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An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting

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Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting

#11

Post by lazaroclapp »

godot wrote: post #8

As 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…

Because whomever owns the server is now a dictator who can decide the result of the election. When it comes to democracy, "tampering from the inside" is your primary threat model.

Take it for someone who lived in a country where we had 70 years of elections with the same party winning each and every one. Tampering from the inside, when possible and hard to detect, becomes ubiquitous. We only started moving towards semi-fair elections when the election authorities begun to include representatives of all major parties. But in the server example, you would need very complex procedures to replicate that, and make sure there is not a single administrator that can tamper invisibly with the server. It is actually easier to build a tamper evident distributed system than a tamper evident single-node server.

Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting

#12

Post by tdg »

no_protocol wrote: post #6
tdg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Some states in US allow you to take a photo of your ballot. This means they can already do the things you mention. But they don't, because it is illegal. It will continue to remain illegal.

If you are very worried about such a scenario, verify that your vote is on the blockchain, then destroy your receipt.

Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting

#13

Post by no_protocol »

tdg wrote: post #12
no_protocol wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Some states in US allow you to take a photo of your ballot. This means they can already do the things you mention. But they don't, because it is illegal. It will continue to remain illegal. If you are very worried about such a scenario, verify that your vote is on the blockchain, then destroy your receipt.

I can take a photo of my ballot, then mark it as invalid and ask for a new one.

Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting

#14

Post by duaneb »

no_protocol wrote: post #13
tdg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some states in US allow you to take a photo of your ballot. This means they can already do the things you mention. But they don't, because it is illegal. It will continue to remain illegal. If you are very worried about such a scenario, verify that your vote is on the blockchain, then destroy your receipt.

I can take a photo of my ballot, then mark it as invalid and ask for a new one.

Another great reason to keep this practice illegal.

Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting

#16

Post by ozborn »

no_protocol wrote: post #7
rlarkins wrote: post #2

A 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.

Great comment. Without privacy for verification the election is open for vote buying which I think is the biggest flaw with the proposed system.

I also like the idea of using 2 paper receipts which I think is easy for people to understand.

Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting

#17

Post by geofft »

tdg wrote: post #12
no_protocol wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Some states in US allow you to take a photo of your ballot. This means they can already do the things you mention. But they don't, because it is illegal. It will continue to remain illegal. If you are very worried about such a scenario, verify that your vote is on the blockchain, then destroy your receipt.

The fact that a receipt exists means that you can be pressured to provide it. If my boss wants me to vote for pro-business-owner anti-union candidates, he's not going to take "Yeah I promise I voted for your guy, but I destroyed my receipt" for an answer.

I don't really buy "it's illegal" as a counterargument. There are a lot of things employers pressure their employees to do that are illegal, but the employees don't really have the ability to do anything about it, because they're taking a risk on the legal system working out for them, and in the meantime they'll probably lose their job and be known as an employee who litigates against their employers. As a wise man once said, if you're a single-digit millionaire, you have no effective access to our legal system.

Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting

#18

Post by geofft »

ozborn wrote: post #16
no_protocol wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Great comment. Without privacy for verification the election is open for vote buying which I think is the biggest flaw with the proposed system. I also like the idea of using 2 paper receipts which I think is easy for people to understand.

It's not just vote buying, it's pressuring. If you don't want your employees to unionize, insist they vote for right-to-work laws. You don't have to insist very openly. Just take them out to drinks and mention the election in passing, see who voluntarily shows you their receipt on their phone, and prioritize them for bonuses and promotions.

Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting

#19

Post by infogulch »

rlarkins wrote: post #2

A 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.

Perhaps this could be combined with a zero-knowledge proof? From wikipedia[1] with context:

zero-knowledge protocol is a method by which one party (the voting machine) can prove to another party (the voter) that a given statement is true (their ballot was cast, untampered), without conveying any information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true. ... the definition implies that the voter will not be able to prove the statement in turn to anyone else (a vote buyer/intimidator), since the voter does not possess the secret information.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof

Re: An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting

#20

Post by bdamm »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #3

There 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.

Indeed. Pencil & paper, with multi-party oversight, and long nights of counting.
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