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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

#371

Post by sebmellen »

mhh__ wrote: post #351
nathias wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes we do, everyone has them. There is an unimaginable difference between a system where you can have a referendum on =X once per year and it costs 10mil or a system where you can have a referendum every second and it costs ~0. We can then vote for issues directly instead of having people that may or may not (as is most often the case) vote in a way they signal they would before elected.

Referenda are a terrible way of governing. Think about Brexit - bad faith arguing from one side, constant lying, no plan about how to actually leave, and then a protest vote pushed it last 50% so now we have to leave on a no deal because it's an impossible policy to do in a few years. A referendum is OK for deep constitutional issues, but policy should not be decided by referenda especially vague ones. Policy is also…

And yet, the option to take part in a series of referendums works splendidly in Switzerland [1]. This is also what I've anecdotally observed from living in Switzerland.

Perhaps, if the option to vote on an issue were presented often, people would have time to change their minds and would become more involved in the voting process. The reason a second referendum on Brexit wasn't held was because it was deemed infeasible. Not so with electronic voting.

1: http://direct-democracy.geschichte-schweiz.ch/switzerlands-s...

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

#372

Post by fsh »

sebmellen wrote: post #371
mhh__ wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Referenda are a terrible way of governing. Think about Brexit - bad faith arguing from one side, constant lying, no plan about how to actually leave, and then a protest vote pushed it last 50% so now we have to leave on a no deal because it's an impossible policy to do in a few years. A referendum is OK for deep constitutional issues, but policy should not be decided by referenda especially vague ones. Policy is also…

And yet, the option to take part in a series of referendums works splendidly in Switzerland [1]. This is also what I've anecdotally observed from living in Switzerland. Perhaps, if the option to vote on an issue were presented often, people would have time to change their minds and would become more involved in the voting process. The reason a second referendum on Brexit wasn't held was because it was deemed infeasib…

I would argue that the Swiss system only "works" because the people reject the vast majority of referendums and let the elected parliament do the actual policy work. In total, only 22 have been successful since 1891. Most of them were on populist issues (often fueled by xenophobia) and had little to no influence on everyday life.

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

#373

Post by sebmellen »

fsh wrote: post #372
sebmellen wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, the option to take part in a series of referendums works splendidly in Switzerland [1]. This is also what I've anecdotally observed from living in Switzerland. Perhaps, if the option to vote on an issue were presented often, people would have time to change their minds and would become more involved in the voting process. The reason a second referendum on Brexit wasn't held was because it was deemed infeasib…

I would argue that the Swiss system only "works" because the people reject the vast majority of referendums and let the elected parliament do the actual policy work. In total, only 22 have been successful since 1891. Most of them were on populist issues (often fueled by xenophobia) and had little to no influence on everyday life.

That is simply not true. There have been hundreds of successful referendums, many on non-xenophobic issues, and what's the problem with populism? The point of a democracy is to be populist!

Take 2006:

- Financial aid to new EU members, 2006-11-26, overall result: YES

- Standardized extra pay for families, 2006-11-26, overall result: YES

----

> How many referendums are successfully passed?

> The Swiss have been called on to vote around 306 times since 1848 for a total of 617 proposals. In total, 299 proposals have been passed while 334 have been rejected.

From: https://www.thelocal.ch/20190517/why-does-switzerland-have-s...

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

#374

Post by maxfan8 »

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…

There are a lot of comments here, but for anyone who’s looking for a well thought out implementation of publicly verifiable ballots, I suggest taking a look at Scantegrity [1]. Gotta love all the brilliant minds who worked (and implemented in the US!) it (David Chaum, Richard Carback, Jeremy Clark, Aleksander Essex, Stefan Popoveniuc, Ronald L. Rivest, Peter Y. A. Ryan, Emily Shen, and Alan T. Sherman)

[1]: http://scantegrity.com/papers/ScantegrityII-EVT.pdf

Note: They published several papers on the implementation and design of the Scantegrity system. I just linked to one of them (the most recent I believe).

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

#375

Post by diffeomorphism »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #124
diffeomorphism wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid? Waiting in long lines? Not having votes on a holiday like in civilized countries?

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.

> it would be a simple solution to spread in person voting out a few days.

