Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

motherboard.vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 303 posts

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

#221

Post by zepolen »

jacques_chester wrote: post #193
zepolen wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

He wouldn't stay in the ballot - he'd pocket the slip and take it outside...

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

#222

Post by dboreham »

bigj0n wrote: post #207
adestefan wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the US. Now election fraud is a different issue.

There have been lots of reports of non-citizens being registered to vote in the US. It is very rare, but elections are also generally very close races. I dont get how people can just shrug off reports of dead people and non-citizens being registered to vote as a non-issue.

Perhaps the reports are false?

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

#223

Post by snowwrestler »

jacques_chester wrote: post #193
zepolen wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yup. In the U.S. they are generally called poll watchers.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/10/29/politics/poll-watchers-moni...

Also, a voter who is being intimidated by a mobster could just walk up to a poll worker or police officer and report it.

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

#224

Post by brenschluss »

Pharmakon wrote: post #81
hansjorg wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because paper ballots increase the cost of manipulating elections.

Ironically the one recent confirmed case of a rigged election in the U.S. was rigged through paper absentee ballots.

This is survivorship bias. Instead:

1. Assume that there are enough high-powered actors to want to rig an election

2. Note that confirmed case of a rigged election happens through paper absentee ballots

3. Note that there are very few known cases of a rigged election happening through electronic voting machines.

4. One probable conclusion is that election rigging is possible and undetectable through electronic voting machines.

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

#225

Post by snowwrestler »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #136
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really want a secret voting system such that the voter can’t access their own history, then just do not offer the password option. Instead a unique private key is generated, but never distributed to the voter or any other party. - Key: Encrypted SSN - Value: Unencrypted Vote

However, I’d personally prefer a system that was fully public. Problems: Social Pressure, Violent/Non-Violent Coercion, Retaliation. Coercion could be a problem but with enough humans seems unlikely to be effective without the details of the conspiring entity to leak. If here are 10 jurors or a few judges coercion matters because it is easy to cover up. Coercion at scale has never occurred. Coercing any double digit…

Always fun to see how easy it is to design a system when one can just hand-wave away important constraints.

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

#226

Post by bdamm »

fixermark wrote: post #102
bryondowd wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where's the problem? I've been leaning towards the idea that maybe every election should have a hand count. You can get your electronic count first for the early announcements, but it should be verified by the hand count. What's the downside, just the cost? Seems likely worthwhile to me.

The problem is that the vast majority of elections aren't counted incorrectly, and you're vastly increasing the cost on an under-funded system for no benefit in five-nines of the cases (and the remaining cases can have a recount triggered by one of the candidates, but not at no cost to them).

I fail to see what the downside is of counting every election twice.

Frankly the cost of elections doesn't seem to be a serious problem for any government. They're choosing to fix some roads instead of boosting the quality of elections. Frankly I'll take the election over potholes or whatever else the government is spending money on, because if I can't trust the election, I can't trust the government.

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

#228

Post by jacques_chester »

zepolen wrote: post #221
jacques_chester wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

He wouldn't stay in the ballot - he'd pocket the slip and take it outside...

Returning to my point, which is that he'd need to do this without anyone noticing.

A bit difficult since there are officials watching you put the ballot into the box. Or, gee, that's weird, failing to put the ballot into the box.

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

#229

Post by crankylinuxuser »

tropo wrote: post #219
alasdair_ wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you have a personal opinion on that? I don't see it as racist in any way, because it applies equally to everybody. “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” In practical terms, there are a lot of people in the US that simply cannot afford to buy an ID - both because of the actual cost and because of the logistics an…

Usually you need that ID to exercise your constitutional right to bear arms. If we can demand an ID for a right that is actually listed in our constitution, then surely we can demand one for voting. If requiring the ID is really so discriminatory, then it has to go away for bearing arms as well. Is this something you want? BTW, in terms of potential hazard, voting is a lot worse. Voting can lead to wars.

> Usually you need that ID to exercise your constitutional right to bear arms.

12 states have constitutional carry laws. I can buy and carry with no ID needed.

As for voting and issues in obtaining valid ID, I can guarantee if you're on HN, you are not the group being talked about getting an ID.

I had to obtain a birth certificate from my state. I had to drive 3 hours away, and pay $25, and drive 3 hours back to get it. And for someone who doesn't have a car, lives in the city, and lives week to week, they won't be getting a valid ID anytime soon.

Oh yeah, and they're primarily black and poor. That's why the racist claims are made.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/11/voter-suppression-rac...

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

#230

Post by zanny »

Beefin wrote: post #227

What I truly don’t understand is why we can’t vote with our phones in this age

Because you cannot verify your phone is not compromised at either a software or hardware level.

You would need independently verifiable hardware and all software running on a closed system (ie, no third party modifications to running software which would mean at most a trusted sandbox for other applications outside the proven path) to be able to trust it to reliably take your vote.

Thats on the order of correctness provability that NASA puts into launch vehicles but NASA doesn't have to contend with hostile actors seeking to undermine their software and hardware.

Post reply on HN