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Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

engineering.stanford.edu

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Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#281

Post by germanier »

mavhc wrote: post #208
ElijahLynn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with some of the arguments against online voting. However, it isn't really realistic to do re-counts right now, nor do people do them regularly. If the people doing the counting are bought then that is an issue too. Both ways suck right now. One thing that I would like to see is an open source, standardized system though. There was/is an effort towards this right now. http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/our_s…

Australia had open source voting machines in 2003 http://www.wired.com/2003/11/aussies-do-it-right-e-voting/ If we can bank online we can vote online, not that hard. Not perfect, but better than paper voting, that's full of bugs

How do I verify that the machine actually runs the published software?

With online banking there is a paper trail of every action taken. If we want secrecy of the vote that's suddenly a lot harder to do.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#282

Post by marcosdumay »

wfo wrote: post #269
marcosdumay wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you really want citizens participating though? What is the alternative? Some aristocracy deciding matters without any consent from the citizens? If you get any alternative that's actually better than the citizens participating, I'd love to hear it.

That is almost exactly what we have now. I'd hope citizen participation would be an improvement but I'm not certain. Populist positions can be good, but they can also be disastrous -- look at Trump, his brand of populism preys on the most base and vile aspects of human nature: hate, bigotry and racism and he intends on enacting policies which will inarguably be horribly destructive to the very fabric of the country a…

This is what we have now. We just have a saying on what lizard will rule.

Do you think everybody voting for Trump would vote for his hateful policies? I'm not on the US, but it looks to me that Trump gets most of his approval from his "I'm not one of the lizards" PR. If people didn't have to get the entire package, it's very likely they would be critical of those worse parts.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#283

Post by specialist »

ethbro wrote: post #272
specialist wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The physical chain of custody can be guaranteed with paper ballots. Yes, you can burn ballots, or stuff the box, but if you're minding the store, someone would notice. Source: former poll judge, inspector.

I defer to your expertise but did you ever work in third-world countries? (To use the phrase as a proxy for inadequate political/physical infrastructure) To use the engineering aphorism, just because it can be done doesn't mean it is done. I'm curious about how physical security/verification works in that environment vs a hypothetical crypto solution.

Observing third world elections is on my bucket list.

Election and voting chicanery happens plenty in the USA. No need to look abroad. Merely lifting the floor here would be transformative.

The silver lining from the oversteer triggered by Gore v Bush 2000 is that HAVA did lead to greater federal involvement in our locally administered elections. eg Election Assistance Commission http://eac.gov is now fairly proactive.

re "vs a hypothetical crypto solution"

Estonia's online voting system hasn't faired well under scrutiny.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#284

Post by alexandercrohde »

badsock wrote: post #274
franciscojgo wrote: post #228

I am strongly against the view of the author. I see that the majority (or a large portion) of voters are fanatics that vote based on affiliation and fanaticism, not policies nor experience. Ie. The voting numbers are largely biased towards the political fanatic crowd. I see online voting as a way to increase the number of ordinary people that vote. Getting the voting population to 80%+ or more is good for democracy.…

People in this thread are assuming we can just solve the security issue if we try hard enough. We can't. It would mean securing every single voter's computer, and that's preposterous. There is no consensus algorithm or blockchain that will work if the voter's computer or phone is compromised. To name just one avenue of attack: if you have control of the video output then you can swap the name of two candidates. That'…

Those statements are too strong for the evidence you provide.

A trivial solution would be when you vote online you get texted a confirmation. If you don't respond to the confirmation you get a call. The confirmation gives you a candidate you voted for and a blockchain signature and an opportunity to report error.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#285

Post by alexandercrohde »

csydas wrote: post #258
franciscojgo wrote: post #228

I am strongly against the view of the author. I see that the majority (or a large portion) of voters are fanatics that vote based on affiliation and fanaticism, not policies nor experience. Ie. The voting numbers are largely biased towards the political fanatic crowd. I see online voting as a way to increase the number of ordinary people that vote. Getting the voting population to 80%+ or more is good for democracy.…

I'm not sure it's fair to hand-wave the concerns presented in the article with your argument of "just make it fail-proof". How often is software really fail-proof? The more complex software gets, the more difficult it is to ensure that it's bug free enough to be fit for purpose, and that's what the article is effectively arguing; software for voting on a national scale (the size of the US) is going to have an incredi…

1. It's not fair to hand-wave and say "make it fail-proof." It's also not fair to hand-wave and say "It could never be fail-proof." It's also good to ask how secure the current system is.

