Belenios: Verifiable online voting system • Hacker News Board

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#201

Post by atoav » Mon, Aug 05, 2024, 5:53 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #168

maxdamantus wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software developer myself, if an "independent expert" comes out and says that some software system is fully verified, I might trust their allegiance, but I probably won't trust their competence. I wouldn't expect the general population to trust them either.

What if lots of experts come out that way, including people you already trust otherwise? Eg assume both Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds etc say they have reviewed the code?

If we assume that:

- how do you know the code running on these machines on day X is actually the code they tested?

- how do you know the code running does the same thing the code they tested does, even if it is the same code (e.g. hardware instructions could be doing different things on the machine, the OS could provide different functionality, other programs could interfere)?

- how do you (and for that matter: every single voter) know their vote was counted towards the correct candidates in the whole process towards the end results, which likely involves transmitting data through the internet and/or people carrying USB thumb drives and sticking them into computers

I am not saying it can't be done, but I say you can tell appart who knows computers really well (hackers) from those who know it kinda (geeks), by how doable they think this is.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#202

Post by atoav » Mon, Aug 05, 2024, 5:56 AM UTC

lesuorac wrote: post #155

atoav wrote: post #119

One important thing about any voting system – digital or not – is that it has to be good at producing agreeable consent . That means bitter, betrayed and hurt (but reasonable/democratic!) losing parties need to be able to say: yeah we accept the result because we are confident in the outcome of the election. This is something all digital systems are really bad at, even if everything is readable and verifiable, unless…

Non-digital systems have claims of fake ballots being inserted all the time. I don't think the answer to people being suspicious of digital systems is to abandon them. It's to either disprove their suspicion or add controls so they become disproven. https://www.google.com/search?q=ballot+stuffing+2020 https://www.google.com/search?q=ballot+stuffing+2016 https://www.google.com/search?q=ballot+stuffing+2012

Yeah but a ballot cannot potentially change the number of papers within it depending on who is looking and when they are looking. If your stupid mate from the pub questions the results he could literally look inside the box with a paper ballots and see if the votes are significantly wrong. If you let him guard the ballot box for the duration he could even see that nobody swapped the ballots. Try that with a computer.

Paper ballots also having problems isn't an argument for even more complex systems, it is an argument against it.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#203

Post by actionfromafar » Mon, Aug 05, 2024, 6:03 AM UTC

thegabriele wrote: post #146

actionfromafar wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works like this in Sweden.

For all Kinds of public elections? I would love to read more. Thanks

Yes, it seems so.

https://www.val.se/att-rosta/var-rostar-jag/fortidsrosta.htm...

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#204

Post by ktzar » Mon, Aug 05, 2024, 6:16 AM UTC

a common problem of all systems that include a way for voters to verify their vote is that it opens the possibility of parties buying votes, as you can prove your voted for them.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#205

Post by nicopappl » Mon, Aug 05, 2024, 6:18 AM UTC

tossandthrow wrote: post #94

oivey wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criminals showing up to your house, putting a gun to your head, and demanding your vote is a fantasy. You don’t need to defend against it because it’s a totally unscalable way to steal an election.

Apparently it is not fantasy that these people do it at the locations. I think more creative thinking on how the schemes could look will show some scalable solutions to coerce votes.

If you are interested in creative voter coercion, and generally very creative ways of changing law so that the election results always end up how you like them, I recommend reading up on the very innovative Hungarian system https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/how-viktor-orban...

> “Chain voting” ensures that people vote the right way. Voter 1 goes into the polling station,

> appears to vote by depositing an empty envelope into the ballot box, but comes out with a

> blank ballot. Voter 2 is then sent in with that ballot—now marked by a [party] operative—and

> told to put it in the ballot box and exit with another blank ballot in hand. Carried on down

> the line, the [...] party boss in the town can ensure that all have voted the proper way

> while the election workers find that they are short only one unaccounted-for vote

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#206

Post by atoav » Mon, Aug 05, 2024, 6:21 AM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #177

atoav wrote: post #119

One important thing about any voting system – digital or not – is that it has to be good at producing agreeable consent . That means bitter, betrayed and hurt (but reasonable/democratic!) losing parties need to be able to say: yeah we accept the result because we are confident in the outcome of the election. This is something all digital systems are really bad at, even if everything is readable and verifiable, unless…

All? Really? How would you make such a sweeping statement? Can you list the systems you had looked at?

