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Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

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Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#51

Post by omh »

oceanstone wrote: post #45
zanny wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people are in circumstances where those they can't escape from (parents, abusive boyfriends, etc) will physically assult you for voting for the guy they didn't like. In the more general case, you can lose friends not going with the collective choice, and open ballots expose that, which makes more people vote for the guy their friends want rather than what they want to maintain social acceptance.

Those are extreme cases! I hope your family isn't beating you often, for your voting habits.

There's plenty of other cases as well. What about someone who bribes people to vote for them, and can check up on it? Or if your boss tells you who to vote for and threatens to fire you otherwise?

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#52

Post by arnarbi »

oceanstone wrote: post #40

Could it be, that secret ballots are insecure? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot In the US, we officially supported secret ballots in 1892. Still, I wonder if we all found the strength to open up the ballot, if that wouldn't eliminate some of the viability of voting fraud? I'll start, I voted for Obama in 2008 & 2012.

Secrecy of votes is the foundation of the system. Just imagine how many people would be willing to sell their vote if they could prove it to a third party.

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#53

Post by [deleted] »

omh wrote: post #51
oceanstone wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are extreme cases! I hope your family isn't beating you often, for your voting habits.

There's plenty of other cases as well. What about someone who bribes people to vote for them, and can check up on it? Or if your boss tells you who to vote for and threatens to fire you otherwise?

[deleted]

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#54

Post by oceanstone »

arnarbi wrote: post #52
oceanstone wrote: post #40

Could it be, that secret ballots are insecure? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot In the US, we officially supported secret ballots in 1892. Still, I wonder if we all found the strength to open up the ballot, if that wouldn't eliminate some of the viability of voting fraud? I'll start, I voted for Obama in 2008 & 2012.

Secrecy of votes is the foundation of the system. Just imagine how many people would be willing to sell their vote if they could prove it to a third party.

Vote selling is a form of Voting Fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_selling

Secret ballots make it even easier to pull off.

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#55

Post by oceanstone »

omh wrote: post #51
oceanstone wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are extreme cases! I hope your family isn't beating you often, for your voting habits.

There's plenty of other cases as well. What about someone who bribes people to vote for them, and can check up on it? Or if your boss tells you who to vote for and threatens to fire you otherwise?

These are examples of Voting Fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_selling

Secret ballots make it easier to pull off.

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#56

Post by oneandoneis2 »

technimad wrote: post #4

No matter how open the code is. It is extremly hard, if not impossible, to ensure this code is running on the actual systems. E-voting sounds intersting in theory, but in practice it is basically not worth the trouble. It is way more complex than a regular system with ballots and the only gain is that the results can be published sooner.

Actually, E-voting could revolutionalize politics.

Right now, we have to have presidents, prime ministers, even kings; making all the big decisions for us because that was the only practical way.

E-voting makes it possible for the population to be consulted on any major decision. This, IMHO, is the reason it's so unpopular amongst politicians.

Right now in the UK, for instance, MPs get to vote on their own salary increases. Wouldn't it be nice if they were obliged to ask the voters instead?

Recent years have seen several unpopular wars begun by Western countries - if political leaders had been unable to start those wars unless they'd had majority approval from their populace, the world might well be a more peaceful place right now.

E-voting is something with a lot of promise. But if diminishes the power of the people who would have to implement it. So don't expect to see it widespread any time soon.

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#57

Post by mapmeld »

oceanstone wrote: post #54
arnarbi wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secrecy of votes is the foundation of the system. Just imagine how many people would be willing to sell their vote if they could prove it to a third party.

Vote selling is a form of Voting Fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_selling Secret ballots make it even easier to pull off.

For many years in the US, it was easy to do vote-selling because each political party gave their voters a color-coded, one-party ballot.

The secret ballot makes vote selling unreliable, because it's impossible to prove whether someone has voted as promised.

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#58

Post by LinaLauneBaer »

bkmartin wrote: post #47
revelation wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats why any person can act as an observer if they so wish and oversee the person counting your ballot. I can not possibly do the same with a turing machine.

So why can't you be an observer of the sys admin when they install the software. Witness some chain of command that the software has come from an authorized source, meets a digital check-sum and is installed properly. It can then be secured by another party with a two password "lock box" type approach kind of like we use with our crypto system at work that guards our CC processing. There are systems invented and impl…

You have to be very competent to oversee all of this.

How many people can verify a digital check-sum?

In contrast regular people usually have the mental capabilities to count votes.

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#59

Post by prawks »

josephlord wrote: post #2

How does a voter or independent voter know that the code that has been verified is actually running on the machine that they connect to? You have to trust the sys admins. And as we all know: something is trusted if it can break your security policy.

Allow the voter access to an installer/reinstaller which you can check the md5 of?

I'm not a security expert, how effective could that be in providing this kind of verification?

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#60

Post by orf »

oneandoneis2 wrote: post #56
technimad wrote: post #4

No matter how open the code is. It is extremly hard, if not impossible, to ensure this code is running on the actual systems. E-voting sounds intersting in theory, but in practice it is basically not worth the trouble. It is way more complex than a regular system with ballots and the only gain is that the results can be published sooner.

Actually, E-voting could revolutionalize politics. Right now, we have to have presidents, prime ministers, even kings; making all the big decisions for us because that was the only practical way. E-voting makes it possible for the population to be consulted on any major decision. This, IMHO, is the reason it's so unpopular amongst politicians. Right now in the UK, for instance, MPs get to vote on their own salary inc…

Consulting everyone on every major decision isn't the best way to make decisions (who says the majority is right?). Most people wouldn't understand the issues they are voting on and would be heavily swayed by the media.
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