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Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

belenios.org

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Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#231

Post by Timon3 »

kleton wrote: post #161
paavope wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Did you try very hard? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXAp8My7Js

I've only watched the first minute (due to the presentation style), if there is better evidence later please link to it directly - but the supposed evidence does not show anybody "shoving 100+ ballots into absentee boxes". It seems to be maybe 10, at most 15 ballots, which is an absolutely realistic number for somebody dropping off ballots for their whole family.

Did you mean to send a different video? Or are you deliberately misrepresenting evidence to support your position?

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#232

Post by sputr »

We did something similar with eglasovanje.si (currently only in Slovenian). Our idea is that secret online elections do not need a technological solution, but a procedural one.

We wrote a whole bunch on the topic here (again, use automatic translation) https://eglasovanje.si/vsi-clanki

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#233

Post by eru »

maxdamantus wrote: post #176
eru wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if lots of experts come out that way, including people you already trust otherwise? Eg assume both Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds etc say they have reviewed the code?

Then I would ask why the system they're reviewing is different to any other which is meant to be guaranteed-secure (or check that others are asking those questions). We're told every year or so about some SecureBoot vulnerability, which presumably involves code that has been reviewed. The system doesn't only include the code directly related to voting. It also includes OSes and everything involved in the infrastructu…

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41158861

Sending private keys (by mail or any other way) does sound bad, so the specific system mentioned in the article might not be worth bothering with.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#234

Post by baobabKoodaa »

somerandomqaguy wrote: post #166
crazygringo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially if it's shrowded behind inscruable crypto mumbo-jumbo HTTPS is shrouded behind inscrutable crypto, but nearly everyone trusts it with their credit card details. Voting doesn't have to be any different. The implementation details don't matter, as long as there are easy-to-understand verification concepts such as receiving a "tracking number" for your vote that is then easy to see it was counted. And then…

>HTTPS is shrouded behind inscrutable crypto, but nearly everyone trusts it with their credit card details. Credit card via HTTPS has a second layer to it though, the accountings/auditing layer. You can't achieve that with secret ballot voting without throwing out the secret part.

Yes you can, and that's the whole point of "verifiable" voting systems like OP.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#235

Post by gloosx »

Personally I think the biggest flaw in any online voting system is that a network-connected computing device cannot be trusted by any party. Email inbox can not be trusted or verified. Such a simplistic online voting would never stand a chance against malicious actors who are somewhat more sophisticated and creative.

The future of paper voting can be something like a quick fingertip-actuated DNA sequencer which will imprint your DNA hash right into the paper ballot, but it will never be an effective system on top of the current network architecture. You have to show up personally to vote. Like can you imagine voting with SMS or something? This is complete non-sense.

However I think this tool would work pretty good on a smaller community scale.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#237

Post by flanked-evergl »

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.

It's not hard to make electronic voting as tamperproof and reliable as paper ballots, it's impossible.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#238

Post by flanked-evergl »

thinkloop wrote: post #76
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 b…

Blockchains are only verifiable and reliable in so far as everything that exists exits in the blockchain. As soon as it interfaces with the real world you start hitting the Oracle problem [1]. That you are not aware of this and still push for even considering it as an alternative to paper ballots is part of the problem. We need constitutional amendments that ban all forms of electronic voting in every democracy.

[1]: https://chain.link/education-hub/oracle-problem

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#239

Post by V__ »

fny wrote: post #84
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

What if you want your citizens to be able to vote on policy matters in real time to make things more democratic? It would be too burdensome with pencil and paper. Alternatives are useful.

Talk about any issue you know a lot about to someone who knows nothing about it, and you will quickly understand why more direct democracy is an horrible idea.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#240

Post by flanked-evergl »

6r17 wrote: post #150

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.

The biggest problem with anything blockchain relating to the real world is the oracle problem. The benefits that blockchain offers are only applicable to things that exist on the blockchain, and people don't exist on the blockchain.

https://chain.link/education-hub/oracle-problem

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