An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting
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An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting
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Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting
#2A key part of the America system of voting is that we use a "secret" ballot. This important to prevent vote buying and voter intimidation.
I like the rest of the proposal.
Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting
#3There should be a zeroth rule that an voting system intended to be used for government which would be that the average person is able to audit / understand the system. This was in an ACM magazine article.
Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting
#4A key part of the America system of voting is that we use a "secret" ballot. This important to prevent vote buying and voter intimidation. I like the rest of the proposal.
Yeah, there's a fundamental tension between secrecy and verifiability. The main way I've seen this resolved is immediate verification, eg displaying the vote in a paper receipt kept by the elections board for recounts.
Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting
#5A key part of the America system of voting is that we use a "secret" ballot. This important to prevent vote buying and voter intimidation. I like the rest of the proposal.
This idea encrypts your ballot with your voter ID + some secret key that you know and creates encrypted data E. It, then, publishes a (E, your ballot) pair. Since only you can decrypt E, others won't know how you vote.
Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting
#6A key part of the America system of voting is that we use a "secret" ballot. This important to prevent vote buying and voter intimidation. I like the rest of the proposal.
This idea encrypts your ballot with your voter ID + some secret key that you know and creates encrypted data E. It, then, publishes a (E, your ballot) pair. Since only you can decrypt E, others won't know how you vote.
A third party can now pressure you to produce your secrets to verify who you voted for. This is not possible in the current system: as long as the final tally reports at least 1 vote for the person you claim to have voted for, no one can prove your claim wrong.
"$5 off your next purchase if you can produce a receipt for candidate X!"
"You must vote for X if you wish to join my organization."
Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting
#7A key part of the America system of voting is that we use a "secret" ballot. This important to prevent vote buying and voter intimidation. I like the rest of the proposal.
Right, it's important that no one else would be able to know how you voted.
Perhaps the election commission would also have a paper receipt with a different unique key.
Then both your receipt and the county's receipt would be necessary to locate your vote on the blockchain. Then vote verification could be restricted to the same level of privacy as when voting takes place.
Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting
#8As a software engineer who knows very little about government security and voting security, can someone explain why you can't just build it like a regular web app (with very good security measures -- the usual HTTPS, database encryption, proper firewall rules to servers, etc.), and have the user enter their voter ID and social security and submit their vote via a web form?
From reading this article, it would seem that it satisfies the first 4 points, just not the 5th. Is that the main reason to have to use the blockchain, to prevent tampering from the inside?
Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting
#9It's a fun idea, but I would like to see you expand the article with a little more consideration around the edges. The core idea isn't really new.
Possible expansion topics:
- Handling a ballot with multiple separate races
- Backup system for when the computers have gone down
- Can it assist in any way with "voter suppression" issues
Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting
#10As a software engineer who knows very little about government security and voting security, can someone explain why you can't just build it like a regular web app (with very good security measures -- the usual HTTPS, database encryption, proper firewall rules to servers, etc.), and have the user enter their voter ID and social security and submit their vote via a web form? From reading this article, it would seem tha…
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