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Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after decryption failure

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Re: Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after decryption failure

#301

Post by natebc »

pseudalopex wrote: post #223
natebc wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really up to Trump or Congress though is it? Elections are run by the several states.

I edited my comment. But before you replied I thought. Congress can decide elections of Congress.

Ah, yeah, I see now that I've refreshed. Yes, it will get tricky with the current Supremes. Hopefully the signs we're seeing around Obstruction and Contempt in the federal courts lately indicate the _maybe_ the Judiciary is finding it's backbone.

I don't have much hope for Congress doing the same.

Re: Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after decryption failure

#302

Post by everfrustrated »

The biggest advantage physical voting has it is follows human-scaling laws. Which often is a problem (inefficient) but for voting this is a massive benefit for one particular reason - due to lack of automation any fraud doesn't also benefit from the same automation so has to be large scale and widely distributed for it to be impactful (the fraud has to be distributed to the humans involved). Which isn't to say that it can't happen (and does!) but requires a lot more effort and in the physical world there always a lot more fingerprints left, cameras looking, informants, etc.

Re: Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after decryption failure

#303

Post by kolinko »

ritzaco wrote: post #12

I don't care how much maths and encryption you use, you can't get out of the fact that things can be anonymous (no one can know how you voted) or verifiable (people can prove that you only voted once) but not both. - Switzerland usually gets around this by knowing where everyone lives and mailing them a piece of paper 'something you have' - South Africa gets around this by putting ink on your fingernail I've read qui…

I think with zero knowledge proofs we can have it both ways?

Re: Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after decryption failure

#304

Post by squeaky-clean »

zahlman wrote: post #263
mkehrt wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting is a civil right. We need to have a system that allows everyone who is allowed to vote, to vote. Many people don't have IDs and it is an onerous process to get one. Any system that requires IDs for voting suppresses these people's civil rights.

> Many people don't have IDs and it is an onerous process to get one. I have seen this constantly claimed, and never reasonably evidenced. It's also hard to believe the kind of American exceptionalism that supposedly causes these problems that everyone else can easily solve, despite an environment that is clearly heavily politically invested in solving it (because that also avoids the appearance of racism). Meanwhile…

Under the text of the proposed SAVE Act, drivers licenses or state ID's wouldn't be enough to count as a voting ID.

In Canada a drivers license is enough to vote.

Re: Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after decryption failure

#305

Post by Overdr0ne »

fireflash38 wrote: post #220
beautiful_apple wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have e-voting systems that protect ballot secrecy and are verifiable. You can use homomorphic encryption or mixnets to prove that: 1) all valid votes were counted 2) no invalid votes were added 3) the totals for each candidate is correct And you can do that without providing proof of who any particular voter voted for. A few such systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting https://www.belenios.org/ A…

If it's a completely binary choice of "election was valid" and "election was invalid" without any partial verifications of results, I think it's still a massive step back. By which I mean: paper ballots have problems. But a fault in a handful of ballots doesn't mean the rest of the ballots need to get tossed out. I do not believe that a system managed by humans can be faultless.

You would still be getting partial counts by district right? Isn't that a partial result? Make the validation algorithms open source. And I imagine there's some kind of independent auditing of the voting systems. I think it would be neat to have multiple competing implementers of the voting system, where ballots are sent to each, and results are compared. And hey, why not, maybe after voting you get an anonymized receipt, that could then be human-counted as well

Re: Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after decryption failure

#306

Post by squeaky-clean »

dirasieb wrote: post #265
IX-103 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what qualifies as an ID and how hard it is to get one. But unless you're actively providing them to people that need them with no extra work or travel on their part then you're going to be discriminating against people with less money or time. In the case where disproportionately more poor people are of a certain race then it can be seen as racist (as it affects the population of that race differently). If…

>Depends on what qualifies as an ID how about the ones accepted by the police when they ask "show me your ID"? if it's enough to ID you to cops it should be enough to ID you to enter the voting booth, no? >and how hard it is to get one. you can get one at the DMV

Tell that to our legislators. Because that sort of ID would not be a valid voting ID under the SAVE act.

Re: Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after decryption failure

#307

Post by riffraff »

coffinbirth wrote: post #295
luplex wrote: post #269

I don't understand the need for e-voting. Germany's entirely paper-based system works fine! After voting closes, volunteers count the votes for a few hours and we get a result.

Drawing two crosses on a piece of paper every couple of years has really nothing to do with democracy. Democracy is when one can vote on all topics on any level (local village, town, district, county, state, ...) using the computer at home. This is possible to implement using the algorithms/data structures available today. We actually do basically everything online today - except voting. For instance, such a system w…

> For instance, such a system would be immune to corruption

OTOH, it enables vote buying and intimidation at scale: you vote from home in exchange for 5€/not being beat up and have to film yourself doing it, so that the local bad guy gets authorized to bulldoze the local nature reserve.

Vote buying and intimidation already exist, but proving it is harder, all remote voting on everything would just make it more convenient.

Re: Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after decryption failure

#308

Post by thangalin »

How Cosmic Ray Influenced an Election:

https://scotopia.in/journal/journalbkend/paper_list/v-4-i-1(...

Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs

My Līberum Cōnsilium (see references on page 55):

https://repo.autonoma.ca/repo/delibero/raw/HEAD/docs/manual/...

Re: Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after decryption failure

#309

Post by rstuart4133 »

ninalanyon wrote: post #201

Why is everyone so obsessed with automating voting? It seems to me to be a 'solution' to a non-existent problem.

> It seems to me to be a 'solution' to a non-existent problem.

Electronic voting has lots of advantages. It can be end-to-end verified, it can be a great help to disadvantaged people (blind, illiterate), it can deliver results faster, it can probably be made more robust to retail-level tampering than paper ballots provided a paper audit trail it kept (as all electronic systems designed with security in mind do).

The one question mark in my mind: the current US system resisted Trump's efforts to corrupt it pretty well. I think that was because of the inertia created all the people involved in staffing the ballot stations, counting and verifying the votes. The machinations of the electoral college being highly visible put people doing the wrong thing at high risk for decades after Trump leaves the stage.

An automated electronic system could remove a lot of that human inertia. Human efficiency is not an advantage in an electoral system, it's a weakness. You want as many people involved as possible.

Re: Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after decryption failure

#310

Post by riffraff »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #291
cedws wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only potential benefit I can think of is getting results faster, but it's really not important enough to optimise for. Maybe a dual system of paper ballots and e-voting could be good so that they cross check each other. Can't stuff paper ballots without manipulating the digital counter, can't manipulate the digital counter without stuffing ballots. A digital counter also enables meta analysis which could identify…

Another possible benefit I've heard of is it can stop some kinds of voter intimidation: Someone gets hand of an empty ballot, they fill in the ballot and give it to you and tell you to come back with another empty ballot. Rinse and repeat. Of course, with today's smartphones there are simpler ways to do this. Also moot if you can vote by mail, which is why voting by mail is a really bad idea.

there's a much simpler solution for in person voting, used in Italy for example: you have a numbered sticker on the ballot, when you get the ballot the sticker id is written down, when you get out of the voting booth it gets verified and detached.

The ballot you throw in the box does not have the sticker (vote is anonymous) and you cannot come in with a pre-marked ballot (and being out one) cause the number would not match.

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