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Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines

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Re: Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines

#61

Post by School-Cotton »

beastcoast wrote: post #57

In WA we have absentee ballots which is really the best of all worlds. You fill it in, sign it and mail it back. Couldn't be easier and you don't have to worry about polling locations. They are also hardcore about checking your signature; If it doesn't match your voter registration the ballot isn't counted and you get a letter in the mail.

The problem with this system is that it's possible to prove to someone else who you voted for.

Voting needs plausible deniability so you can't be coerced or bribed into voting for a particular candidate as was alleged to happen in the Balkans many times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_train

Re: Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines

#62

Post by aoe023ntmeo »

a_humean wrote: post #30

In the UK I walk into my local primary school/church/community hall (no more than a 5-10 min walk away), utter my name and address as identification (no other ID needed), and use a pencil to write a big 'X' against my preferences on a piece of paper I was handed when I entered the polling station. There are multiple local party volunteers (I was one in the last election) from all the major parties at all stages of th…

> utter my name and address as identification (no other ID needed),

How do they know that you actually cast the vote for you? Say my 5 best friends all tell me, "Nah, I'm not gonna vote. My vote doesn't count anyway." I then go to each of their districts, claim to be them by giving their name and address, and vote how I want. What's to stop that from happening?

Re: Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines

#63

Post by gameshot911 »

skywhopper wrote: post #42
yomly wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? That it's easily socially engineered? That it is archaic, inefficient and a waste of human time?

Efficiency is not and should not be the primary concern in a democratic vote. Rather, accuracy and verifiability are far more important. Very little human time is wasted on paper-based elections, but even if it took a relatively large amount of human time to implement an accurate, verifiable voting system, it would be well worth it.

Is not accuracy inherent in efficiency? A system that is efficient but not accurate isn't efficient at all.

Re: Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines

#64

Post by ninov »

__s wrote: post #45
vkou wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making everyone's voting record public is just about the worst possible idea for a voting system. Secret ballot is a feature, not a bug. It protects you from coercion and retaliation.

Using a system like ZCash the government could have citizens register a public address, then 1 token is distributed to each public address, votes work by sending the token to the candidate you vote for, whomever has the highest balance at the end of the election is the electee (this even allows for off ballot candidates, but up to rules). ZCash is designed so that you can't tell the contents of a transaction despite…

Another important property of voting systems is that you can't prove who you voted for, so that you can't be forced or paid to vote for someone. A blockchain based solution, even like ZCash does not fulfil this.

Re: Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines

#65

Post by dragonwriter »

fabian2k wrote: post #28
dragonwriter wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's a better system: you go into the voting booth. They have some envelopes and stacks of preprinted ballots, each with one candidate's name. You take a ballot for the candidate you want, and put it in the envelope. Then you come out of the booth and drop the sealed envelope in a box. Works well for elections with one race; those with a dozen offices being elected and an equal number of ballot measures make that…

This is the system used in Germany, all votes are hand-counted. And it's also used for very complicated local elections that allow very fine-grained votes for individual candidates. In extreme cases you get huge ballots with this system, see e.g. ( http://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/frankfurter-wahlzettel... ) for Frankfurt with a ~0.9 square meter ballot. Counting by hand still works even for those over-complicat…

The size of the ballots isn't the issue; the issue with “provide pre-marked ballots from which the voter chooses the one matching their preferences and discards the rest” for multi-race elections is the number of pre-printed ballots that have to be given to each voter to take to the booth and select from.

With 5 offices with 6 candidates each and 10 yes/no measures (a fairly modest ballot for a California election) this would require each voter be handed a packet of nearly eight million ballots to choose from.

This is clearly not practical.

Re: Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines

#66

Post by __s »

ninov wrote: post #64
__s wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a system like ZCash the government could have citizens register a public address, then 1 token is distributed to each public address, votes work by sending the token to the candidate you vote for, whomever has the highest balance at the end of the election is the electee (this even allows for off ballot candidates, but up to rules). ZCash is designed so that you can't tell the contents of a transaction despite…

Another important property of voting systems is that you can't prove who you voted for, so that you can't be forced or paid to vote for someone. A blockchain based solution, even like ZCash does not fulfil this.

