Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

and yeah, I've been an election observer a couple of times, witnessing democracy deterioration in Russia proper, I have to say that they cheat on _every_ level, with ridiculous redundancy, and in many cases without any noticeable coordination. All it takes is to make elections in municipal organizations like schools and hospitals and just by convenience assign bureaucrats and other government paid officials (like teachers!) to manage voting districts. Those guys are very well trained to understand unofficial demand for "results". Otherwise you know, next time funding would be lower or day to day work would become harder.

> It's enough for the average voter to trust that some other people - independent experts - are able to verify the vote.

I don't agree. This is plausible within a coesive electorate, but it feels like moving the problem. What guarantees that the experts are trusted by the voters? And more importantly, assuming that at some point the system (experts) is trusted, how is the trust in the voting system retained over time? (e.g. in case of disagreement over the results)

I have argued in another thread like GP that because the ultimate purpose of voting systems is to collectively take decisions, and because disagreements are very common when deciding, the system needs to be able to justify itself to retain the electorate's trust. Otherwise it will eventually be replaced by a different voting system (or tyranny).

A proxy for this is of course simplicity. If the voting system is clearly understood by everyone, it is more easy to persuade a losing party that the outcome is correct. Conversely, if a voting system needs high expertise to be understood, it is more difficult to bring everyone to agree on the result. So the latter is less robust than the former, especially if the disagreement is over a result that is close to a tie. A self-correcting mechanism is important to keep the voting system in place.

In appendix B of your thesis you raise an interesting point I had not considered.

> As an extreme example, consider the case where a voting system lacks verifiability, is trusted by the public, and is compromised by a foreign superpower: the people have lost their democracy and do not even realize it. Compare that to a hypothetical case where a voting system has perfect verifiability, thus can not be compromised (without triggering a new election etc.), and, for whatever reason, is not trusted by the people.

> Clearly, the outcome where people are suspicious of a perfectly functioning voting system is superior to the outcome where people are blindly trusting a compromised voting system. We hope that this outlandish example is enough to support our argument that verifiability is more important than trust.

The external threat is a very valid point but I do not think that this is sufficient to absolutely conclude that verifiability is more important than trust. If the system is rigged, it may eventually displease the electorate to the point that it will eventually be replaced.

Unless, the rigged system doesn't displease the electorate and is essentially a hidden benevolent dictator, which would be an interesting situation. Only in that case verifiability could unambiguously be more important.

Non-digital systems have claims of fake ballots being inserted all the time. I don't think the answer to people being suspicious of digital systems is to abandon them. It's to either disprove their suspicion or add controls so they become disproven.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ballot+stuffing+2020

https://www.google.com/search?q=ballot+stuffing+2016

https://www.google.com/search?q=ballot+stuffing+2012

Eh, there's voter fraud in the US. Some of it is very ironic too [1].

> He voted by absentee ballot and again in person on election day but claimed in social media posts that he did it to show how insecure absentee voting is. He pleaded guilty to one of the charges and was sentenced to 6 months of probation and ordered to complete 40 hours of community service and pay $500 in restitution. [1] [2]

However, I didn't see any cases for 10+ votes as a deceased person for 2020. There is somebody that voted 26 times using alive people though [3].

The overall moral is though, there is fraud and it does get caught. When you think there's "widespread" fraud that isn't being detected it ends up always being a simple explanation (i.e. people lived in the state at the time of the election and moved afterwards).

[1]: https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=Al...

[2]: herit.ag/3WpMOb9

[3]: herit.ag/3yE3mD3

Great, so their spouses can just lock them in to prevent them from voting.

Or simpler, leave them with the kids (nobody else to watch them).

Disabled people must love this idea, too. And sick people. And elderly.

I think we could take this a notch further, and put the voting bin on top of a rock you have to climb.

Everyone sees people climbing the rock (ensures no vote staffing!), and once there, nobody can see who you vote for.

One person at a time, obviously, and if anyone is overstaying their welcome, the next person can simply push them off the rock.

It's actually a feature, not a bug, because it ensures that only really motivated people vote.