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USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

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Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#101

Post by the-dude »

doublesCs wrote: post #77
plankers wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not the only one. https://xkcd.com/2030/

> Our entire field is bad at what we do. Our entire field is bad at what we do, because it's full of coders instead of engineers. Think about it. Building airplanes reliably has been figured out by aircraft engineers, building elevators safely has been figured out by building engineers, and building software reliably has been figured out by software _engineers_ (the NASA kind, who landed a spacecraft on the moon). Ho…

Flying is only safe because people actually die.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#102

Post by xorcist »

Galanwe wrote: post #78
sebmellen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, this on-chain voter ID would never have to be "mapped" directly to a voter. Rather, IDs are simply private-public keypair accounts, and all that's provisioned by the holders of the election is the right to vote with one account. Then, the vote is cast by redeeming this right to vote token , without the voting account ever being linked to a "real identity". Of course, there are problems here too. Mainly wit…

Hmm, not sure that would work though. What happens when an ID is stolen? If there is nothing mapping "John Smith" to "ID #12345", then you have no way to revoke IDs because you cannot know if the person claiming the ID is the true owner. Wouldn't that mean stealing IDs will be virtually un punishable, and reselling them very lucrative?

You don't want to issue new tokens either, because you can't know for sure that the token was really stolen.

In which it won't take many users who demonstratably can't vote because someone stolen their token for someone to question the outcome. The only point of democratic elections is the legitimacy of the result.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#103

Post by djaque »

aoowii wrote: post #48

Am I the only one still against network-based, and to a lesser extent electronic-based, voting? It's near impossible to rig or suppress a physical election without a lot of effort, but one person can DDoS an entire network and no one can vote and the whole election needs to be scrapped. Not even the strongest cryptographic or software systems are free from exploits (especially over time) and there's no way to be sure…

No, at least in my circles nobody thinks electronic voting is a good idea.

I think Tom Scott has the best argument: you can't build a system that requires you to have a PhD in computer science to fully understand why you should trust it. Every day people need to have faith in voting and not just because a group of experts say they should.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#104

Post by kevincox »

pgt wrote: post #41
Znafon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a unique, random, sequential prime and how do you actually vote?

Issue 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17... up to N for N registered voters. Mix them up and hand out randomly. So let's say you get 5 and I get 7. To vote, you cast your prime for a candidate, thereby consuming it. No two candidates can share a prime, because their checksums will have a common factor, which is not allowed. If we both vote for candidate A, his checkproduct is now 35. If ballots 11, 13 and 17 vote for candidate B…

Why do you need primes? You could just give everyone a number and publish which numbers voted for each candidate. That is effectively equivalent to what you are doing since each total product can be factored into the primes that voted for it anyways.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#105

Post by gspr »

pgt wrote: post #41
Znafon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a unique, random, sequential prime and how do you actually vote?

Issue 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17... up to N for N registered voters. Mix them up and hand out randomly. So let's say you get 5 and I get 7. To vote, you cast your prime for a candidate, thereby consuming it. No two candidates can share a prime, because their checksums will have a common factor, which is not allowed. If we both vote for candidate A, his checkproduct is now 35. If ballots 11, 13 and 17 vote for candidate B…

In this system you have to trust that the issuing authority never reuses primes. That seeems like a major downside, and something that is hard to overcome with transparency.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#106

Post by xorcist »

sebmellen wrote: post #36
Yetanfou wrote: post #33

Did they also invent a system which protects against voter coercion? If they did not, they might as well stop now since no matter how secure the voting system is its relevance falls down to zero if it is possible for the local gang leader to coerce voters to vote for 'his' candidate - "my man stands behind you to watch you vote for candidate X, if you so much as twitch your little girl gets whipped" (which works but…

This is a ridiculous argument, because it could just as well apply to mail-in voting as blockchain-based voting. I also think this fear is far overstated (do we have any stories of this happening in the US?) and the more pernicious forms of voter suppression and misinformation are downplayed. If blockchain systems allow 90% of the populace to vote unencumbered, with a 5% inaccuracy rate (which is far higher than to b…

> This is a ridiculous argument,

It is most certainly not. It is the reason voter secrecy in considered a cornerstone of a legitimate public vote.

There are whole organizations, like the OSCE Election Observation, who audit these sort of things internationally.

> it could just as well apply to mail-in voting

It does, very much so. Every mail-in voting has to take this into account. Any introductory political science course will touch on these things. Commonly this is done by way of a method to override or revoke votes. A mail-in voting system would be problematic if it was the only way to vote. This is the most common objection to electronic voting systems, that it's hard for them to stand on their own.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#107

Post by tssva »

realityking wrote: post #74
foepys wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the average citizen verify what is actually happening and that their vote is actually being counted? That when they vote for X that the counter for X is increasing by 1? By verify I mean full understanding of the process without the need to believe somebody who calls themselves an "expert".

I’m not American and I’ve never voted in a US election but I can tell you how it’s done in Germany (where electronic is all but impossible due to the standards the voting process is held to be the constitutional court) - Election Day is always a Sunday; most folks don’t work on Sunday. Germany is pretty strict on that in general. Works well for this case. - Each parliamentary district is subdivided into smaller votin…

In the US there is no standard way of voting. Elections are run by each of the 54 states and territories. Each one of those have varying standards. Within most states the state itself provides certain rules that must be followed but the election is actually overseen by the local government and there may substancial leeway regarding how the locality implements the rules. Within each locality different polling places may use different technologies. I have even been to polling places where there were differing ways to vote within the same location. In general polling places are run by volunteers and each candidate is allowed to have representatives at the polling place.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#108

Post by NestedLoopGoBrr »

djaque wrote: post #103
aoowii wrote: post #48

Am I the only one still against network-based, and to a lesser extent electronic-based, voting? It's near impossible to rig or suppress a physical election without a lot of effort, but one person can DDoS an entire network and no one can vote and the whole election needs to be scrapped. Not even the strongest cryptographic or software systems are free from exploits (especially over time) and there's no way to be sure…

No, at least in my circles nobody thinks electronic voting is a good idea. I think Tom Scott has the best argument: you can't build a system that requires you to have a PhD in computer science to fully understand why you should trust it. Every day people need to have faith in voting and not just because a group of experts say they should.

We put our faith into systems built by PhDs every day. People don’t have to understand why airplanes stay in the air in order for them to be the only practical means of rapid international transport.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#109

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

aoowii wrote: post #48

Am I the only one still against network-based, and to a lesser extent electronic-based, voting? It's near impossible to rig or suppress a physical election without a lot of effort, but one person can DDoS an entire network and no one can vote and the whole election needs to be scrapped. Not even the strongest cryptographic or software systems are free from exploits (especially over time) and there's no way to be sure…

I think what you're missing is:

Moving forward, large scale election rigging will be seen as a feature by those in power.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#110

Post by Beldin »

enaaem wrote: post #96
atoav wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not the only one. However I don't think security is even a relevant concern, because there is one much more fundamental flaw in all electronic voting systems: The goal of voting is to produce agreeable consent — so it doesn't really matter how you organise voting, as long as everybody afterwards can agree who won, who lost and by how much. So phrased differently, one of the most important properties of any vo…

Taiwan has the best way of counting votes. Ballot is hold in the air, the name is called out and someone in the back keeps the score. Everyone can see what is going on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqKt-lPfJuw

That is a great way to elect the one who buys the most votes.

If you want to avoid such shenanigans, you'll need to enforce voter privacy.

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