You can prove who you voted for by taking a picture of your ballot when you vote. Some thug could rough you up if you can't provide a selfie of your ballot being marked for some candidate

Re: Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines

#67

Post by a_humean »

aoe023ntmeo wrote: post #62
a_humean wrote: post #30

In the UK I walk into my local primary school/church/community hall (no more than a 5-10 min walk away), utter my name and address as identification (no other ID needed), and use a pencil to write a big 'X' against my preferences on a piece of paper I was handed when I entered the polling station. There are multiple local party volunteers (I was one in the last election) from all the major parties at all stages of th…

> utter my name and address as identification (no other ID needed), How do they know that you actually cast the vote for you? Say my 5 best friends all tell me, "Nah, I'm not gonna vote. My vote doesn't count anyway." I then go to each of their districts, claim to be them by giving their name and address, and vote how I want. What's to stop that from happening?

Honestly not much, but voter fraud is unheard of in the UK and the UK doesn't have a universal ID card. There is no legal requirement for a UK citizen to carry or have any form of official ID. Its just very impractical when trying to access some public and private services, but its not uncommon for poorer people to lack forms of ID. There isn't a mainstream racist/classist attempt to disenfranchise poor people in the UK by using imaginary voter fraud as justification (there are some accusations with regards to disenfranchising university students and young people that move around a lot, but that's an issue of ease of registration).

Also you need to consider:

1) Those kinds of people are probably not registered to vote. Voter registration is not automatic in the UK. It takes 5 minutes with an online form, but some people are just that disengaged.

2) The 'wards' in which you vote are often quite small and in close proximity, so it might be a little hard to figure out which polling place your friends are registered at if you haven't received their polling notification card. You can get this information, but its a small barrier.

3) The 'wards' have an average population of a few thousand, so there is a risk that an official might recognise you as trying to double vote, but I can't imagine how they might confront if they aren't 100% personally certain.

None of those are strong guarantees. If evidence of wide spread fraud were to come to light, party policy ID requirements might change, but to date no party is seriously considering introducing them. Past governments have repeatedly tried to introduce a universal ID that could be used in part for voting ID, but each attempt has ended in failure due to public backlash over civil liberties concerns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Cards_Act_2006

Re: Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines

#68

Post by a_humean »

a_humean wrote: post #67
aoe023ntmeo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> utter my name and address as identification (no other ID needed), How do they know that you actually cast the vote for you? Say my 5 best friends all tell me, "Nah, I'm not gonna vote. My vote doesn't count anyway." I then go to each of their districts, claim to be them by giving their name and address, and vote how I want. What's to stop that from happening?

Honestly not much, but voter fraud is unheard of in the UK and the UK doesn't have a universal ID card. There is no legal requirement for a UK citizen to carry or have any form of official ID. Its just very impractical when trying to access some public and private services, but its not uncommon for poorer people to lack forms of ID. There isn't a mainstream racist/classist attempt to disenfranchise poor people in the…

Recent report from the electoral commission on potential and actual voter fraud in the UK with recommendations for better identify checks in the future: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_fil...

Re: Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines

#69

Post by jandrese »

Klathmon wrote: post #55
jandrese wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the event of a discrepancy you trust the paper record, and throw away the electronic machine.

Then why add the electronic on in the first place?

Because it counts instantly. Verifying the paper record takes time/money/manpower.

Re: Virginia has decertified its most hackable voting machines

#70

Post by Klathmon »

jandrese wrote: post #69
Klathmon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why add the electronic on in the first place?

Because it counts instantly. Verifying the paper record takes time/money/manpower.

But you still need to validate the paper side, so that benefit is removed unless you trust it alone.

And requiring a large amount of manpower is a benefit of paper voting, not a problem. In the grand scheme of things it's a miniscule amount of work, and it ensures freedoms and laws for generations to come. This isn't an area where efficiency matters. The more manpower it takes, the harder it will be to "hack" it without being noticed.

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