Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

mobile.nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 237 posts

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#121

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

nobodyorother wrote: post #107
grondilu wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

pvote.org seems like a decent solution, it's That doesn't handle auditing the machines themselves, but as the 2016 US presidential election recount found in Wisconsin, the tamper-evident machines showed evidence of tampering, so maybe we're closer to knowing whether the trusted systems we use to count votes are trustworthy. Of course, the current machines are still Diebold ("Premier Election Solutions"), so who knows…

> pvote.org seems like a decent solution, it's Quoting from the website:

"Pvote is small. The current version is 460 lines of Python. It uses Pygame for graphics and audio."

So, add to that 130000 lines of pygame, 1.5 million lines of cpython, 14 million lines for gcc, 20 million for the linux kernel, ... and you haven't even begun to list all the stuff you would need to audit?

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#122

Post by bluGill »

cmiles74 wrote: post #65
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.

The vote processing chain is lengthy, it is inevitable that a computer system will be inserted somewhere in that chain. Right now the push is to have these systems right at the front, facing the voter, but that isn't the only time the votes are processed electronically. In my district we vote by coloring in little circles with a #2 pencil, we then feed that directly into an electronic machine that tallies the results…

Electronics isn't a problem. The problem is electronics that you cannot personally verify. Every step can be electronic and things be just fine. However if someone decides to cast doubt on any point in the chain it needs to be possible to verify that link actually was done correctly.

With your system I can cast doubt on the entire chain, and there is no problem because you can remove all doubt by taking those paper ballots and counting them all by hand. With several hundred million ballots to count it is obviously expensive (in man-hours), but you can see how to verify that counts. Note that the above verification is something your average idiot with no knowledge of computers can understand and trust.

There exist systems that are all electronic: the voter pushes a button (on a touch screen) and from there on we only have the count. As a programmer I can think of many ways I can make the voting system change a few votes and there is no way to know that the machine's count is wrong.

Part of what make this hard is anonymous votes are important. There are cases in history where someone was forced (with a gun) to vote for someone they probably wouldn't have voted for otherwise. We have solved this problem by having watchers at the polls (from all sides) ensure that nothing funny happens at the polls, and once you leave the booth nobody has any way to know who you voted for.

The above is why I think absentee voting needs to be restricted to those who physically cannot get to the polls on voting day (I'm fine with a voting week or month)

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#123

Post by bluGill »

richardknop wrote: post #71
feintruled wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not as easy as it sounds. I was in a Government office for some tax related reason and was in line behind some guys trying to apply for their 'electrical card' (sic, electoral). This is in N. Ireland, which unlike the rest of the UK requires ID to vote. They were having to be talked through filling in the form only to hit a roadblock when it came to proof of address. After expressing their voluble disbelief at some l…

That's implementation problem, not an argument against making sure only eligible citizens can vote. Why not have a national ID like in some European countries? Issue it at age of 15, you can go to a government office with parents when you are 15 and get your ID. You can pass a sensible legislation for this. Have a grace period of 2 election cycles to allow all the people who want to vote enough time to get their ID (…

Why do you need to have an address? What is wrong with being homeless?

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#124

Post by bluGill »

frobozz wrote: post #105
richardknop wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of EU nationals living in UK who have no right to vote. But they are physically in UK. I think vast majority of them would never think about fraudulently voting. But think about it logically, if voter ID is not required than it is easier to fraudulently vote. That seems logical to me. Do you have counter argument?

Voting still requires registration, which requires eligibility. At this point, you are also checked for uniqueness, so you can't just keep moving house to get more and more votes. You can't just turn up at any polling station and say "give me a ballot paper", you turn up at the right polling station for your address and tell them your name and address. They cross you off the list and if the same person tries to vote…

Different locations do it differently. I know of one are where all you need is someone with an ID to vouch that you are a resident of that area and you can register (under any name you want) and vote. Poll watchers have told me about cases where a bus shows up one person vouches for everybody on the bus and so they vote. They are sure it is fraud, but nothing can be done about it.

If it is true or not I don't know, but is a real concern if so.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#125

Post by eksemplar »

blackkettle wrote: post #115

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…

I think you could do some secure voting software if all your citizens had a secure two factor signature and you used block chain.

I'm not sure why you would do it in a non-corrupt country though.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#126

Post by xroche »

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.

> the voting machine is running the exact same source code?

Or the processor is trustworthy ? Many voting machines are using old processors, such as 68000, and it would not be too hard to emulate a a rogue processor that will have a different behavior, whatever the source code is.

You can also change the behavior of the voting machine at a certain time, or in certain conditions (such as detecting a voting session has started)

The problem is not that voting machines are vulnerable to one or two attacks. There are thousands of ways of compromising them.

The only answer to this is that cryptography specialists do not have any answer to a secure electronic voting not involving a physical element (a bulletin, a receipt, etc.). This means that there is no THEORETICAL solution.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#127

Post by beat »

eksemplar wrote: post #125
blackkettle wrote: post #115

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…

I think you could do some secure voting software if all your citizens had a secure two factor signature and you used block chain. I'm not sure why you would do it in a non-corrupt country though.

Why do something simple, when we can do something complicated instead?

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#128

Post by eksemplar »

beat wrote: post #127
eksemplar wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you could do some secure voting software if all your citizens had a secure two factor signature and you used block chain. I'm not sure why you would do it in a non-corrupt country though.

Why do something simple, when we can do something complicated instead?

Well if your country is doing digital elections without citizen signatures and block chain, then chances are you live in a corrupt country. :p

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#129

Post by Chardok »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #25
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.

Where is the good old Anonymous when we need them? We need a high-profile hack of some local elections to drive that point home. Something done completely for teh lulz, leading to a result so absurd the elections would have to be redone.

Unfortunately it would need to be a hack that purposefully gets itself caught in order to drive any point home. I can imagine the risk vs reward on something like that would be very undesirable.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#130

Post by richardknop »

bluGill wrote: post #123
richardknop wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's implementation problem, not an argument against making sure only eligible citizens can vote. Why not have a national ID like in some European countries? Issue it at age of 15, you can go to a government office with parents when you are 15 and get your ID. You can pass a sensible legislation for this. Have a grace period of 2 election cycles to allow all the people who want to vote enough time to get their ID (…

Why do you need to have an address? What is wrong with being homeless?

I was reacting to the parent comment. For some reason in Northern Ireland example cited there proof of address was required.

Government can issue IDs without proof of address. This is matter of implementation. For national election at least you shouldn't need it. For local elections it should be required.

Post reply on HN