Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy
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Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy
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Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy
#2I have a way to make it better. I think combining old-fashioned checks and balances, with technology controls can make online voting about as secure as it is today (maybe more) and anonymous.
To make it anonymous, its really just a password. When a user registers to vote, they create an online account. On the days that a user votes, they log into their account and create a ballot. They then create a password for the ballot. This password hashed with a salt, and than hashed with their registration id becomes the unique id of the ballot. This way, at any time a user can login and view their vote... but that vote is not reversible to the voter.
Now for the checks and balances. 3rd party non-governmental parties should have a real-time replication of all data. (it's like an exit poll, but more reliable). Any time a registered voter creates a ballot, 2 things happen. An email is sent to the record holder, and a mail is sent to the address on record. Combine this with a public viewable record of all votes + registered voters who voted online (this information is already public) we should have a good idea at what business is going on.
Perhaps we can't prevent hackers, but this should be sufficient to know if a hack occurred. Of course, all software should be open source, so we can continue to make it more secure.
I think it's more secure than what is available today because today, I can't look at what is on public record as my vote. If someone changed it after I cast it... I'd never know.
If I knew someone would use it, i'd write the software.
Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy
#3I have a way to make it better. I think combining old-fashioned checks and balances, with technology controls can make online voting about as secure as it is today (maybe more) and anonymous. To make it anonymous, its really just a password. When a user registers to vote, they create an online account. On the days that a user votes, they log into their account and create a ballot. They then create a password for the…
Interesting. I'm no subject expert so I can't critique this, but it sounds better than other online voting systems I've heard. I like the checks and balances in place too.
Now I only skimmed this article, but I feel like most people who argue against online voting use arguments about how insecure it is that already apply to what's happening right now (voting software is a black box, can be hacked, etc etc, this also describes current voting machines). The only difference is there isn't a single voting db or site somewhere for people to manipulate a large number of votes (which like you said is protected as long as people can verify the open software / data).
Yes paper does have indelible properties but paper doesn't scale well, and having a paper counting machine introduces the same black box that people use as argument against current voting machines. Yes security is an issue, but scalability is also an issue.
Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy
#4I just look at the state of internet "security" and that tells me all I need to know.
Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy
#5I have a way to make it better. I think combining old-fashioned checks and balances, with technology controls can make online voting about as secure as it is today (maybe more) and anonymous. To make it anonymous, its really just a password. When a user registers to vote, they create an online account. On the days that a user votes, they log into their account and create a ballot. They then create a password for the…
Only to be discovered later that NSA is spying on your votes too.
Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy
#6I just look at the state of internet "security" and that tells me all I need to know.
Can I assume you also have the expertise to comment on the physical security of current voting systems by comparison as well?
Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy
#7I have a way to make it better. I think combining old-fashioned checks and balances, with technology controls can make online voting about as secure as it is today (maybe more) and anonymous. To make it anonymous, its really just a password. When a user registers to vote, they create an online account. On the days that a user votes, they log into their account and create a ballot. They then create a password for the…
Electronic voting is an entire field of research. As with cryptography, do not come up with your own methods.
Here are some problems with your method: allows coercion (is not receipt-free), violates vote secrecy (attacker can just force voter to reveal password), allows ballot stuffing, allows partial results (no voting under equal circumstances), probably completely relies on server for "security" of passwords, salted hashing orly?, hash tied to voter by timing info, ...
There are voting schemes (the more sophisticated ones are cryptographic, but interestingly there are non-cryptographic voting schemes like Punchscan that have interesting properties) that address these. But it gets fairly complicated fairly quickly, and at some point normal voters won't be able to make sense of them. The cryptographic voting schemes also tend to get computationally unwieldy, e.g. by requiring huge mixnets.
Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy
#8I have a way to make it better. I think combining old-fashioned checks and balances, with technology controls can make online voting about as secure as it is today (maybe more) and anonymous. To make it anonymous, its really just a password. When a user registers to vote, they create an online account. On the days that a user votes, they log into their account and create a ballot. They then create a password for the…
I can't see how that in any way can be anywhere near secure enough. Online voting for anything important, is a bad idea.
Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy
#9I have a way to make it better. I think combining old-fashioned checks and balances, with technology controls can make online voting about as secure as it is today (maybe more) and anonymous. To make it anonymous, its really just a password. When a user registers to vote, they create an online account. On the days that a user votes, they log into their account and create a ballot. They then create a password for the…
Are you saying you would be able to look and see what you voted for or just a hash of your vote? One important part of a secret ballot is that you can't sell your vote OR prove who or what exactly you voted for. (This is prevented by vote-by-mail ballots which could theoretically be sold, but it's worth considering for future systems.)
Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy
#10I have a way to make it better. I think combining old-fashioned checks and balances, with technology controls can make online voting about as secure as it is today (maybe more) and anonymous. To make it anonymous, its really just a password. When a user registers to vote, they create an online account. On the days that a user votes, they log into their account and create a ballot. They then create a password for the…
I can't see how that in any way can be anywhere near secure enough. Online voting for anything important, is a bad idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI
They are describing a system that can't be hacked by a single individual because there would be a third party with a record of every vote.
The video you cited uses a poorly planned and executed example of an online vote.
The US voting systems are also a poorly planned and executed set of systems.