the safest option. But your paper ballot can be compromised in transit by a worker. I have also heard talks about using a blockchain-esque system for voting and verifying it online with a hash code. Here's a great video by Tom Scott: [this video]
Recommends herogreen · 2018-08 · on “XKCD: Voting software”
Perhaps the most important political message I have seen on XKCD. Related Computerphile episode: [this video] I guess that some computer-powered elections are coming in the US, EU ?
Recommends ninjaPixel · 2019-08 · on “Darpa wants help cracking the election security problem”
I thought it was nonsense when I first heard it, but the traditional paper system is actually more secure than a completely digital system. Here is a really good video explaining it: [this video]
Recommends DontBreakAlex · 2025-10 · on “Tell HN: Azure outage”
In europe, voting typically happens in one day, where everyone physically goes to their designated voting place and puts papers in a transparent box. You can stay there and wait for the count at the end of the day if you want to. Tom Scott has a very good video about why we don't want electronic/mail voting: [this video]
Cites mclemme · 2016-06 · on “Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy”
I can't see how that in any way can be anywhere near secure enough. Online voting for anything important, is a bad idea. [this video]