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Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

belenios.org

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Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#71

Post by mariusor »

cqqxo4zV46cp wrote: post #25

As usual, good old fashioned pen and paper is worlds better than this or any other attempt by overzealous tech people with a hammer looking to hit this particular nail.

I think that stamp and paper ballots are actually hampering the democratic process. There are many downsides of physical ballots: the need to physically be at one location, having to set aside a day to vote, lack of interest for younger demographics... all of these could go away with a good electronic ballot.

The more people can vote, the better the democratic process will be. Making it easier for _everyone_ to vote should be a priority.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#72

Post by ziofill »

thepra wrote: post #43
exabrial wrote: post #31

Personally I love the idea of a fully verifiable election. I do the the current election protocol my county uses is pretty good: you present id in one room, they check your eligibility, then you’re given an anonymous ticket, in another room you vote using said ticket, and get a receipt. You can see your but counted online using said receipt. There are two problems with this: 1. You can’t verify extra or in eligible v…

Please forget about showing up physically, it's noble to think of "you really care" but in places with organized crime they have ways to count if those that depend on them come and vote for their "right" choice. It has been estimated that around 20-30% of IRL votes in Italy follow the organized crimes choice.

Do you have a source for this 20-30%?

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#73

Post by mariusor »

yoavm wrote: post #68
sanbor wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting with pencil and paper is easy, everybody can participate in the voting process and understand it. Also, paper and pencil are more sustainable (can be made from recycled paper and trees, which you can plant, as opposed of mining minerals, shipping, and maintaining thoudsands of computers, with batteries in case there is a power outage).

everyone _that can make it to the ballot_ can participate. also most people have computers already, so you don't need to ship anything. from a sustainable perspective, I'm assuming it's better to have everyone stay home instead of travel to the nearest ballot, and just use their anyway-always-on device.

Also "everyone that can be arsed" to make it to the ballot. Which is a notorious problem that democracies are faced with today. Younger demographics don't get involved considering the election process too much of a chore in comparison with the outcomes.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#74

Post by NorthTheRock »

hereme888 wrote: post #62
cqqxo4zV46cp wrote: post #25

As usual, good old fashioned pen and paper is worlds better than this or any other attempt by overzealous tech people with a hammer looking to hit this particular nail.

Except when mail-in ballots with the same signature and handwriting send in tens of votes each for unqualified "voters"/dead people. So I'd amend your statement to "pen and paper, with official ID and in-person verification".

In the US, there's no evidence that this happens - just a bunch of media narratives and failed lawsuits after the 2020 election that couldn't provide an ounce of proof when push came to shove.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#75

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

mariusor wrote: post #59
tossandthrow wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you need to ensure that the vote is given without anyone interfering.

I think a better measure against this is not physical presence, but allowing one individual to exercise their vote any number of times until the ballot period ends. This means that a malevolent entity that wants to influence votes needs to sequester the voter(s) for the whole ballot period, which is vastly more difficult than putting a gun to someone's head for a single vote. Executing this at scale so the effect can…

I actually love this. I always cast my vote on election day because I want to have the most information.

What if I vote early, then the person I voted for has a major scandal the day before the polls close?

Being able to change one's vote would remove all the disincentive to voting early or whenever it's most convenient for you.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#76

Post by thinkloop »

oakesm9 wrote: post #14

Tom Scott videos which cover why electronic voting is a bad idea: https://youtu.be/w3_0x6oaDmI?si=kGDOYOb_RiiQaZ3u https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs?si=YdQgNC4uUZDUDbab

The criticisms in the videos do not appropriately counter the solution in the linked article. Scott's superficial discussion of blockchain at the end misses the entire ethos of blockchain. We agree that servers, devices, software and networks cannot be trusted, and possibly never will be. So we ignore them and instead rely solely on the output. Every stakeholder audits the final official "blockchain" (for lack of a better term) using their own tools, engineers, and techniques to verify its credibility. I'm not claiming that this has been solved, although Belenios seems damn close. But it definitely seems conceivable that we can one day come up with a functional scheme that distrusts the machines as a first principle. What specific problems do you see with the Belenios attempt?

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#77

Post by somerandomqaguy »

mariusor wrote: post #54
oakesm9 wrote: post #14

Tom Scott videos which cover why electronic voting is a bad idea: https://youtu.be/w3_0x6oaDmI?si=kGDOYOb_RiiQaZ3u https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs?si=YdQgNC4uUZDUDbab

Something being hard does not mean that it should not be tried. There are methods for preventing all the issues Tom Scott raises.

Not really, one of the goals in contradictory to the stated goal of an electronic voting system of voter verifiability.

The problem is that when you can verify that your own vote has been counted a certain way, that can be used to influence the vote. $100 Amazon gift card if you verify that you have voted Purple. Lack of verifiability has been a feature to prevent a voter from willingly participating in manipulation.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#78

Post by debugnik »

nhod wrote: post #61
debugnik wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we don't vote on complex political decisions; we vote on our representatives, people whose interests allegedly align with ours, which is much simpler to understand, and delegate the complex decisions to them according to their qualifications. Whether the candidates themselves, all of them, can be trusted is a much more serious problem with democracy, I think, than "dumb" people affecting the vote.

this depends on where you live. there are many places in which people directly vote on complex issues. people in California voted to ban gay marriage. people in the UK voted on the incredibly complex topic of Brexit. dumb people vote for dumb things, whether issues or candidates.

Well, referendums are kind of direct democracy, so yes, I agree those are at increased risk of dumb voting. But the actual problem there, to me, is such complex decisions being put to referendum in the first place; specially to a simple majority vote.

Also, gay marriage isn't really a complex issue: Even the dumbest person understood the consequences of banning it, they just were that sadistic. Agreed on Brexit though.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#79

Post by rayiner »

mariusor wrote: post #65
rayiner wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. The system must be something a bottom 15 percentile person can understand and doesn’t think is magic. https://youtu.be/DUZa7qIGAdo?si=RDsgH2uIKb8k7ueG

My opinion is that IT literacy is increasing fast enough that in the near future a significant percentage would understand enough about electronic ballots as people understand now about the paper ballots. And I think you're over estimating how many people "understand" paper ballots. Yes, they know the basics, but the details on how votes are counted, validated and secured might be a bit too much for a random Joe.

IT literacy is not increasing; if anything it's going down. My wife's Gen Z siblings grew up with iPads and think computers are magic.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#80

Post by mariusor »

somerandomqaguy wrote: post #77
mariusor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something being hard does not mean that it should not be tried. There are methods for preventing all the issues Tom Scott raises.

Not really, one of the goals in contradictory to the stated goal of an electronic voting system of voter verifiability. The problem is that when you can verify that your own vote has been counted a certain way, that can be used to influence the vote. $100 Amazon gift card if you verify that you have voted Purple. Lack of verifiability has been a feature to prevent a voter from willingly participating in manipulation.

I have a different comment where I'm stating that one way to counter the influencing of votes is through allowing the voter to cast their ballot any number of times until it ends.

I can think of a method that allows a voter to decrypt the ballot payload only coupled with one or more keys from the parties that organized it. Ie, if I as an individual want to see the vote, I can't. But if I suspect my vote has been tampered with I can ask the organizers to audit it, and with both our keys, I can see the payload. (This is just back of the napkin theorizing, it might have other issues)

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