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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

#201

Post by hannasanarion »

davisr wrote: post #178
BurningFrog wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One very important thing most people forget: If you can verify that your vote was correctly counted, your vote can't be kept secret, and intimidation and vote buying becomes impossible to stop. > Whereas with paper I can't count the votes myself, I have to trust the authorities who did that. The way it works in my home country is that the paper ballots are handled in an inspectable way and anyone can observe the coun…

I'd never want electronic voting either, but this myth needs to die. Intimidation can happen with absentee voting too, so it's not a valid concern.

But with absentee voting, the votes are still counted by hand. That's the part that has to be the most secure. With any paper voting system, votes can be impacted by some criminal scheme, yes, but only one at a time and with great individual effort. You have to blackmail a LOT of people to swing an election. Whereas with an electronic election, one attacker can change millions of votes with a single bit of malware code, with nobody the wiser.

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

#202

Post by beaner »

BurningFrog wrote: post #194
beaner wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can verify that your vote was correctly counted, your vote can't be kept secret This is false. Votes (transactions) in Bitcoin are pseudonymous, meaning everyone can see what votes were placed, but nobody knows who was responsible for the specific votes. Only the owner knows, unless they choose to reveal to others.

> Only the owner knows, unless they choose to reveal to others. Which means the owner can be forced to reveal their vote to a spouse/boss/warlord. I could have been clearer that that is what I meant.

Yes, that makes more sense and I think that's a valid point, thanks.

To be fair I thought you meant that it couldn't be kept secret from a global view - that anyone who wanted could look at the blockchain and attach votes to identities.

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

#203

Post by Consultant32452 »

davisr wrote: post #178
BurningFrog wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One very important thing most people forget: If you can verify that your vote was correctly counted, your vote can't be kept secret, and intimidation and vote buying becomes impossible to stop. > Whereas with paper I can't count the votes myself, I have to trust the authorities who did that. The way it works in my home country is that the paper ballots are handled in an inspectable way and anyone can observe the coun…

I'd never want electronic voting either, but this myth needs to die. Intimidation can happen with absentee voting too, so it's not a valid concern.

In most elections the number of absentee ballots is so small as to be statistically irrelevant. I'm not even certain absentee ballots are always counted because of this, winners are surely announced and concession speeches are made long before absentee ballots are counted. So whatever security/intimidation issues might be higher in absentee ballots aren't that big of a deal due to the small number of them. That may be changing this election with wide spread/universal mail in balloting.

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

#204

Post by jsjohnst »

egypturnash wrote: post #175
Ericson2314 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average Joe doesn't want the nerds to pick the president. Also, don't forget it's a secret ballot, and we do not have any good database of people with public keys in this country. What the hell am I supposed to make of a ledger with 100s of million anonymous public keys? Surely I cannot claim that relates 1-1 with the choices of real people.

This is America. Your social security number will make a perfectly fine secret key! It works so well as a secret for everything else in your life, after all. I'm sure nobody else has has it, or can acquire it for use in mass voter fraud!

I realize you are being sarcastic, but:

> Your social security number will make a perfectly fine secret key!

Never in its history was it a secret key anymore than your drivers license number, it’s an ID number that can be used to look you up in a DB like a username would be.

The problem is, that despite everyone just instinctively knowing a username needs to be paired with a password (or ideally multiple factors, but that isn’t as universal in understanding yet), no such thing exists currently to pair with your social security number.

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

#205

Post by beaner »

milkshakes wrote: post #195
beaner wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, not sure how it's related.

if you can verify your vote after it has been counted, you can be induced by a third party to vote for a specific candidate

Yeah, I think it wasn't clear to me as being the point said in the line in question. Guess I can see it now.

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

#206

Post by suifbwish »

eloff wrote: post #140
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…

Wouldn't a blockchain voting system help here, if everyone can examine the time, place, and votes in the history, and see that all the block hashes match what's expected? That gives much stronger guarantees than paper, and while the average Joe can't verify it himself, there would be three million programmers in the US alone who easily could. Whereas with paper I can't count the votes myself, I have to trust the auth…

Do you really believe there are 3 million programmers in the US that understand blockchain?

