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Public trust demands open-source voting systems

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Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#221

Post by _--__--__ »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #173
nostrademons wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm watching him talk about the two key ingredients of an election (anonymity and trust, for those not watching the video) and thinking "We don't have those in U.S. elections". I live in California, where the voting method is vote-by-mail and you sign your ballot . That breaks anonymity right there, plus there's a barcode that matches address and ballot for traceability, so in theory anyone involved in the election p…

Because of the extreme diversity in voting methods in the US (it varies not only by state, but by county within the state) it's impossible to accurately make any generalization about voting in the US. For example, in my parents' county in Wisconsin, you show up at the polling place, they check you off the list of registered voters, and they hand you a ballot with no individual markings at all. Once you finish filling…

Many states require party registration to vote in primary elections, and in states like California the primary is the only election that realistically matters.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#222

Post by ruszki »

bruce511 wrote: post #156
xorcist wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can independently verify the election result, then it does not matter if any of the counts were made using proprietary software. If you can not independently verify election results, what good does published source code do? Elections are a process , not a result.

20 years ago I attended an international conference on electronic voting. There were various papers on the form of elections (not on specific products.) The huge takeaway for me was not the technology (or lack thereof). Ultimately all existing (and proposed) systems have flaws. The key was public trust in the result. The first step to sidestepping democracy is to attack the legitimacy of elections. One can attack the…

World went down on a completely different path. New wave authoritarians want to pretend that there is democracy, and they want to keep up the trust, even when elections are not free or fair at all.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#223

Post by erentz »

hannofcart wrote: post #57
bkummel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True! In The Netherlands, where I live, we still vote on paper ballots. The ballots are counted by hand. The counting is public, anyone can go and observe the counting.

This is in no way intended to be disparaging: there are processes that work within the scale of small European nations that simply won't at larger scales.

The Netherlands is 18m people. Germany is 83m with its MMP system. There are ways to adjust and scale these other systems.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#224

Post by etiennebausson »

hannofcart wrote: post #57
bkummel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True! In The Netherlands, where I live, we still vote on paper ballots. The ballots are counted by hand. The counting is public, anyone can go and observe the counting.

This is in no way intended to be disparaging: there are processes that work within the scale of small European nations that simply won't at larger scales.

France has 68M inhabitants and is on paper ballots (and function identically to Ireland on such matter).

I don't quite understand how a country with a mere 5 times more population is unable to enact the same solution at their 'so much bigger' scale.

And France is spread over more time zone than the U.S., so that argument doesn't work either.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#225

Post by makeitdouble »

okanat wrote: post #170
oivey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s just a signature or stamp, won’t the 7 year old ask why those can’t be faked or forged?

That's an inquisitive 7 year old. Definitely reward them. Let's explain. A good voting system needs to guarantee - Secrecy of who voted for whom - Transparency of everything else. The names of everybody in the process, the process itself and all the statistics should be verifiably public. Being an observer to your polling station must be a guaranteed voter right. Similarly all participating parties must have the righ…

That's a lot to digest for a 7 years old, and you're still brushing over how you do a population survey, count the constituents and how to make that a trustworthy process.

My point: reality is messy and simplicity isn't a guarantee of reliability. The things hat really work in our societies are pragmatic, not simple.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#226

Post by Bender »

Something being open source does not mean anyone has even the slightest clue how it is running. People would have to see a read-only view of the active production run-time in trace/debug in real time to have a clue which of course would not be permitted. All code can be live-patched without leaving a trace by custom firmware or a thumb drive in production to conditionally change behavior on the fly to achieve any means or results. All electronic voting equipment can be tinkered with and any news stories about engineers testifying to congress will be erased for fear of reducing confidence in voting systems. Bribed developers take bigger risks for smaller gains all the time such as wireless front-line support selling or changing SIM information in SIM swaps.

