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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

#211

Post by eloff »

M2Ys4U wrote: post #167
koheripbal wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of people actually tabulating the results is still very very small - especially in key swing state districts. You cannot argue much with a public algorithm doing public tabulation, where you can literally follow your vote.

>You cannot argue much with a public algorithm doing public tabulation, where you can literally follow your vote. But that also means the guy with the big wrench can follow your vote and so see whether you voted the way he told you or not, and that allows him to decide whether to smash your kneecaps in. Electronic voting enables corruption.

That's not at all a required feature of electronic voting.

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

#212

Post by eloff »

pwg wrote: post #210
eloff wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

There are ways to provide verifiability without that vulnerability. But since there's no way to prevent the wrench guy standing over your shoulder, I think you could only really solve that problem if you vote in person. If you're doing that I still think blockchain voting is great, but then you should also print out a paper trail and tally that separately. Then you have two overlapping systems with different trust properties and both must be in agreement for the election result to be valid.

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

#213

Post by singron »

the_snooze wrote: post #164
koheripbal wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of people actually tabulating the results is still very very small - especially in key swing state districts. You cannot argue much with a public algorithm doing public tabulation, where you can literally follow your vote.

What do you consider "very very small?" Tabuation is done at the precinct level, and there are many many precincts involved in an election. Also jurisdictions can do risk-limiting audits (RLA) to spot-check that the electronic counts are in line with the results. "Following your vote" is dangerous because it opens up the possibility of at-scale voter intimidation or vote-buying. "Receipt-freeness" is a desirable prop…

Receipts (paper records received after voting) are OK as long as they don't reveal who you voted for. Confusingly, sometimes this is called "receipt-free".

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

#214

Post by the_snooze »

hannasanarion wrote: post #201
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.

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 co…

>But with absentee voting, the votes are still counted by hand.

The verification is manual, but the counting probably isn't. At least in California, absentee (mail) ballots are exactly the same ones you get at the polling place. You put them in an unmarked envelope, which you place inside another envelope with your information and signature.

The counting center verifies the information on the outer envelope and ensures you didn't already vote elsewhere in-person. If it's good, then the inner (unmarked) envelope is taken out and a machine processes the ballot as if you were in the physical precinct.

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

#215

Post by cheph »

atoav wrote: post #72
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…

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…

> So phrased differently, one of the most important properties of any voting systems is that people afterwards can't just call the result into question.

This is a solved problem with in person voting, I would say that is one thing where South Africa has gotten it down quite well.

There is voter ID at the polls with voter registers to ensure only citizens can vote and nobody can vote twice, vote boxes are sealed and only unsealed with observers present from all parties and international observers, there is also observers at the polling stations from all parties, overall there is nothing to dispute and even in one of the most corrupt countries in the world election results are not disputed because everybody knows it would be absurd to dispute.

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

#216

Post by Fjolsvith »

TheHypnotist wrote: post #179
Swenrekcah wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those are solvable (and solved in most western countries). Re. Covid, it would be a simple solution to spread in person voting out a few days. It would be an inconvenience but no need to invent a new system.

You overestimate the current government of the USA.

The federal government doesn't handle vote tallying or polling, so why your comment?

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

#217

Post by RyJones »

pgt wrote: post #27

Maybe this is a dumb idea, but what if for each election we issued a ballot containing a unique, random, sequential prime number to every registered voter? Then, when counting the votes for each candidate we display the running product of all the primes counted for that candidate as a "checksum", or "check product". This retains privacy while allowing individual voters to easily verify that their vote was counted by…

VoteHere.net

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4771264

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

#218

Post by diebeforei485 »

If you were creating a society on Mars, would you use a system of people lining up in-person to vote? Probably not.

Rigged elections have been a thing for a very long time. The shenanigans in Belarus is only the latest example.

Covid-19 will accelerate the inevitable. We're having a mail-in election this year, people will get comfortable voting from home and it's only a matter of time before people start asking why they can't just do it on their phone. I'm excited for blockchain voting.

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

#219

Post by cheph »

foepys wrote: post #2

All blockchain (and electronic for that matter) voting systems are inherently bad because they are not easy to verify. Nothing beats pen and paper in verifiability and ease of use. If done right with many eyes on the ballots, manipulation requires thousands of co-conspirators. The only downside is the slow speed.

> The only downside is the slow speed.

Worth it given how important it is.

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

#220

Post by Fjolsvith »

Touche wrote: post #184
Swenrekcah wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those are solvable (and solved in most western countries). Re. Covid, it would be a simple solution to spread in person voting out a few days. It would be an inconvenience but no need to invent a new system.

You're assuming those in power want to increase enfranchisement.

So neither party wants to increase enfranchisement?
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