Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting • Hacker News Board

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#161

Post by heavenlyblue » Wed, May 08, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

afiori wrote: post #151

jfk13 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although the longer counting takes, the more difficult it becomes for a substantial number of people to monitor the entire process. In the UK, counting takes place overnight, immediately after the polls close; it's feasible for multiple parties to ensure they have people at every location for the entire time, keeping an eye out for irregularities. If the process were extended over a week instead of a night, it become…

That is true, but if they happen digitally then that becomes completely impossible. As things are now I see no reason of sort not to use paper ballots as the main proof of vote. Especially for big nation wide elections.

If that happens digitally (and using correctly distributed crypto signatures), then we can provide the public with the necessary tools to check every single vote.

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#162

Post by YokoZar » Wed, May 08, 2019, 11:44 PM UTC

freshm087 wrote: post #102

YokoZar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I appreciate the cynicism, I'm not seeing how an open schema for tamper-evident verifiable voting machines could be anything other than positive. It's worth noting that Microsoft has discouraged the use of embedded Windows on voting machines in the past: https://www.infoworld.com/article/2680658/gates-undaunted-by... > “We ourselves are not going after the e-voting market or the nuclear reactor control market,”…

For starters, the whole voting machines concept is a essentially a ploy to exploit wide-spread respect for computer technologies in society to sell hardware, and software. It reduces observability compared to pieces of paper, and doesn't solve any real problems. I don't think Gates words from 2004 can be seen as policy statement for today's Msft. Apparently, a lot has changed.

> Microsoft will not charge for using ElectionGuard and will not profit from partnering with election technology suppliers that incorporate it into their products.

I'm not sure how much stronger of a statement they can make than that. There's no money in voting machines for Microsoft.

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#163

Post by couchand » Wed, May 08, 2019, 11:56 PM UTC

kazagistar wrote: post #119

couchand wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That question applies equally to a paper ballot.

Watch person enter booth with fresh ballot, watch person leave booth with filled ballot, and check to see that person doesn't take pictures of their ballot. Seems pretty clear they voted and their vote can't be influenced.

Though the article is light on details, it does seem to provide for an identical level of verification. I'm more than happy to be corrected if I'm missing something, but it sure sounds like they are proposing an effectively identical verification scheme.

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#164

Post by couchand » Thu, May 09, 2019, 12:01 AM UTC

mcny wrote: post #59

codedokode wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, there is another scenario. Let's say the rules allow to change the vote later. A voter votes for candidate X and gets a link that allows to verify that the vote is recorded. But several hours later the server software re-votes for candidate Y. If the voter bothers to check results after election, they will find that their vote was altered. But the voter has no proof that they didn't vote for candidate Y, and el…

» And one more scenario: before closing the elections, officials can make a list of people who didn't vote and vote for them. If they didn't vote they probably don't care about elections and won't find out that someone voted for them. This could already happen today. This is why all major candidates, even in these united states, send their own observers and not simply trust election officials to do their job.

I think you mean "does", or at least, "did". I have spoken with more than one political operative who has voted for the dead, for instance. Probably much more common in NYC (and other places suffering from machine politics, like Chicago).

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#165

Post by laughinghan » Thu, May 09, 2019, 1:48 AM UTC

abathur wrote: post #157

laughinghan wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the whole point of this fancy homomorphic encryption-based system is that only the endpoints need to be verifiable, you no longer have to worry about chain of custody anymore. Kinda like how end-to-end encryption means you no longer have to trust every link in the network that connects you to the other party. As long as you can verify that the final tally is correctly calculated from all the public encrypted…

Maybe? I won't assert it doesn't, since I don't know. It certainly seems to be a tolerable solution to the questions of whether votes were changed, or whether ballots were disappeared without counting. But I don't see how the ability of individuals to verify that their own vote was counted can sum, at scale, to verifying that real-but-fraudulent ballots aren't also in the total. It seems like you could verify this if…

Well, currently, it's public whether someone voted (though of course not what their vote was). Assuming that's still true in this fancy system, that count would then have to match the count of how many encrypted votes there are, so you can't forge fake ballots from whole cloth (without people noticing). The best you could do is to try to defraud both systems, by identifying who won't vote and then submitting a fake vote for them.

Sure, you can't verify every single vote, but it doesn't take that much time/money to call up, say, 100 people (relative to the expense of running this whole system). If you contact 100 random people from the public record of who voted, and all 100 say "yes, I did actually vote", then the real result (excluding fraudulent votes) is unlikely to differ from the recorded result by more than 1%. And, obviously, you can drive that probability down as far as you want with more expense, but that'd only be important for rare close elections.

