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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

#381
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No other country is quite as heterogeneous as the US. And there is a significant history in the US of using restrictions around voting to disenfranchise certain ethnicities. That makes any restriction around voting a sensitive topic in the US. Proponents of voter ID claim it is needed to prevent fraud, while opponents point out that there's not enough fraud for it to be worth the cost. Note that countries such as Aus…

> No other country is quite as heterogeneous as the US. there's no scientific link between race and the ability to go to a DMV once every 10 years

> there's no scientific link between race and the ability to go to a DMV once every 10 years

That form of ID is neither accepted per the proposed legislation [1] nor does it last 10 years (more like 4-5 years from what I've seen). Please go look at what's actually required per the SAVE Act.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguard_American_Voter_Eligi...

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

#382
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered (Clearly Not North America) How does one get on a list anyways? I would imagine getting on a list fraudlently leaves paper trail and this would have been discovered in 5 minutes retroactively, but I'm still curious.

When you register to vote, you give your address as well as proof of eligibility to vote. That address is used to assign you a polling place, and also as an additional piece of data needed in order to filter out fakers. Your voting eligibility is checked before being added to the list, which also mitigates fakers. If you're trying to register in someone else's name, you have to pray that they don't register themselve…

Yes, it's unlikely that people are illegally voting in person in large numbers. It is relatively easy to do so, and the risk is relatively low, if you approach it intelligently (e.g. vote as someone who is registered, but highly unlikely to vote -- even if they do vote, you're highly unlikely to be caught anyway). However, there's just no incentive for individuals to do so, because the reward is very low: each individual's vote is really worth very little, and an individual fraudulent voter does not benefit from it enough to counterbalance the risk.

On the other hand, there are other ways for people to steal elections. For example, you can steal mail-in ballots from mailboxes, fill them, and covertly drop them in. It's particularly easy to do in states where all ballots are mail-in by default. The risk-reward calculation is different, because now one organized person can cast dozens, or hundreds of fraudulent votes, instead of just one.

In other states, you don't even need to steal them: you can just knock on the door, ask people for ballots (or buy them, many people will happily sell their right to vote for $20, because it's worthless to them), fill them in, and drop them off completely in the open. Of course, the stealing/buying and filling in the ballots is illegal, but since this happens in private, it's much harder to detect and prosecute. That's why most states disallow dropping off votes for third parties, but some states inexplicably allow it.

There are multiple recent cases, where people were convicted for schemes like that, e.g State of Arizona v. Guillermina Fuentes, Texas v. Monica Mendez, Michigan v. Trenae Rainey, U.S. v. Kim Phuong Taylor, and more. Since these are only the cases where conviction was secured, the true number is much higher.

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

#383
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. Every single election bunch of weird stuff happening regardless of the winner. Paper ballots are much better.

> bunch of weird stuff happening Every election has "bunch of weird stuff happening" because every election has losers that don't like to lose, either with paper or e-vote. To use a soccer analogy, it is like the losing team that blames the referee. The ones complaining about "bunch of weird stuff happening" are just playing Trump.

Hard not to "blame the referee" when the supreme judge-kings in charge of the electronic voting system are openly partisan to say the least.

In fact, the issue of fair elections in Brazil has become background noise because of these so called "referees". They have usurped so much power elections are just theater at this point. It doesn't matter who wins because in the end it's the judge-kings who rule the country. There's no point in even discussing the matter until their fall.

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

#384
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

My wallet was stolen a few weeks ago. I was able to get my bank cards cancelled, but my only state ID is lost. I live within the US, so I've never needed anything more than my state ID.

I got this state ID using my previous state's ID. The old one is now void. So I need to get a new one. I'll need my birth certificate mailed to me from my parents, because I'm still in the habit of letting them keep all the important family documents. I move alot.

My car broke down a few months ago. Good thing I can walk the relatively (americanly) short distance to work. For after-hours or weekend travel I take the buses (the few my city has) or an uber. Even though it would take me 20 minutes to drive directly to the DMV, the bus route is an hour and ten minutes, and the Uber is going to cost me money. Even if the ID was free, I had to have money to get to the DMV to get it. If I drove, I'd still have paid for the gas.

My work is understaffed and I'm one of the more knowledgable non-managers. I'm working before business hours start and leaving after they end. I can't see a weekday in the next month where I can take time off during the day "just" to get an ID. My boss might understand a medical appointment, but the DMV is not on his list of "reasons I can lose Qaadika for half a day or more".

"you can get one at the DMV" is not an answer.

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

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

My wallet was stolen a few weeks ago. I was able to get my bank cards cancelled, but my only state ID is lost. I live within the US, so I've never needed anything more than my state ID. I got this state ID using my previous state's ID. The old one is now void. So I need to get a new one. I'll need my birth certificate mailed to me from my parents, because I'm still in the habit of letting them keep all the important…

So does your boss expect you to go without a driver's license once it expires?

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

#386
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…

There's a goverment issued public & private key right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_identity_card

Clearly the mark of the beast.

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

#387
post #252
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More important than lack of voter fraud is proving to the population a lack of voter fraud.

This. A voting system and it security must be understandable to the average people. You can not do that with electronic voting. (Even if electronic voting can be done securely.)

Okay, average person uses a special key picked up from the DMV one time that allows them to login to vote.com and cast their vote. This is a totally normal experience and understandable by anyone who has done online banking.

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

#388

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 i…

This probably only works properly in the developed countries. In developing countries like India we suffered through decades of "booth captures" [1] where armed gangs would take over a polling booth and cast votes for their political candidate at gun point. Villagers would be disallowed from casting their votes. In many instances, the polling booth itself would be set on fire, ensuring that those votes are never counted.

With EVMs the polling officer can just deactivate the machine (which stops the counting at that moment) making booth capturing pointless.

Not saying this is not possible in developed countries. It could very well happen sometime in the future where armed gangs take over polling booths (especially if the candidate in question is bound to lose due to corruption/scandal and needs to cling onto political power to prevent himself/herself from going to prison).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booth_capturing

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

#389

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 i…

This probably only works properly in the developed countries. In developing countries like India we suffered through decades of "booth captures" [1] where armed gangs would take over a polling booth and cast votes for their political candidate at gun point. Villagers would be disallowed from casting their votes. In many instances, the polling booth itself would be set on fire, ensuring that those votes are never coun…

I mean looks like booth capture can only capture a booth at most and to capture more you practically need armed rebellion. But if we automate it, then you only need to capture a location to capture all booths in the region.

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

#390

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 i…

Sorting physical ballots is very easy to automate. You get the security of paper with the speed of computing.

In Washington State we get mailed ballots, which we fill in and mail in.

But the ballots are not even printed on security paper. They don't have a serial number on them, either.

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