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Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile

Computerphile · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Security & hackingUS politics & electionsCryptography

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.

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.

  • 7 people recommended it
  • 6 different months
  • 3 strong recommendations
  • first 2015, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “I love Tom Scott's computerphile videos.”

    Tom Scott on problems of electronic voting

    pdkl95, 2015-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Unit tests fail when run in Australia”

  2. “it has a good list of reasons why software voting is a terrible idea.”

    Good list of reasons software voting is a terrible idea.

    ajurna, 2018-08 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: Could programmers convince society not to use software voting systems?”

  3. “I love [this video]( ) from Tom Scott in which he explains quite well why e-voting is inherently bad.”

    Tom Scott explains well why e-voting is inherently bad.

    marcyb5st, 2018-10 · Strong recommendation · in “US mid-terms: Hackers expose 'staggering' voter machine flaws”

  4. “Here's a great video by Tom Scott”

    Tom Scott explains problems with electronic voting.

    mcast, 2017-04 · Recommendation · in “Election Commission of India throws “open challenge” to hack voting machines”

  5. “Related Computerphile episode”

    Related Computerphile episode on voting software problems.

    herogreen, 2018-08 · Recommendation · in “XKCD: Voting software”

  6. “Here is a really good video explaining it”

    Explains why paper voting is more secure than digital.

    ninjaPixel, 2019-08 · Recommendation · in “Darpa wants help cracking the election security problem”

  7. “Tom Scott has a very good video about why we don't want electronic/mail voting”

    Tom Scott explains why not to use electronic or mail voting.

    DontBreakAlex, 2025-10 · Recommendation · in “Tell HN: Azure outage”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: e-voting, paper ballots, election security, tom scott, computerphile

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