2. As for the advantages of a minority voting, the fact is that any rational agent would never vote. Your argument that "an elite few" might be better than the masses is irrelevant, the fact is the current turnout isn't the "elite few" it's predominantly old people (i.e. people who are bored).

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#286

Post by specialist »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #168
mantas wrote: post #75

I'm strongly against online voting. The problem #1 is buying and manipulation of votes. Security and/or anonymity is much smaller issue IMO. In my country, barely 50% of people vote. Most people don't care about politics. "Incentivized" votes is a huge issue there. People are routinely brought to polling stations and given a thank-you beer on return. Agitators are using all kind of borderline-blackmailing techniques…

I think you've stumbled across a bigger issue - democracy is fundamentally broken since no one has any incentive to vote correctly. I know a lady who's a likely Trump voter. But she also donated money to Hillary in order to get the "woman card". https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/products/the-woman-card She's pretty honest that it's just entertainment for her - like voting on American Idol. Think about how many election…

"People get away with this because their vote doesn't matter."

Why doesn't voting matter? Gerrymandering? The money race? Duverger's Law? The electoral college?

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#287

Post by alexandercrohde »

badsock wrote: post #277
zanny wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the answer. You should never trust any one given voting machine. But it is much, much harder to corrupt large consensus networks, and blockchain based voting lets you maintain pseudonymity and it lets you verify the results with whatever computer you want. Some neat features you can bake into a blockchain based voting protocol: * You can have temporary identifiers in the confirmation stage. IE, you cast your…

As I said elsewhere in this thread, blockchains/consensus algorithms won't work. If the computer/phone that the software is running on is compromised and the attackers have control of the video and/or input devices, there are many ways of misdirecting the voter to make the wrong selection - in that case the whole stack of protocols and algorithms work just as they were intended, but it doesn't matter because the sele…

Your claims are too broad for the evidence you present.

A trivial solution would be when you vote online you get texted/emailed confirmation. If you don't respond to the confirmation you get a call. The confirmation gives you a candidate you voted for and a blockchain signature and an opportunity to report error.

In the event you report error you could always show up at your local voting booth and get a paper copy.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#288

Post by yummyfajitas »

specialist wrote: post #286
yummyfajitas wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've stumbled across a bigger issue - democracy is fundamentally broken since no one has any incentive to vote correctly. I know a lady who's a likely Trump voter. But she also donated money to Hillary in order to get the "woman card". https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/products/the-woman-card She's pretty honest that it's just entertainment for her - like voting on American Idol. Think about how many election…

"People get away with this because their vote doesn't matter." Why doesn't voting matter? Gerrymandering? The money race? Duverger's Law? The electoral college?

Because your vote has essentially 0% chance of altering the outcome. Hence your expected cost from choosing wrongly is 0% x something = $0.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#289

Post by aggie »

franciscojgo wrote: post #228

I am strongly against the view of the author. I see that the majority (or a large portion) of voters are fanatics that vote based on affiliation and fanaticism, not policies nor experience. Ie. The voting numbers are largely biased towards the political fanatic crowd. I see online voting as a way to increase the number of ordinary people that vote. Getting the voting population to 80%+ or more is good for democracy.…

What is important for representative democracy is that a representative sample of the population votes. Percentage of the total population that votes is really not inherently important beyond achieving an adequate sample to represent all citizens' interests.

Currently, the 'low' voter turnout we see is only a problem because there are groups that are underrepresented, in particular younger people, certain ethnic minorities, and people of lower socioeconomic status. Correcting the proportions of those who vote should be the goal rather than increasing absolute numbers.

Re: Why Online Voting Is a Danger to Democracy

#290

Post by alanwatts »

mantas wrote: post #75

I'm strongly against online voting. The problem #1 is buying and manipulation of votes. Security and/or anonymity is much smaller issue IMO. In my country, barely 50% of people vote. Most people don't care about politics. "Incentivized" votes is a huge issue there. People are routinely brought to polling stations and given a thank-you beer on return. Agitators are using all kind of borderline-blackmailing techniques…

Most votes are already bought and manipulated by the handful of people who own the television coverage of the election, by tilting that coverage in favor of their favorite candidate.
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