Paper trails on the other hand can be verified and secured physically with chain of custody and proper attestation. Paper output can still be designed to be easy scan, verify and re-tabulate. I would like to see the paper trails scanned and uploaded to a centralized block chain so we can see if one of these things is not like the other. I would also like to see higher definition CCTV cameras monitoring the entire voting process and more of those cameras. That should also be uploaded somewhere they can not be tampered with and if a camera goes offline oopsie doopsie it's all hands on deck. Ballot drop-off boxes and mail in votes need to be outlawed and every state needs voter ID.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#227

Post by xorcist »

harimau777 wrote: post #208
okanat wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an inquisitive 7 year old. Definitely reward them. Let's explain. A good voting system needs to guarantee - Secrecy of who voted for whom - Transparency of everything else. The names of everybody in the process, the process itself and all the statistics should be verifiably public. Being an observer to your polling station must be a guaranteed voter right. Similarly all participating parties must have the righ…

That sounds like a solid system! Thanks for explaining! Is there any way to prevent the observers from knowing who votes? I could see a scenario where a party chooses observers that are likely to intimidate potential voters (e.g. KKK members in a majority black polling station).

Having elections is in no way enough to have a democracy. You also need a functioning justice system and free media. What you describe is not part of the election system but of the justice system.

If the police does not uphold the laws that guarantee just elections, if they allow intimidations or treat citizens differently, or if the military tries to influence election results, then you do not have a democracy.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#228

Post by xorcist »

Areibman wrote: post #198
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each polling station should have representatives from multiple parties as well as independent observers. > how can a constituent know with absolute certainty that their vote was counted The representative of your party plus independent observer said all votes at your polling station were counted. You know both those community members and know them to be generally honorable. Ergo your vote was counted. > every voter i…

To rephrase: "You should trust political volunteers." Surely we could do better? Testimony doesn't assuage my concerns that the process may not be tamper proof.

Hopefully one of those volunteers is yourself.

You do not have to watch every district, every election, every time. But given that enough people do it, at least once, at least in their own district, then it is easy to see why the system as a whole is trustworthy.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#229

Post by dragonwriter »

_--__--__ wrote: post #221
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the extreme diversity in voting methods in the US (it varies not only by state, but by county within the state) it's impossible to accurately make any generalization about voting in the US. For example, in my parents' county in Wisconsin, you show up at the polling place, they check you off the list of registered voters, and they hand you a ballot with no individual markings at all. Once you finish filling…

Many states require party registration to vote in primary elections, and in states like California the primary is the only election that realistically matters.

These are combined as if they go together, but:

(1) California does not require party preference to vote in primaries generally;

(2) California primaries are not (except for the Presidential primary) party nominating elections, they are essentially the open first-round of a two-round general election. (Basically, it is majority/runoff except that there is always a runoff even with a first-round majority.)

(3) For the Presidential primary, California does not require party registration to vote, but does prohibit party-registered voters from voting in cross-party primaries; it is the party (not the state) the decides whether their primaries are open to “no party preference" voters (of the six parties with permanent ballot access in California, the Republican, Green, and Peace & Freedom parties do not allow NPP voters in their presidential primaries, while the Democratic, Libertarian, and American Independent parties do allow them.)

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#230

Post by makeitdouble »

bkummel wrote: post #33

I live in The Netherlands. We are a reasonable modern country, where a lot of things are automated, even in governmental organizations. However, voting is still done on paper ballots. And those paper ballots are then counted manually. This has huge benefits. There always is a paper trail. It’s hard to manipulate votes without getting caught. If there’s any doubt about a certain district’s results, the votes can be re…

You should acknowledge the tradeoff: physical presence is the condition.

It might not happen much in the Netherlands, but for instance making it so fewer people reach voting stations is a classic move. That's one of the failure mode avoided by the other means.

Voting ballots straight getting lost/destroyed is another failure mode, and yes it happens more than we want it to.

The sheer time to get the vote counted is also an issue, and we've seen voter sentiment shifting while the vote is still ongoing, with the media reporting directly influencing the outcome.

It could still be the saner tradeoff in the end, but it's misleading to present it as some ideal or inherently reliable solution.

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