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

#207

Post by giancarlostoro »

There's already a few cryptotokens that allow voting on maintenance of said cryptotokens (or affiliated ones) would these not invalidate such a patent?

Edit:

On another side, what if we did use Blockchain to supplement votes in a different approach. I have not yet looked at how other Cryptotokens handle voting on policies but say we distribute to each state enough tokens per their legal citizen population, and voting places use a single token per voter, maybe a code is attached to their ballot (maybe a district code, only identifying their region?), this in turn pushes the vote into the blockchain for a permanent record, then when all the manual / machine counting is done we compare the blockchain results to see who screwed up, but it would also allow for a slightly more live view of voting in real-time.

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

#208

Post by pwg »

eloff wrote: post #140
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…

Wouldn't a blockchain voting system help here, if everyone can examine the time, place, and votes in the history, and see that all the block hashes match what's expected? That gives much stronger guarantees than paper, and while the average Joe can't verify it himself, there would be three million programmers in the US alone who easily could. Whereas with paper I can't count the votes myself, I have to trust the auth…

> Wouldn't a blockchain voting system help here

No, because it violates this principle the GP pointed out:

> This can only be true if most people voting understand the mechanism, can verify it themselves

Most people, i.e., most voters, will not be able to understand the mathematics behind a blockchain system sufficiently to either "understand the mechanism" or to "verify it themselves".

Most voters can understand the paper ballot counting system:

1) turn over next ballot

2) count filled ovals/check marks/whatever it is on this particular ballot sheet that signifies a "vote"

3) add count to running tally

4) return to step 1

Observers can also watch the individuals doing the counting, and believe that they (the observers) are accurately following along in the process.

Blockchain does not provide for that transparency in the process of counting the votes.

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

#209

Post by the_snooze »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #203
davisr wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd never want electronic voting either, but this myth needs to die. Intimidation can happen with absentee voting too, so it's not a valid concern.

In most elections the number of absentee ballots is so small as to be statistically irrelevant. I'm not even certain absentee ballots are always counted because of this, winners are surely announced and concession speeches are made long before absentee ballots are counted. So whatever security/intimidation issues might be higher in absentee ballots aren't that big of a deal due to the small number of them. That may b…

> I'm not even certain absentee ballots are always counted because of this

This is a misconception. All ballots received according to the laws of the state must be counted before the secretary of state certifies the results.

News networks will call an election as soon as they're certain it's gone one way or another. If Trump is up 30% in Wyoming on election night with 500 absentee ballots outstanding, CNN will call it. This doesn't mean Wyoming won't count those ballots. They have to in order to certify the results, which happens a few days after election night. States maintain detailed election results for historical and legal purposes. They don't throw away absentee ballots just because they won't change the outcome.

States will, however, toss out absentee ballots that aren't received according to their laws (i.e., some states require those to be received by election day, while others merely require them to be postmarked), as well as those without a verifiable signature on them.

This is a really common misconception. Absentee ballots absolutely count as long as they're received correctly. States need accurate vote counts. Absentee and provisional ballots aren't "lesser" ballots. They're just subject to some scrutiny before they're counted.

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

#210

Post by pwg »

eloff wrote: post #185
BurningFrog wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One very important thing most people forget: If you can verify that your vote was correctly counted, your vote can't be kept secret, and intimidation and vote buying becomes impossible to stop. > Whereas with paper I can't count the votes myself, I have to trust the authorities who did that. The way it works in my home country is that the paper ballots are handled in an inspectable way and anyone can observe the coun…

You can make the vote anonymous with electronic voting, in a way only you can verify if you wanted. There are existing voting systems with that property.

> in a way only you can verify if you wanted

But, if "you" can verify it, then "you" can also be coerced into revealing that verification in order to avoid physical punishment (guy with big wrench who /requested/ you vote for A lest he begin breaking knee caps mentioned in a sibling post).

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