Huh? Yeah, all. I teach electronics at the University level and I know:

1. How hard it is for already highly educated people to understand electronics and programming

2. What kind of complexity is needed on how many technological layers to just even have it work reliably and how much more complexity is needed to have it formally variable and tamper-proof

3. How many attack vectors exist in such systems — many of which mean a single motivated and skilled attacker could exploit on grand scale

All of that necessarily leads to a process that is less transparent than a paper ballot, because there are more moving parts. Your bloke from the pub will be able to understand how to check the integrity of a paper ballot. But of an E-voting system?

In my eyes it is a feature if within a democracy if all participants in that democracy can understand the whole election process.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#207

Post by synecdoche » Mon, Aug 05, 2024, 6:26 AM UTC

romwell wrote: post #160

thepra wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please forget about showing up physically, it's noble to think of "you really care" but in places with organized crime they have ways to count if those that depend on them come and vote for their "right" choice. It has been estimated that around 20-30% of IRL votes in Italy follow the organized crimes choice.

Please forget about showing up physically because conflating l caring* with your ability to do things physically is ableist as fuck, and not all disabilities are visible and/or certifiable. Please forget about showing up physically because setting up a polling station in a place where there's effectively no public transportation cuts off poor people from voting. Please forget about showing up physically because mail…

The in person secret paper ballot voting system on voting day appears to be a system with some of the least drawbacks, which is likely why it has been so popular.

Mail-in systems work too, with their own set of benefits and drawbacks, and is used in combination with the above in some countries.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#208

Post by mariusor » Mon, Aug 05, 2024, 6:30 AM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #189

mariusor wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better measure against this is not physical presence, but allowing one individual to exercise their vote any number of times until the ballot period ends. This means that a malevolent entity that wants to influence votes needs to sequester the voter(s) for the whole ballot period, which is vastly more difficult than putting a gun to someone's head for a single vote. Executing this at scale so the effect can…

Several years ago they used such system on election in Moscow, and there were claims (pretty plausible) that the government used second vote to change voter's vote to another candidate. There was noticeable difference between number of votes and number of voters. The system used two blockchains: a public one which recorded votes, but without linking to a voter, and a private one that linked voters to vote records in…

Do you have some links to that? It sounds very interesting.

> how do you invalidate previous vote?

All the votes are public on the ledger, you can clearly see which ones belong to which voter entry.

> how do you prevent government...

The government does not have your private key, also if a hacked vote happens, you as a voter ask for an audit of the vote entries.

I'm not saying there are no problems with electronic ballots, but I'm thinking that with enough time and elbow grease, they can be solved.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#209

Post by mariusor » Mon, Aug 05, 2024, 6:33 AM UTC

synecdoche wrote: post #197

mariusor wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better measure against this is not physical presence, but allowing one individual to exercise their vote any number of times until the ballot period ends. This means that a malevolent entity that wants to influence votes needs to sequester the voter(s) for the whole ballot period, which is vastly more difficult than putting a gun to someone's head for a single vote. Executing this at scale so the effect can…

This relies on the voter to have enough autonomy to be able to independently access their online ID. It would be easy to circumvent by separating the voter from their ability to identify themselves online. Either by keeping their means of identication from them during the voting period or by being the gatekeeper to the computer where their online ID is stored, for example with a password. It also relies on the voter…

The id is a physical card, where the private key and the data attached to it can be accessed through NFC. Sensitive data can be accessed through specific applications, public data can be accessed through a simple NFC reader.

And yes, if the government is corrupt in its entirety, from creating IDs to the ballot process itself and to sequestering citizens, then yes, you're fucked. But I don't see how that would be different for paper ballots or any other means of voting.

Re: Belenios: Verifiable online voting system

#210

Post by jltsiren » Mon, Aug 05, 2024, 6:39 AM UTC

mariusor wrote: post #133

jltsiren wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having to set aside a day to vote That only happens if the people in charge of the elections are enemies of democracy. It also means that the results are being manipulated and not particularly legitimate. The election day is obviously a public holiday. There are plenty of polling locations, so you never have to go far to vote, unless you live in a particularly remote rural area. And because there are enough polling…

I don't know where you're voting from, but most of my adult life I had long queues to wait in - granted I was an expat crowding an embassy's corridor - and even if I don't have to work that day, I can think of better things that I could do with my time than that. And it's not all about me or you, it's about all the people that do have to take a day off even if it's a holiday, and the people that don't live next to a…

I'm from Finland. I've never had to wait more than a couple of minutes to vote within the country. Once I had to wait for maybe 5 minutes in an embassy, but the other times I went to an embassy there was nobody except me.

There are also a few early voting days to give people more chances to vote if the actual voting day is too inconvenient.

As far as I understand, online voting has been shown to have minimal to no effect on voter turnout. Most of the time, people don't skip voting because it's too inconvenient but because they are not interested or they forgot.