Cider + Electronic Voting

[We are moving from our normal 3rd Thursday to month due to a scheduling conflict on the 18th.]

Ensuring the integrity, availability, and reliability of voting is integral to the democratic process, which would seem to make it a natural area for improvements through technology. And yet the history of voting innovations is primarily one that is more often described as anywhere from 'meh' to 'dangerously insecure.' With many other aspects of our lives, including other citizenship rites, being digitized, why is electronic voting such a particular challenge? And why do many otherwise paperless-obsessed technologists seem to argue for the preservation of the paper ballot?

We will look at the Good of potential electoral improvements from electronic voting, if it worked properly (quicker results, better auditing, etc); the Bad of how it can done poorly and raise the specter of wholesale fraud; and the Weird of alternatives and spin-offs. Why does India have a comparatively positive record with implementing electronic voting, where the US system seems plagued with dysfunction? Would electronic voting and even online voting materially change who shows up to vote? Join us and cast your opinion!

We also encourage discussion between meetups on our Discord group at http://discord.gg/xhXB58u where we preview and decide on topics, provide background material, and where anyone who can't make a given meeting can still chime in on the topic.

Hope to see you at our table!