Don't you need volunteers to sit at all polling stations for all this time? So your simple solution is "we just need five times as many volunteers" and that at a time where all this contact is risky and where the president is claiming elections are fraudulent? That sounds difficult.

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

#376

Post by nathias »

mhh__ wrote: post #351
nathias wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes we do, everyone has them. There is an unimaginable difference between a system where you can have a referendum on =X once per year and it costs 10mil or a system where you can have a referendum every second and it costs ~0. We can then vote for issues directly instead of having people that may or may not (as is most often the case) vote in a way they signal they would before elected.

Referenda are a terrible way of governing. Think about Brexit - bad faith arguing from one side, constant lying, no plan about how to actually leave, and then a protest vote pushed it last 50% so now we have to leave on a no deal because it's an impossible policy to do in a few years. A referendum is OK for deep constitutional issues, but policy should not be decided by referenda especially vague ones. Policy is also…

ok so you're not a fan of democracy, but I am, but thats a different argument to have

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

#377

Post by luckylion »

pinkfoot wrote: post #255
pwg wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is coercion really a threat on a large scale in the US No, largely because of the secret vote and the fact that there is no way anyone can verify how "you" voted after the fact. So you can lie to the thug threatening you with a wrench that you voted for "candidate A" and the thug has no way to know otherwise. > But if the onl way to know my vote is to have my random identifier, if I dispose of my random identifier,…

>No, largely because of the secret vote and the fact that there is no way anyone can verify how "you" voted after the fact. So you can lie to the thug threatening you with a wrench that you voted for "candidate A" and the thug has no way to know otherwise. Sadly, the thug also knows this. But what the thug (=ruling party) does know is whether an entire voting district votes for the opposition. Then they come down har…

> Sadly, the thug also knows this. But what the thug (=ruling party) does know is whether an entire voting district votes for the opposition.

It's not so much about the ruling party - if they want to steal the vote, they can just just send an officer into the booth with you that makes sure you're not cheating.

It's more about those that don't have that ability, e.g. religious groups, families, social circles. That's why ballot selfies are sometimes outlawed and generally strongly discouraged: if it's illegal and punishable to prove to third parties how you voted, you have plausible deniability for why you can't produce proof.

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

#378

Post by Swenrekcah »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #375
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.

> it would be a simple solution to spread in person voting out a few days. Don't you need volunteers to sit at all polling stations for all this time? So your simple solution is "we just need five times as many volunteers" and that at a time where all this contact is risky and where the president is claiming elections are fraudulent? That sounds difficult.

Yeah, I meant simple, not easy in the current environment. Proper distancing and masking is relatively easy and just pay the workers a bit and everyone is happy.

I'm just saying holding fair elections is a solved problem. People should hold their representatives accountable to use the tried and tested methods.

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

#379

Post by Znafon »

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…

It doesn't work: let's take 4 people and they vote for two choices "1" or "2".

I cheat when I give people their random numbers: A gets 5, B gets 5, C gets 7, D gets 11.

Now they all cast their vote: A -> 1 B -> 1 C -> 2 D -> 2

Let's tally the votes, the result for choice 1 is 5 and the result for choice 2 is 77.

A checks that its vote has been counted 5%5 == 0 so it's good. B checks that its vote has been counted 5%5 == 0 so it's good. C checks that its vote has been counted 77%7 == 0 so it's good. D checks that its vote has been counted 77%11 == 0 so it's good.

For everybody the result appears to be one vote for choice 1, 2 votes for choice 2 and 1 abstention, your scheme does not detect any wrongdoing here.

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

#380

Post by fwip »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #362
fwip wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signature verification only really matters if you have several ballots purporting to be from the same person. Otherwise, they usually don't bother checking the signature. How do you propose to do user authentication more securely on your phone? Keep in mind that several people may have access to this phone, including spouses and children.

You don't live in California then: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/california-rejected-1000... Also kids can fill out a mailed ballot as well, so that is a double standard.

I only bring it up because they suggested that they had a verification method in mind better than signatures.

A kid can access the paper ballot or the phone, for sure. The kid might be able to convincingly forge their parents' signature. They can almost certainly do whatever "e-verification" that diebeforei485 had in mind.

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