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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

#291

Post by specialist »

tivert wrote: post #286
specialist wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why not build a validation machine that voters can feed manually-completed optical scan ballots into, before they go to the tabulator?" That's precisely how poll-based opscans work. Central count (for postal ballots processing) is necessarily different, because that sanity check cannot be done, so voter intent must be adjudicated when ballots (or individual votes) are unreadable. It's a sausage factory.

> That's precisely how poll-based opscans work. I know, we have them in my district, but they don't do all the validation I was talking about. I think all that the current machines do is validate that there were no overvotes, etc. I was proposing a separate machine that would let the voter validate that the ballot would be read as they intended .

Ah. Ya, that'd be neat. Thanks.

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

#292

Post by rtkwe »

gervase wrote: post #284
rtkwe wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we can have a secure and audit-able banking system (and every other aspect of our lifes), surely we can have the same for voting? There's one major requirement in voting systems that throws a huge wrench in everything, anonymity. In order to prevent vote buying and coercion voters can't be tied to specific votes. So any system that allows a person to check that their vote got counted for their candidate isn't wo…

The way this (anonymity) is handled in the Estonian system is that votes can be validated out-of-band for 30 minutes after they were cast, then they're locked. Additionally, a voter can overwrite their previous vote at any time during the vote period, so they could always prove their first vote, and then overwrite it privately later. There are several other major problems with their system [0], but I think they shoul…

There's still the voting server where the (voter,vote) pair exists and could be exfiltrated in theory. It does solve the low level organized vote buying/coercion campaigns at least.

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

#293

Post by eppsilon »

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.

Being registered != voting

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

#295

Post by therealdrag0 »

sverige wrote: post #145
therealdrag0 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't counting ballots always wrong? Like every time there is a recount the number changes... What's wrong with electronic ballots? If we can have a secure and audit-able banking system (and every other aspect of our lifes), surely we can have the same for voting?

The numbers change with electronic ballots too, so again, what's the compelling reason?

Why would they change?

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

#296

Post by therealdrag0 »

ernst_klim wrote: post #264
therealdrag0 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't counting ballots always wrong? Like every time there is a recount the number changes... What's wrong with electronic ballots? If we can have a secure and audit-able banking system (and every other aspect of our lifes), surely we can have the same for voting?

> What's wrong with electronic ballots? First of all, you can't observe the counting project, and now if somebody want to mess with the results, it becomes super easy to do so. Electronic voting is a great opportunity for dictatorship.

Are you saying no one ever messes with the results of paper ballots? There's plenty of dictatorships committing voting fraud as it is.

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

#297

Post by ernst_klim »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #296
ernst_klim wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's wrong with electronic ballots? First of all, you can't observe the counting project, and now if somebody want to mess with the results, it becomes super easy to do so. Electronic voting is a great opportunity for dictatorship.

Are you saying no one ever messes with the results of paper ballots? There's plenty of dictatorships committing voting fraud as it is.

>Are you saying no one ever messes with the results of paper ballots? There's plenty of dictatorships committing voting fraud as it is.

And we know they do, because it's trivial to observe. Without paper it would be totally opaque, you would just have a raw number and nothing else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTvQXQLoq8Q

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

#298

Post by tommd »

thanatos_dem wrote: post #111

I use this premise as one of my architectural interview questions- design a voting system. Having asked it dozens of times, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t trust anyone to build a voting system. I like it as a question tho, since it’s open ended enough to really let the candidate focus on the domains interesting to them; scalability, security, data modeling, whatever they want really.

That's a huge leap from "arbitrary candidates can't give a satisfactory answer during an interview" to "I don't trust it can be done."

Do you apply the same test to cryptographic algorithms?

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

#299

Post by zepolen »

jacques_chester wrote: post #228
zepolen wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Couldn't they put a random piece of paper in the ballot box?

What happens if a white piece of paper is found? Do all the votes in the box get cancelled?

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

#300

Post by 50korangutang »

snowwrestler wrote: post #153
hanniabu wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like burning an orchard for a few bad apples. It's this really that large of a concern vs voter fraud?

Yes. The U.S. originally did not use secret ballots in federal elections and we switched to them because of widespread coercion. A durable record that maps votes to voters does not prevent voter fraud, it enables it.

Postal voting allows the same type of fraud, so an electronic system would only be as vulnerable as our current system in this respect.
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