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To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

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Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#111

Post by toyg »

wiz21c wrote: post #95
TeMPOraL wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With so many links in the chain, it's my opinion that it's unreasonable to expect them all to be processed by people. It won't scale and I'm not convinced that it's that much safer anyway. I think the main argument for physical voting is that it's much safer precisely because it doesn't scale well - and so attacks against it don't scale well either. The manpower requirements buy you security. > As painful as it is,…

>>> I also agree with the people who point out that inserting electronic systems destroys that transparency (too easy to hack, too complex for general population to inspect). Spot on. Democratic process means "owned by people". So the voting system must be able to be run in the hands of the people. Hence the necessity to have it in the form of a simple technology such as pen/paper. Moreover, having the votes counted…

> having the votes counted in some hours instead of a night doesn't make a big difference, considering the time that is needed for example, to form a government

Yeah, in the US it takes 2 months to get the new President actually in the White House, no matter how quick votes are counted. They can easily spare a day or two to count everything three times over, the country will not go to the dogs in the meanwhile.

Ironically, timings are much more imperative in Europe, where electronic voting is less popular. Maybe because multi-party governments often require weeks of haggling, so a few extra hours counting votes are not particularly important.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#112

Post by maxerickson »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #80

Why is it that electronic voting is so vehemently opposed here on HN and by many technologists in general when virtually every other existentially vital system they rely on is run electronically?

The cost of disruption is extremely high for voting, for pretty much everyone.

For other systems, a disruption is just inconvenient for most people. Like if I can't use my credit card for a day, I don't care (of course this may be of more consequence for some people). Same thing with a power outage (and people that need it can have a backup for grid power; how do you have a backup for legitimate governance?).

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#113

Post by specialist »

grondilu wrote: post #103
danirod wrote: post #3

Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.

I'd rather say it's a good idea but it also is a technical problem that is not yet convincingly solved. It is clear though that open source by itself is not a solution, for the very reason you mention (how can one be sure about what code is running on a machine one doesn't own?). That being said, from times to times articles show up about someone who claimed to have invented a viable solution. So we should not diss t…

"Eventually someone will find a solution."

First define the problem.

I demand the Australian Ballot: private voting, public counting.

After studing this extensively, I believe there is no way to digitize elections and preserve the Austalian Ballot. Because there is no digital equivalent of the physical secure one-way hash (shuffle) of dropping ballots into a box.

Any crypto- blocko- based system has to design for the whole election. Not just the voting. Including pollbooks, which record when ballots are issued to voters. Including precinct-based election counts, because every single precinct gets a different ballot (say 500 voters).

Maybe someone will prove me wrong. Cool. Then show me. The burden of proof is one them, not me. Otherwise, stop wasting everyone's time with technophilia sideshows. We've got real democracy with real work to do.

---

Alternately, any proposal has to replace the Australian Ballot with something new. Some ideas which would simplify the problem space:

- replace winner takes all with Approval Voting;

- issue separate ballots for federal, state, county, and local elections;

- decide that time-boxed privacy, where the secret ballot is preserved until an election is certified and then made public, is sufficient

- supplant our current loose voter ID regiment some kinda of U2F futuretech.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#114

Post by maxerickson »

richardknop wrote: post #100
Accacin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, studies shown that having an ID didn't change much. Plus, they already can! Commonwealth citizens can vote in UK elections pretty much as soon as they arrive.

I question the results of these studies. I think it's very difficult to measure empirically how many people are cheating if it is not required to have voter ID / some sort of proof of your identity when voting.

Have you read the unnamed studies?

Presumably at least a few of them anticipate the easy problems and design a methodology appropriate to dealing with them.

For instance, if voter ID is highly effective, you'd expect much higher rates of double votes under a given registration in places that don't require it (unless the cheaters are masters of anticipating registrants that aren't going to vote).

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#115

Post by blackkettle »

No. To protect voting, don't use software. Everyone needs to be able to _understand_ as well as be able to verify that they successfully voted.

Besides the issues with what software the machine is actually running, most people cannot comprehend or understand that software - even if it is open source. That is not acceptable for an open democratic society, or to sustaining it.

In this particular situation it should not be necessary to rely on an expert to explain whether the vote counting mechanism is reliable. This only adds to the problem of unreliable or scheming officials - it doesn't improve anything in terms of transparency.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#116

Post by geekamongus »

richardknop wrote: post #54
geekamongus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most fraud other than most primitive attempts by idiots goes unnoticed. You know this how, exactly?

It is my personal opinion. I think it's logical that it is easier to fraudulently vote if you don't need a voter ID.

It is also logical that voter fraud isn't necessarily an outcome of having no voter ID.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#117

Post by dghf »

richardknop wrote: post #51
dghf wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK seems to manage OK (ID is only required in Northern Ireland). 2015 saw 37 allegations of personation out of 51.4 million votes cast ( https://www.ncpolitics.uk/2016/12/how-big-a-problem-is-votin... ).

Yes. My point would be allegations of personation is a meaningless number. Because if there is no voter ID you would not get many of these allegations either way.

Only if those perpetrating this kind of fraud somehow knew who wasn't going to bother voting, otherwise you'd have large numbers of people turning up to vote only to discover that someone had already voted in their name.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#118

Post by creaghpatr »

Iv wrote: post #68
danirod wrote: post #3

Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.

Came here to say that. Transparent voting boxes, ballots in envelopes, manual redundant counting done by people, usually voter who were nicely asked if they can come help back in the evening. That's what we use in France, you get the official result a few hours after the closing of the voting stations. The whole process is watchable, from the sealing of the box the morning to the count in the end and parties send obs…

About the author of the article: R. James Woolsey is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Sums it up.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#119

Post by _jal »

octalmage wrote: post #72
pjmorris wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is that you don't just have to convince somebody (a security expert) that the system is trustworthy, you have to convince everyone (voters) that the system is trustworthy. Anything more complicated than paper ballots counted in public will leave room for doubt.

Paper ballots leave a lot of room for doubt in my mind. How you can you recount the ballots and come up with a different number? This shouldn't be possible, but it happens all the time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_recount Thinking out loud here, how about a blockchain based solution? Each user gets a new address, and that address is printed on a receipt after you vote. This way you can verify your vote a…

If you're concerned with inaccurate recounts, you should be more concerned with systems for which recounts are not possible at all. Like the US'es closed-source black-box voting computers that are currently in use.

Putting aside theoretic possibilities, at this point in time approximately nobody is going to trust a blockchain system. Between "Isn't that the stuff you use to by drugs online?" ignorance and the all-too-real history of everything that has happened with Ethereum to date, that just won't fly.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#120

Post by Spivak »

vertex-four wrote: post #76
rotten wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why use a voting machine at all? Isn't the main point of having a polling location simply so you can verify your identity? If we could come up with a system that allowed one's identity to be verified online, or by postal service, then do we really need thousands of machines collecting the votes. Couldn't it be centralized to a handful of more easily audited systems?

No, the point of a polling station is so that there's provably no coercion. You fill out your ballot in secret, you're not permitted to take a photograph of it, and you place it in the ballot box without telling anybody what you've voted for. The more you allow people to vote from their homes, the more likely it is that people can be coerced into voting the way their partner, employer, or otherwise, want them to.

You missed one important criterion. After you vote there is no way for you to prove who you voted for. If you could verify it after the fact then it opens up potential for coercion or incentives.
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