Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting • Hacker News Board

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#91

Post by amelius » Wed, May 08, 2019, 11:33 AM UTC

jonathanstrange wrote: post #86

atoav wrote: post #35

I shall repeat it like a mantra: voting beeing slow inefficient is a side effect of it’s transparency. You want a voting system were a average voting helper can look at it and say: “There was nothing fishy there, I saw it”. This is because it is about trust and not only about secrecy and security. Your electronic voting system can be mathematically perfect, but if nobody average can say from the outside that everythi…

Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem. Just so the results of voting can be displayed on TV a bit earlier, we are supposed to accept substantial risks to democracy posed by blatantly insecure endpoints, blatantly insecure company infrastructure, insecure network communications and devices (routers, etc.), private companies that often have a track record of insecure and sloppy programmin…

> Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem.

And some may argue that voting is a pretty bad "solution" by itself.

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#92

Post by gjm11 » Wed, May 08, 2019, 11:41 AM UTC

reallydude wrote: post #89

jonathanstrange wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem. Just so the results of voting can be displayed on TV a bit earlier, we are supposed to accept substantial risks to democracy posed by blatantly insecure endpoints, blatantly insecure company infrastructure, insecure network communications and devices (routers, etc.), private companies that often have a track record of insecure and sloppy programmin…

> Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem. That is incorrect. Voting is a feedback loop for the will of the voters. The slower the process is, the less representative it is. The fidelity of the loop is paramount, but the issue remains. EDIT: do the downvoters understand that there is setup involved in a paper process and getting results is not the end of the feedback loop (not race)? SMH

Surely the relevant feedback-loop time is the interval between elections, not how long it takes for votes to be counted.

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#93

Post by snaky » Wed, May 08, 2019, 11:44 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #91

jonathanstrange wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem. Just so the results of voting can be displayed on TV a bit earlier, we are supposed to accept substantial risks to democracy posed by blatantly insecure endpoints, blatantly insecure company infrastructure, insecure network communications and devices (routers, etc.), private companies that often have a track record of insecure and sloppy programmin…

> Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem. And some may argue that voting is a pretty bad "solution" by itself.

And some may argue that democracy is a pretty bad "solution" by itself.

https://reason.com/2018/11/10/libertarian-critiques-of-democ...

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#94

Post by C1sc0cat » Wed, May 08, 2019, 11:49 AM UTC

reallydude wrote: post #89

jonathanstrange wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem. Just so the results of voting can be displayed on TV a bit earlier, we are supposed to accept substantial risks to democracy posed by blatantly insecure endpoints, blatantly insecure company infrastructure, insecure network communications and devices (routers, etc.), private companies that often have a track record of insecure and sloppy programmin…

> Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem. That is incorrect. Voting is a feedback loop for the will of the voters. The slower the process is, the less representative it is. The fidelity of the loop is paramount, but the issue remains. EDIT: do the downvoters understand that there is setup involved in a paper process and getting results is not the end of the feedback loop (not race)? SMH

The uk manages to get a result in general elections in < a day

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#95

Post by C1sc0cat » Wed, May 08, 2019, 11:51 AM UTC

atoav wrote: post #82

DSingularity wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paper ballots are vulnerable to systemic voter suppression of the kind that’s hard to eliminate. Voter ID laws. Complicated ballots. Overloaded polling stations. Worst, all these weaknesses are difficult to eliminate because they are both difficult to sincerely debate and difficult to generate the public interest necessary to generate enough activism. Electronic voting can reduce the friction enough to where we can a…

These are mostly solved problems in all western nations (except for the US). E.g. I am Austrian living in Germany and I vote by mail since a decade. Mail voting has the downside that it invites the kind of problems where some guy tricks elderly people into giving them their vote etc. But all in all it works quite well.

AKA Granny Farming - which is a downside to postal voting which should be limited to those that need it medical reasons troops aboard etc

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#96

Post by afiori » Wed, May 08, 2019, 11:55 AM UTC

reallydude wrote: post #89

jonathanstrange wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem. Just so the results of voting can be displayed on TV a bit earlier, we are supposed to accept substantial risks to democracy posed by blatantly insecure endpoints, blatantly insecure company infrastructure, insecure network communications and devices (routers, etc.), private companies that often have a track record of insecure and sloppy programmin…

> Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem. That is incorrect. Voting is a feedback loop for the will of the voters. The slower the process is, the less representative it is. The fidelity of the loop is paramount, but the issue remains. EDIT: do the downvoters understand that there is setup involved in a paper process and getting results is not the end of the feedback loop (not race)? SMH

This is only relevant if you propose to have weekly/monthly elections.

