In Estonian parliamentary election, 44% of the votes were cast online • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by Mirioron » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 9:50 AM UTC

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #94

Iv wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically, the way this is done is through a smartcard, secured and provided by state officials. A vote has to be signed by the key that never leaves this device. So even if you computer is infected by malware down to its USB firmware, it won't be able to fake many things. Just prevent you from voting. My main criticism is that as it is it could still feed the card with the wrong vote to sign. The (state-provided) US…

> My main criticism is that as it is it could still feed the card with the wrong vote to sign. In other words: It doesn't help at all against malware on the computer. > The (state-provided) USB reader should have a small lcd screen to sum up the thing being signed "Vote for Ms.Ryjavik on election #123" "Vote for Yes on vote #432" and a confirmation button. In other words: If the USB firmware is infected, it's still n…

Considering Estonia's history, paper voting isn't exactly amazing either. The Soviet era showed that election fraud happens anyway. The problem with paper voting is that mistakes in counting happen very often. During the election that just happened in Estonia officials wrote the candidate number into the box that said how many votes they got.[1]

In the 2016 US presidential election officials basically typod the election results in the town of Hazelhurst in Wisconsin, where almost half the votes went missing until a citizen volunteer noticed the mistake. The party officials nor election officials caught the mistake.[2]

If mistakes like that can happen then how often do they go unnoticed? How often are these mistakes deliberate?

[1] https://news.err.ee/916525/vote-miscount-in-narva-may-cost-e...

[2] https://www.votingjustice.us/tags/election_integrity

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

#142

Post by Mirioron » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 9:52 AM UTC

yason wrote: post #116

Tankenstein wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there will be few-to-none signs of subversion One thing the Estonian system does is that you can verify your vote on a mobile device by scanning a qr code that you see when you cast the digital vote. A vote can be checked after i-voting for up to three times during half an hour. I imagine if any mismatch was detected the country would shut off i-voting immediately. Further reading: https://www.valimised.ee/en/inter…

You're not supposed to be able to verify votes after the fact because that would enable buying votes.

You can vote multiple times through online voting. This means that buying votes like this wouldn't be very effective. Online voting also ends a few days before election day at which point a person can go and vote in person. The vote in person counts over the online vote.

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

#143

Post by Mirioron » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 9:54 AM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #84

pedrocr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Say I sell my vote. The person picks a party I don’t agree with. I will simply vote for them anyway in the prelimenaries, screengrap my proof, and send to my customer. I can do this multiple times. Each time I void my previous ballot, betraying my previous customer. Then comes election day, then I show up in person and cast a physical ballot for the party that I favor. As a buyer, my customers have no way of knowing…

This is exactly how the Estonian voting system works.

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

#144

Post by Mirioron » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 9:55 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #60

pedrocr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They can already check their online vote, but some restrictions apply: https://www.valimised.ee/en/internet-voting/checking-i-vote

Keep in mind that you need to check the vote on a different device than what you voted on.

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

#145

Post by Mirioron » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 9:59 AM UTC

isostatic wrote: post #137

Mirioron wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My main criticism is that as it is it could still feed the card with the wrong vote to sign. The (state-provided) USB reader should have a small lcd screen to sum up the thing being signed "Vote for Ms.Ryjavik on election #123" "Vote for Yes on vote #432" and a confirmation button. You can check who you cast your vote for through online voting. You can do it 3 times for half an hour after you voting. You cast your…

So much for a secret ballot

You can vote multiple times though and the previous votes are discarded. You can even show up on election day at the end and it well override your online vote.

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

#146

Post by Mirioron » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 10:03 AM UTC

antris wrote: post #136

Essentially, Estonia gives 44% influence of their country to a system that cannot be verified to have almost any relation to what people actually have voted for. The people have will just look at the results and have to think "well, I hope weren't hacked this time" and move on. Rest in peace, democracy in Estonia.

Online voting in elections has been around since 2005 in Estonia. I think you're making it seem worse than it is. On the other hand, I wish Estonia did not have online voting as well. There are some attack vectors you can't defend against.

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

#147

Post by eftpotrm » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 10:24 AM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #135

Iv wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically, the way this is done is through a smartcard, secured and provided by state officials. A vote has to be signed by the key that never leaves this device. So even if you computer is infected by malware down to its USB firmware, it won't be able to fake many things. Just prevent you from voting. My main criticism is that as it is it could still feed the card with the wrong vote to sign. The (state-provided) US…

> My main criticism is that as it is it could still feed the card with the wrong vote to sign. The (state-provided) USB reader should have a small lcd screen to sum up the thing being signed "Vote for Ms.Ryjavik on election #123" "Vote for Yes on vote #432" and a confirmation button. You can check who you cast your vote for through online voting. You can do it 3 times for half an hour after you voting. You cast your…

You can check that the reporting app tells you that you voted for who you think you voted for.

You have no way of asserting that that was the vote that was actually counted in the reported result.

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

#148

Post by pedrocr » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 10:26 AM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #84

pedrocr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Say I sell my vote. The person picks a party I don’t agree with. I will simply vote for them anyway in the prelimenaries, screengrap my proof, and send to my customer. I can do this multiple times. Each time I void my previous ballot, betraying my previous customer. Then comes election day, then I show up in person and cast a physical ballot for the party that I favor. As a buyer, my customers have no way of knowing…

I can't see a way of that working without breaking down somehow:

- If every time you vote you get a receipt for that vote that can be checked if it's still valid then you can send that receipt to the buyer and he can then check that your vote is still according to his purchase - If you can only check that the receipt was registered but not if it's still valid you can't check that your vote was correctly counted because you don't know if the vote has been changed after in multiple possible ways - If you can check that the vote actually is for candidate A at any time you can sell that access to the buyer for him to confirm - If the only way to avoid all this is to also cast an actually secret vote on election day the buyer now just needs to make sure you don't go to the polling place. Posting spotters at the door is not too hard.

I don't see a way for you to actually be able to confirm your vote was counted and not having at the same time the ability to sell your vote in a verifiable way. Perfect verification isn't needed either. If you're selling your vote to the mob you'll have second thoughts about failing to deliver. If you make the process easier "honest" sellers will create the market.

> Note that frauding vote buyers this way is also possible in most election systems that have non-digital preliminaries.

Most I know are actually harder because you only get the single mail-in ballot so you can't do the double or triple voting. If you can show up on the day and invalidate your mail-in then part of same can be done. Depending on how the invalidation of the mail-in is done it can be even sketchier. But I don't consider mail-in and absentee paper votes to have enough security guarantees either way. Paper ballots, in a box, counted by adversaries is the gold standard. Everything else has a high burden of proof.

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

#149

Post by anticensor » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 10:40 AM UTC

lolc wrote: post #62

drdeadringer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is stopping The Public from watching electronic ballots just as equally as electronic ballots? If I wanted to see paper ballots, how is that different from wanting to see electronic ballots? I'm not confident that I could successfully petition Government for paper ballots just as much as I could sue a given contractor for same electronic records.

If I want, I can go down to my polling place before it opens, inspect all the boxes to be empty, watch as people put their ballots in, then watch as the boxes are emptied and the ballots counted. If I'm not allowed to do all this, I can't trust the vote unless I trust the people that administered it. Electronic voting always requires trust in the administrators.

> watch as people put their ballots in

This is not allowed in many jurisdictions. You can watch the before and after part easily, though.

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

#150

Post by codedokode » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 10:50 AM UTC

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…

Why are you searching attackers outside? I don't know how it works in other countries, but in Russia the elections are always "hacked" by the government. You don't need any special resources or a backdoor, you just need a loyal sysadmin.