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DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

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Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#191

Post by lifeisstillgood »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #131
dragontamer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate being outright dismissive but it sounds like an expensive html/pdf form with a printer attached. And I like it. The simpler the design, the better. Sometimes it takes a billion dollars and a couple of smart researchers to invent the "obvious" solution to a problem. We've got butterfly ballots, confusing electronics-only machines, and a variety of bad standards as the basis of our current voting infrastructur…

And suddenly I have another use case for my language for specifying scientific protocols. Counting votes in a way that is scientifically verifiable. Turns out keeping verifiable lab notebooks for legal reasons is a really similar problem to keeping verifiable vote tallies, also for legal reasons (hopefully). It is telling that we have better provenance systems for far more complex processes but we still haven't manag…

I may be misunderstanding but what language "specifying scientific protocols" do you mean ? Is this published? How does it work (a generic workflow language? The t sounds interesting whatever it is)

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#192

Post by jedberg »

zepolen wrote: post #184
jedberg wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with any voting system that allows you to verify the vote after the fact is that it makes it too easy to coerce someone to vote a certain way. I can promise you money (or threaten you with violence) to vote a certain way, but you can't follow me into the booth, and no matter how you make me "verify" I can always change the vote between verification and depositing it in the box. If there is a way to verify…

Using 'something you know' it's possible to both verify how your vote went and at the same time not allow someone else to know, even if forced. A simple example would be assigning a random color to each option per person. So blue means Trump for you. Hilary for someone else. You only need to get people into a booth once , to learn which color is which option. From there on in, verification is as simple as looking at…

But there would be no way to know that the colors and their meanings weren't switched in the case you wanted actual verification.

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#193

Post by jacques_chester »

zepolen wrote: post #189
jacques_chester wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This scheme is prevented by having scrutineers appointed by multiple candidates. Australia does this and it works well.

How would they stop that?

By having dozens of people watching everything except the actual marking of the ballot. Scrutineers are highly motivated: they want to catch the other candidate cheating.

I've been a scrutineer in a polling room. I could watch and challenge anything except the marking of a ballot. And I did. So did other scrutineers. The odds of the mobster keeping a rotating scheme without detection approach zero with great rapidity, especially since staying in the ballot after casting your vote is not permitted.

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#194

Post by abecedarius »

sverige wrote: post #60

Why does this keep coming up? What is the compelling argument against paper ballots? There is no need for results to be known immediately, so how does making voting an exercise done by computers make anything better, particularly when computers are much more vulnerable to remote interference?

If you could make voting much cheaper and faster, it could be used to decide more things. (If your immediate reaction is "But voting is a terrible way to make decisions!", well, there's considerable evidence in your favor. I think we should be researching collective decision-making a lot more broadly, but voting tech could be one building block.)

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#195

Post by ebj73 »

Secure hardware sounds like the wrong idea, I think. I think the correct idea will be something more similar to block chains. A system where the security of the system lies in the ability for anyone to make a copy of the voting data at any point in time. So there will be multiple copies of the voting data, owned both by the authorities and by ordinary people.

If the authorities try to tamper with the central copy of the voting data, it will be checked by the multiple copies owned by the general public.

I think that's the general idea one should pursue. Not "secure hardware".

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#196

Post by themacguffinman »

cabalamat wrote: post #173

> allow voters to verify that their votes were recorded accurately This sounds like it means it's no longer a secret vote and voters can be bribed or blackmailed to vote a particular way.

Only if the voter is allowed to keep the receipt. The system could require voters to put the paper in a box before they leave like we do now.

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#197

Post by cyphar »

unethical_ban wrote: post #52
cyphar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> e-Voting could make it easier / cheaper to deploy polling stations, collect ballots faster, and potentially to use more complex (but more fair and accurate) voting methods like Ranked Choice or others. In Australia we use IRV (what you call ranked-choice) and we don't have any forms of electronic voting for federal elections, and the overwhelming majority of votes cast in state elections are paper ballots (which ar…

Maybe not for IRV specifically, though it would arguably be easier anyway. There are more esoteric (see, mathematically dependent) voting systems that meet the Condorcet criterion.

Sure, but computer vote tallying and e-Voting are not the same thing.

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#198

Post by ams6110 »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #118
tamaharbor wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And add fingerprint identification, like other countries do.

How will the voters who are (reportedly) unable to obtain ID be able up get their prints into the verification system? I have been informed by social scientists that requiring voter ID is racist, so it seems that fingerprint checks would also be racist via the same logic.

> I have been informed by social scientists that requiring voter ID is racist

Do you have a personal opinion on that? I don't see it as racist in any way, because it applies equally to everybody.

We have a few basic rules for voters in this country, one is that they are citizens, two is that they are registered. Being able to demonstrate that you are the registered voter you claim to be seems to me to be essential to a fair election process.

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#199

Post by sonnyblarney »

sverige wrote: post #60

Why does this keep coming up? What is the compelling argument against paper ballots? There is no need for results to be known immediately, so how does making voting an exercise done by computers make anything better, particularly when computers are much more vulnerable to remote interference?

"What is the compelling argument against paper ballots?"

Repudiation, verification etc..

I suggest this technology is part of a 'pro democracy' agenda, as opposed to some kind of existential need within the US.

The tech might ostensibly be destined for S. America, Africa and parts of Asia.

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#200

Post by liquidify »

snuxoll wrote: post #58
nathan_long wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate being outright dismissive but it sounds like an expensive html/pdf form with a printer attached. I don't think that's dismissive at all. That's what it is, and it sounds good to me. Basically the computer is a scribe with perfect handwriting that fills out the paper ballot for the voter while the voter watches. Absolutely any voter is qualified to assert whether the ballot contains the votes they intended to…

Don't forget that electronic voting machines can have accessibility features that paper ballots lack - having a glorified form printer is actually a sound design that lets us gain these benefits without the negatives.

There is no reason an electronic count can't be kept along with the paper ballots.
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