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#166

Post by PyroLagus » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

laughinghan wrote: post #148

alexandercrohde wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anybody even read the article? Jesus. Your comment is a complete non-sequiter. There are two ENTIRELY UNRELATED questions. One question is "cryptographic verification." One is "Paper/electronic" You can have any combination. You can have a crypographical, verifiable, PAPER voting system, for example (and that's what this article is about).

Did you read the comment you're replying to? Its whole point is that lay people don't understand sophisticated cryptography like homomorphic encryption, which makes it difficult to trust, whereas they do understand and trust paper. A cryptographic paper voting system that required advanced math to understand would have the same legitimacy problem as a cryptographic electronic voting system.

> A cryptographic paper voting system that required advanced math to understand would have the same legitimacy problem as a cryptographic electronic voting system.

No, because it'll still be counted manually by humans. What the cryptographic layer allows you to do is verify that your vote was properly counted or allow a trusted third-party to verify that for you. It doesn't take anything away from the paper voting system but only adds to it. That said, you'd still have to trust the device that generates your tracker, but maybe they've found a way to deal with that.

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#167

Post by afiori » Thu, May 09, 2019, 7:22 AM UTC

heavenlyblue wrote: post #161

afiori wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true, but if they happen digitally then that becomes completely impossible. As things are now I see no reason of sort not to use paper ballots as the main proof of vote. Especially for big nation wide elections.

If that happens digitally (and using correctly distributed crypto signatures), then we can provide the public with the necessary tools to check every single vote.

> and using correctly distributed crypto signatures

you sort of lost me here. I will not say it is a bad idea, but it would never work in any country I know. Thee sheer size and cultural innovation required would still need to place an inordinate amount of trust in the system.

Again, it is not that it is evil, as much as there are so many possible problems for so little gain

(IIRC Estonia has a nice program where you have a state-SIM and you can vote via telephone, so there it actually might work)

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#168

Post by JoshuaDavid » Thu, May 09, 2019, 9:30 AM UTC

yeahitslikethat wrote: post #144

jonathanstrange wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine if we could conduct voting in a day (even in large democracies). That would be horrible. "direct democracy" does not work (Switzerland is also a representative democracy), practical policy making requires some domain knowledge, patience and the ability to make compromises that the Internet mob could not possibly deliver. People are generally very good at judging the trustworthiness of other people, however,…

Have you seen who represents the people? just have a test we can take to illustrate competence in a domain. Passing the test grants us the right to vote on laws in that domain. Then, those who represent us are those who have illustrated the intellectual capacity to make good decisions.

Who makes the tests, and who decides which domain a given policy proposal falls under?

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#169

Post by abathur » Thu, May 09, 2019, 1:44 PM UTC

laughinghan wrote: post #165

abathur wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe? I won't assert it doesn't, since I don't know. It certainly seems to be a tolerable solution to the questions of whether votes were changed, or whether ballots were disappeared without counting. But I don't see how the ability of individuals to verify that their own vote was counted can sum, at scale, to verifying that real-but-fraudulent ballots aren't also in the total. It seems like you could verify this if…

Well, currently, it's public whether someone voted (though of course not what their vote was). Assuming that's still true in this fancy system, that count would then have to match the count of how many encrypted votes there are, so you can't forge fake ballots from whole cloth (without people noticing). The best you could do is to try to defraud both systems, by identifying who won't vote and then submitting a fake v…

Good point; I wasn't factoring in the existing public voting records.

I'm not sure what the contact rates would look like if you tried, but retroactive sampling should have a good chance of spotting systemic abuse if response rates are sufficiently high. I guess you could even legislate random audit sample sizes based on the number of votes and victory margins.

I've been thinking about the values of end-to-end auditability as deterrence and public relations, but I agree that you could capture the majority of that benefit for a fraction of the cost and complexity with regular sample-based audits.

Re: Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting

#170

Post by PyroLagus » Thu, May 09, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #143

useerup wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system does not ensure anonymity as to who has voted , but it does maintain secrecy as to how you voted . The idea is that you can have a public, verifiable "ledger" of voters. You can verify that you are on the list with your encrypted vote. I.e. you verify that your vote counts. You can match it to the receipt you received when voting. You do not, however possess the key to decrypt your vote or the vote of anyo…

Thank you for taking the time to clarify. So if I understand this correctly, the system can allow an individual to verify that their vote was counted but not validate that the vote was counted correctly? From that perspective, it seems analogous to the system in use but perhaps more efficient. In other words, does this actually introduce any new features or just translate the existing features of the current system t…

> the system can allow an individual to verify that their vote was counted but not validate that the vote was counted correctly

> does this actually introduce any new features

Well, the current system doesn't allow you to verify that your vote was counted, so that's what it adds.