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In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online

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Re: In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online

#51

Post by pytester »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #38
pytester wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That is worrying. How do you know that the voter could vote freely and didn't sell their vote? Historically, vote buying in the UK and the US used to be rife until it was cracked down upon (which came after it was made illegal). Once that happened it completely disappeared. For voters to sell their votes, somebody needs to advertise that they are willing to buy their votes. That advertisement makes them easy to dete…

yeah but part of cracking down on vote buying has to do with making it difficult to track if you actually did vote for who you said you would, with online voting it becomes totally possible to track you did the vote, give it to the guy who has promised to pay you, forgive your debts, the debts of your son, not beat you up, allow you to keep your job etc. etc.

>yeah but part of cracking down on vote buying has to do with making it difficult to track if you actually did vote for who you said you would

That isn't necessary to prevent vote buying. Vote buying is easy to detect because advertising in secret is impossible. All that's required is the political will to look for people wanting to buy votes and come down hard on them when they're detected.

Moreover, if you do do away with the ability to track then you open up the electoral system to other forms of abuse that can't be trivially eliminated with police and stiff sentences.

>it becomes totally possible to track you did the vote, give it to the guy who has promised to pay you, forgive your debts, the debts of your son, not beat you up

If I were to define "secretive electoral fraud that could never possibly scale" I would define it as "I promise not to beat you up if you vote for me".

Re: In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online

#52

Post by xorcist »

Here's a video on an interesting talk about Estonia's e-voting system: https://youtu.be/PT0e9yTD2M8

(Spoiler: Opsec fails begins at 42 min. But watch the whole thing, it's interesting.)

It might be prudent to point out that Estonia is one of the better e-voting systems. Voters can override their e-vote with a regular one on election day. However that just means that other systems are mostly even worse.

Re: In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online

#53

Post by xorcist »

orthoxerox wrote: post #34
HarryHirsch wrote: post #11

That is worrying. How do you know that the voter could vote freely and didn't sell their vote? Corruption around vote-selling is a concern in certain ethnic enclaves in Britain, and there were even elections annulled over that. The foremost concern shouldn't be convenience, it should be that the vote is safe and secret.

How do you avoid it with paper ballots? When your union boss tells you, "send me a picture of your ballot and ID from the booth, if I don't see a mark next to the Foo party, you'll have a problem", you either can spoil your ballot or vote for the Foo party.

There's no way to prove that the photographed ballot is the one cast. The voter could have thrown that one away and cast another.

To further inculcate the importance of the matter, taking pictures is usually prohibited inside the polling station.

Re: In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online

#54

Post by Etheryte »

rcdmd wrote: post #37

Think of what this means for voter representation. You just made it much easier for people with computer access to vote, compared to those without who still must trek to the polling place. I doubt the demographics represented in this vote were the same as the last comparable one.

I think you have it the wrong way around. This actually improves voter representation. It's now a lot easier for people with disabilities, the elderly, etc to cast a vote — they don't have to organize transport, they can just vote from home. Getting people to actually go to the polling stations and cast a vote is something that all democracies struggle with to a certain extent, this helps alleviate that issue.

Re: In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online

#55

Post by nelsonic »

xorcist wrote: post #52

Here's a video on an interesting talk about Estonia's e-voting system: https://youtu.be/PT0e9yTD2M8 (Spoiler: Opsec fails begins at 42 min. But watch the whole thing, it's interesting.) It might be prudent to point out that Estonia is one of the better e-voting systems. Voters can override their e-vote with a regular one on election day. However that just means that other systems are mostly even worse.

"Video unavailable This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated." :-(

Re: In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online

#56

Post by xorcist »

nelsonic wrote: post #55
xorcist wrote: post #52

Here's a video on an interesting talk about Estonia's e-voting system: https://youtu.be/PT0e9yTD2M8 (Spoiler: Opsec fails begins at 42 min. But watch the whole thing, it's interesting.) It might be prudent to point out that Estonia is one of the better e-voting systems. Voters can override their e-vote with a regular one on election day. However that just means that other systems are mostly even worse.

"Video unavailable This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated." :-(

Thanks, link fixed.

Re: In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online

#57

Post by bryanrasmussen »

pytester wrote: post #51
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah but part of cracking down on vote buying has to do with making it difficult to track if you actually did vote for who you said you would, with online voting it becomes totally possible to track you did the vote, give it to the guy who has promised to pay you, forgive your debts, the debts of your son, not beat you up, allow you to keep your job etc. etc.

>yeah but part of cracking down on vote buying has to do with making it difficult to track if you actually did vote for who you said you would That isn't necessary to prevent vote buying. Vote buying is easy to detect because advertising in secret is impossible. All that's required is the political will to look for people wanting to buy votes and come down hard on them when they're detected. Moreover, if you do do aw…

how far did Tammany Hall have to scale?

How big is Estonia?

Do you think every election ever held that can be worth money and power is the size of the U.S National Election?

As far as the political will to come down on people for vote buying or intimidation etc. I'm sure that making things illegal when there is a profit to be made at doing it has always succeeded in driving that illegal thing out of existence without any untoward effect on society whatsoever.

I mean definitely making it not worthwhile to buy votes because you will not be able to tell if you got what you paid for seems a more foolproof strategy than make it possible for people to determine what they paid for but threaten to throw them in prison if they do.

on edit: corrected second use of word money to power.

Re: In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online

#58

Post by PostOnce »

tim333 wrote: post #39
deogeo wrote: post #32

"The system has been designed to ensure that voters' computers are not infected by any kind of malware that could change or block their vote." I'm sure this cannot be subverted by an attacker with the resources of USA/China/India/.., or with access to the supply chain from the chip fab onward (don't forget about malware hidden in USB cables!), or or,... And you'd have to be dead sure , because, unlike with physical v…

>few-to-none signs of subversion You could make it so you can view your vote and check it was registered the way intended. If you voted A and it came out B that would be a sign.

It seems simple for theoretical malware to show you the vote you believe you cast, so you'd have to log in and check your vote on a second device?

Re: In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online

#59

Post by markus_v »

muthdra wrote: post #41
markus_v wrote: post #33

It is a pretty smooth system. Voting in the last elections took me about 60 seconds. Also, no method of voting is ever going to be 100% safe. It's not like there haven't been any unfair elections using paper ballots.

It's not about being safe, it's about being provably shareable. When the option of privately sharing your vote is there, it doesn't take long before a malicious candidate forces you to do it or face consequences. See Halter Vote: https://books.google.com.br/books?id=7gPvCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT144&l... https://translate.google.com/translate?source=osdd&sl=auto&t...

But couldn't you just take a photo of the ballot? Considering that not submitting the ballot after taking it is not allowed here.

Re: In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online

#60

Post by tim333 »

pedrocr wrote: post #43
tim333 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>few-to-none signs of subversion You could make it so you can view your vote and check it was registered the way intended. If you voted A and it came out B that would be a sign.

Now you can demonstrate to anyone what you voted. That's how you get people selling votes. In any reasonable election system you need to be able to be sure your vote is being counted without at the same time being able to prove who you voted for. The demands of voting are incredibly unsuited to digital systems and definitely to any online voting. For every layer of extra complexity you add there's either a way to sub…

You could select voters at random, say one in a hundred gets and email saying would you like to check your vote?
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