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Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

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Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#141

Post by baggy_trough »

evantbyrne wrote: post #92
baggy_trough wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I am located, there are ballot boxes literally on the side of the road, and we have universal absentee balloting. Anyone who can acquire ballots, perhaps from non interested voters, or those who can be pressured, can submit ballots and there would be no feasible way to know. Election day, in person secret voting, with voter ID is the way.

The absentee voting process is still audited at every step. They even have observer areas in the ballot printing facilities now. How would a party ever subvert the process that exists to stuff ballots at any scale?

Control and visibility of absentee ballots (in my state, all of them) is completely missing between mailing and drop-off. That is how.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#142

Post by aziaziazi »

mixmax wrote: post #127
thepra wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

since you have to be alone in the voting booth and your vote is anonymous it can't be bought. You can say that you voted for X, but vote for Y and noone will ever be able to tell.

In France vote choice are made by placing a predefined paper in an envelope. You enter the place, present an ID, take and envelope plus zero/one/several/all papers, go in the alone room to fill the envelope with the paper of your choice. You can take zero papers because some organiser will send them prior by post but it’s not always the case.

How does it work in Italie? I can picture easely how someone in the paper room can put pressure on you to only take one paper.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#143

Post by paavope »

shrubble wrote: post #111
evantbyrne wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust is a social challenge, not a technological one. It is effectively impossible to stuff ballot boxes at scale in the US, but a large number of people still believe the last presidential election was stolen.

You literally have video evidence from 2020 of people driving up with their cars and shoving 100+ ballots into absentee boxes; and you wrote the above with a straight face?

No, I haven’t seen evidence of that, and a quick googling for “2020 us ballot stuffing” doesn’t show me such

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#144

Post by matheusmoreira »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #136
atoav wrote: post #119

One important thing about any voting system – digital or not – is that it has to be good at producing agreeable consent . That means bitter, betrayed and hurt (but reasonable/democratic!) losing parties need to be able to say: yeah we accept the result because we are confident in the outcome of the election. This is something all digital systems are really bad at, even if everything is readable and verifiable, unless…

Disagree. It's enough for the average voter to trust that some other people - independent experts - are able to verify the vote. Not everyone needs to be an expert at anything. I wrote more about this trust aspect in the appendix of my thesis on voting: https://attejuvonen.fi/thesis

It's not enough. It's not enough at all. Experts are easily compromised.

The system by which power is transferred from the people to representatives needs to be literally self-evident. Any system that the "average voter" cannot understand should be literally unconstitutional. Deviating from this puts the results of all elections in doubt. People will question the results, and they will have a point because the system is not actually verifiable and trustworthy to the average person and therefore they have no reason to accept the results. If you're lucky you'll end up with numerous political prisoners at the end of the whole process.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#145

Post by mcny »

> The account creation failed because the password is too weak (it is too simplistic/systematic). Please try again with a different one.

What does it want in a password? Would be nice if it actually listed out the requirements from the get go.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#146

Post by thegabriele »

actionfromafar wrote: post #129
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It works like this in Sweden.

For all Kinds of public elections? I would love to read more. Thanks

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#147

Post by jimhefferon »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #136
atoav wrote: post #119

One important thing about any voting system – digital or not – is that it has to be good at producing agreeable consent . That means bitter, betrayed and hurt (but reasonable/democratic!) losing parties need to be able to say: yeah we accept the result because we are confident in the outcome of the election. This is something all digital systems are really bad at, even if everything is readable and verifiable, unless…

Disagree. It's enough for the average voter to trust that some other people - independent experts - are able to verify the vote. Not everyone needs to be an expert at anything. I wrote more about this trust aspect in the appendix of my thesis on voting: https://attejuvonen.fi/thesis

My reading of the news is that in the US (and that I can see, in many places) a lot of people have been convinced not to believe experts.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#148

Post by rcxdude »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #136
atoav wrote: post #119

One important thing about any voting system – digital or not – is that it has to be good at producing agreeable consent . That means bitter, betrayed and hurt (but reasonable/democratic!) losing parties need to be able to say: yeah we accept the result because we are confident in the outcome of the election. This is something all digital systems are really bad at, even if everything is readable and verifiable, unless…

Disagree. It's enough for the average voter to trust that some other people - independent experts - are able to verify the vote. Not everyone needs to be an expert at anything. I wrote more about this trust aspect in the appendix of my thesis on voting: https://attejuvonen.fi/thesis

Yes, but then all that's needed to attack the voting system is to trot out your own experts that voice disagreement. Without the means to assess the system for themselves, voters will lose trust in it. Especially in this day and age, when trust in institutions and expects in general is extremely low. (Heck, this attack already works to some extent with the current, extremely transparent system of ballots)

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#149

Post by codesnik »

oivey wrote: post #134
codesnik wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

happened in annexed parts of Ukraine during "referendum"

Source on that? That was a crooked vote, but it doesn’t really make sense for the Russians to send people door-to-door threatening people to send in coerced absentee ballots. I assume they instead did the more normal things of local voter intimidation, outright not counting, and lying. If your government doesn’t want to follow democracy you’re fucked either way. No need for armed gunman to make you vote at gunpoint.

just door to door "vote at home" canvassing with two guys armed with AK. I wonder how many people assumed nobody would check where the tick went on the ballot. There were videos.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#150

Post by 6r17 »

Did anyone think of blockchain for a voting system ? I had a feeling it would be useful in this scenario as anyone could actually check it's own vote and the outcome. However reading comments here I may be delusionnal in regards to the requirements of such technology.
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