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To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

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Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#161

Well, IMHO a good way to digitize voting would be to give out a USB-drive-like (NFC) device with an option to set a value and lock it in the read-only mode using voter ID. How it will work: A person gets this device in the voting center enters/gets his voter ID, does the voting (anonymously), presses the read-only lock and throws it into the bin. After all the voting these device are scanned and voting data is retrie…

That sounds a whole lot like paper voting to me...except more expensive and more complicated. What's wrong with giving everyone a pencil and a ballot paper, at the polling station, in place of the NFC device?

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#162
post #158

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…

Voting with paper does not scale. You can't make people vote everyday for example, which is required if you'd like to implement direct democracy. On the other hand, with direct democracy, the stakes are lower for each vote. So there is less incentive to manipulate the vote. So it makes sense to use e-voting for direct democracy. In the end the voting mechanism in democracy is not really about precision, it's more abo…

The fact that it doesn't scale is exactly why we should stick with it. We want voting to be hard, distributed, and diverse. That prevents a single county or state from destabilizing the rest of the country. It should prioritize accuracy over speed and all else.

It's like an ecosystem. The more homogeneous the system then the more vulnerable we are to a single virus (or hacker) we become.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#163
post #15
post #13

A lot of talk about securing voting machines/verifying that they run the correct software. Why do we have to have physical machines? If it's electronic, surely a website would do if you have the correct means of ID? NB: this is not an indication of which side I fall on the debate, it is an observation. [EDIT] Also, I'm aware similar issues exist with a website, but it seems a lot of focus goes on the actual machine.

In case anyone can't see why this is a whole heap more terrible on top of the terribleness of electronic ballots... Verifying actual real identity over the internet is impossible. Even if you did webcam-based biometric authentication of identity - these are fooled by a photograph. Going to a polling station and verifying your identity to a human being is much harder to fake, and almost impossible to scale. The web is…

All that, in addition to the problems that would arise from voter coercion and threats to vote a certain way.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#164

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?

It's worse than not working. It's because nobody can ever be sure if it's working or not.

Granted what is publicly known, it not working is a very likely outcome, but nobody will ever be able to contest it.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#165
Why can't you have everything set up so that when you vote, you get what amounts to a JSON Web Token to be able to later verify that you did in fact vote? You could use the governments publicly available key to verify that your vote reached the central service, and part of the JWT could contain your vote as well as your identifying information (SSN in USA).

Obviously everything could have fancy UIs created for end users so they don't see that really all have is a JWT (maybe a QR code printed out when they vote? And all the info easily human readable?). Verification could be handled by a .gov address and also through manual use of the public key (so other services could be set up to verify votes as well). And internet connectivity wouldn't be a problem as they could just require T1 lines at polling locations (I assume if phones went out across the country the election would be delayed regardless). You could likely tell if someone had stolen the private key (the only way I can think of breaking this system), if you have a service to verify someone's vote, and it doesn't show up there, even though you have a signed JWT containing your vote. That would prove someone had stolen the private key, allowing for a makeup election.

Am I missing something basic of how this would be hackable? I'm one of those who finds it odd that many elections around the world are susceptible to simple human mistakes/purposeful malicious actions when it comes to counting ballots.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#166
post #158

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…

Voting with paper does not scale. You can't make people vote everyday for example, which is required if you'd like to implement direct democracy. On the other hand, with direct democracy, the stakes are lower for each vote. So there is less incentive to manipulate the vote. So it makes sense to use e-voting for direct democracy. In the end the voting mechanism in democracy is not really about precision, it's more abo…

Public - i.e. everyone knows how others have voted - voting can be both precise and secure. Public voting can be done electronically, say, via encrypted SMS.

So why to bother with secrecy in the first place?

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#167
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting with paper does not scale. You can't make people vote everyday for example, which is required if you'd like to implement direct democracy. On the other hand, with direct democracy, the stakes are lower for each vote. So there is less incentive to manipulate the vote. So it makes sense to use e-voting for direct democracy. In the end the voting mechanism in democracy is not really about precision, it's more abo…

Public - i.e. everyone knows how others have voted - voting can be both precise and secure. Public voting can be done electronically, say, via encrypted SMS. So why to bother with secrecy in the first place?

So you can't pay people to vote for a particular candidate.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#168

"The blockchain is an undeniably ingenious invention – the brainchild of a person or group of people known by the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto." It isn't even definitively known who invented blockchain, it is behind the pyramid scheme known as bitcoin and no, no way should that ever be used in voting system computers.

I don't think you know what a pyramid scheme is.

How about learning the definition of the words you use before throwing them around?

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#170
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public - i.e. everyone knows how others have voted - voting can be both precise and secure. Public voting can be done electronically, say, via encrypted SMS. So why to bother with secrecy in the first place?

So you can't pay people to vote for a particular candidate.

Do you know how people take photos of themselves voting at "secret-keeping" poll-stations? How about politicians, which publicly give lucrative promises to their particular electorate?

If they want to sell their vote - it is their choice. I'd only say that the right of citizens to secede from such a society must be respected too.

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