I feel genuinely conflicted: On the one hand I get the "authoritarian overreach heebie-jeebies", that I think a lot of people on HN probably share. On the other hand I'd also really like the West to harden its election processes from election interference by its adversaries (e.g. Russia) - and shoring up dysinfo on e.g. Facebook by requiring users to prove their identity with a government ID is one of the only ways to truly effectively combat this at its source (fact-checking just can't keep up with a firehose of dysinformation). Ideally I'd want "real id requirements" to be limited " partake in public discourse" (mainly Facebook and Twitter). But the slippery slop argument just feels pretty strong here too - once a mechanism like this is in place, its use will only ever expand, and it's much easier for a new government to commit overreach if it's already there and just needs expanding. And of course all this "think of the children" nonsense needs to stop.

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Bender 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Elections are easier to solve technically. No mail in ballots. Require state ID in person at the voting center. But that's a different topic that can get divisive, long and derailed very quickly.

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post-it 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Only if you're fine with disenfranchising voters. In which case, securing elections is the easiest thing in the world: I vote and nobody else does. It's securing elections while not disenfranchising voters that's the hard part.

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Bender 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

We should make a new thread for voting challenges.

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bluefirebrand 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Only if you're fine with disenfranchising voters

I don't love disenfranchising voters but I think it's probably better than allowing elections to be vulnerable to foreign tampering, don't you think?

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0x00C0FFEE 4 hours ago | parent [-]

That’s a false dichotomy. Better practices for election security can be implemented without disenfranchising voters.

	▲	DaSHacka 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Disenfranchising the entire populace by nature of ID verification to use the internet naturally includes voters as well.

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iioiio 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That is exactly how elections are run in the largest democracy in the world. If India can do that why can’t the US? It’s just that a certain side is dependent on illegal voters.

	▲	DaSHacka 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>It’s just that a certain side is dependent on illegal voters. This is so obviously the reason why, I can't believe anyone pretends its anything but. "Why yes it makes total sense to have to present your ID to use the internet, dont wanna let kids use it freely!" "You want in-person ID requirements for our domestic elections? What, do you hate black people or something?"

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Gigachad 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The problem is not fake votes, it’s boomers having their brains cooked by AI videos coming from Russia they can’t identify as fake.

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DaSHacka 3 hours ago | parent [-]

And how exactly is that a bigger problem than fraudulent votes? And how could you possibly solve it outside of segmenting the country's internet to prevent foreign ISP routes?

	▲	Gigachad 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Because fraudulent votes in most developed counties are a complete non issue while people getting psyopped by troll farms and AI is monumental. And yes, I think we likely will see social media become segmented so hostile nations will be blocked from posting on local social media. Or at least having them flagged as foreign accounts.