For elections every few years even a week of counting would not be a problem.

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#97

Post by C1sc0cat » Wed, May 08, 2019, 11:56 AM UTC

dao- wrote: post #29

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not always - spoiled ballots can sometimes count, or indicate growing dissent in society. Not voting can achieve neither. Here's a case from last week of a spoiled ballot giving someone a majority of one: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/03/ballot-pape... Was that the result the voter intended? Probably not, but who knows? :)

I don't understand your example. That ballot paper was counted as a Tory vote, i.e. not as spoiled.

That's what candidates do I recall a talk by a Labour Candidate where in his election arguing that a ballot with I vote for that bastard was for him.

This was a constituency where the previous incumbent had had some problems with his younger GF

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#98

Post by wongarsu » Wed, May 08, 2019, 11:59 AM UTC

DSingularity wrote: post #77

atoav wrote: post #35

I shall repeat it like a mantra: voting beeing slow inefficient is a side effect of it’s transparency. You want a voting system were a average voting helper can look at it and say: “There was nothing fishy there, I saw it”. This is because it is about trust and not only about secrecy and security. Your electronic voting system can be mathematically perfect, but if nobody average can say from the outside that everythi…

Paper ballots are vulnerable to systemic voter suppression of the kind that’s hard to eliminate. Voter ID laws. Complicated ballots. Overloaded polling stations. Worst, all these weaknesses are difficult to eliminate because they are both difficult to sincerely debate and difficult to generate the public interest necessary to generate enough activism. Electronic voting can reduce the friction enough to where we can a…

How does electronic voting solve any of those?

- With electronic voting the identification problem is at least as hard as with paper ballots, so Voter ID is at least as hard (an honestly, I've never heard of any problem of this kind outside of the US)

- Electronic ballots could be simpler than paper ballots, but they can also be a lot more complicated. Under the assumption that voter suppression is taking place we have to assume that the electronic ballot would be more complicated than the paper equivalent

- Electronic voting still requires voting booths, meaning you can still overload polling stations. Voting from home is equivalent to mail voting (already a thing) and has a lot of problems if it's how the majority votes

Also all these problems have common sense solutions already:

- If the nation for some reason doesn't have a ubiquitous national identity system the government should take some of that tax money and hand out free Voter ID cards (perferably delivered by certified mail or similar)

- Designing ballots that are not complicated is a solved problem in most of the Western World

- Have enough polling stations that queue times never exceed 10 minutes. If queues are too long take note to make that polling station bigger in the next election.

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#99

Post by C1sc0cat » Wed, May 08, 2019, 12:05 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #20

Mindless2112 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who voted is public record (depending on your state [1]), so the numbers should add up. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/04/us/politics/apps-public-v...

What if it is not a public record? Also, even if it is a public record, how can you be sure that people in the voters list are real, they are eligible to vote in this region and not made up by authorities? Also, even if the list of people who voted is public, and if results were falsified, with electronic voting you cannot estimate the scale of falsification. Did they alter just a hundred of votes or hundred thousand…

Is the electoral roll not publicly available information where you are.

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#100

Post by wongarsu » Wed, May 08, 2019, 12:08 PM UTC

reallydude wrote: post #89

jonathanstrange wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem. Just so the results of voting can be displayed on TV a bit earlier, we are supposed to accept substantial risks to democracy posed by blatantly insecure endpoints, blatantly insecure company infrastructure, insecure network communications and devices (routers, etc.), private companies that often have a track record of insecure and sloppy programmin…

> Electronic voting is the classical solution to a nonexistent problem. That is incorrect. Voting is a feedback loop for the will of the voters. The slower the process is, the less representative it is. The fidelity of the loop is paramount, but the issue remains. EDIT: do the downvoters understand that there is setup involved in a paper process and getting results is not the end of the feedback loop (not race)? SMH

I don't think I understand what feedback loop we are talking about?

Everyone who wants to be on the ballot registers a few months in advance, which is usually a short enough time. Since people are usually voted into a job they have to do for 4-6 years you don't want hasty decisions anyways.

Getting poll results while the voting stations are open is usually not a desired feature because of how it influences voters.

The delay for counting the votes measures in days, which is a tiny amount in a feedback loop where one iteration takes 4-6 years. Other steps, like forming a government, routinely take an order of magnitude more time in many nations.