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Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

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Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#391

Post by tucnak »

godelski wrote: post #268
golem14 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem, as I understand it, is that if you can prove to yourself that your vote was counted right, you can also prove it to the guy with the sledgehammer next to you saying "it would be a shame if something happened to your family, so prove how you voted"...

Proving that you voted is different than proving you voted for a specific candidate. In fact, the one isn't nearly as big of a privacy concern (if any at all). I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me the former could be done with some XOR scheme, but proving that both you voted and your vote counted for a specific candidate while keeping that a secret is a much more difficult task

I thought there were ZKP constructions that produce forward-secret receipts, while allowing to re-vote so that only the last vote would count, without ever breaking the original receipt.

The receipt would id candidate

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#392

Post by adrian_b »

crote wrote: post #365
BurningFrog wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia really uses erasable pencil markings to vote? I would feel much better if they required ink.

The problem is that disappearing ink is a thing, and someone could swap out the source of ink (pen, stamp pad) in the voting booth. Erasing is indeed a possibility with pencil markings, but this can only happen during the counting process - which should be open to anyone to audit, and anyone messing around with an eraser during the counting process would stand out like a sore thumb.

Where I have seen stamp pads used for voting, you do not take them with you in the voting booth.

You must press the stamp on the stamp pad at the official who gives you the stamp.

Stamping is fast and convenient. While corrupted officials could apply additional stamps during the counting, to make the vote invalid, that should be prevented by witnesses belonging to the parties that compete in the election.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#393

Post by lawtalkinghuman »

LiamPowell wrote: post #40
dbcurtis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly agree, but we don’t have to give up the benefits of direct digital tabulation for quick results. I would like a paper audit trail. Print my ballot-as-cast for on a paper roll that scrolls by under a window. I can verify it before leaving the voting booth. Recounts and challenges can be a computer scan of the paper roll. None of this is hard. Costs a bit more, but buys trust in the system.

You don't necessarily need any sort of electronic counting for quick results. Federal elections in Australia are usually called late on the voting day and I imagine the same is true for other countries that are paper-only.

Same in the UK.

Votes close at 10pm. Might be a few stragglers left in the queue, so call it 10:15pm. (Exit poll results are embargoed until 10pm.)

Ballot boxes are transferred from individual polling station to the location of the count. The postal votes have been pre-checked (but the actual ballot envelope has not been opened or counted) and are there to be counted alongside the ballots from the polling stations.

Then a small army of vote counters go through the ballots and count them and stack together ballots by vote. There are observers - both independent and appointed by the candidates. The returning officer counts the batches up, adjudicates any unclear or challenged ballot, then declares the result.

The early results come out usually about 1 or 2. The bulk of the results come out about 4 or 5. Some constituencies might take a bit longer - it's a lot less effort to get ballot boxes a mile or two down the road in a city centre constituency than getting them from Scottish islands etc. - but it'll be clear who has the majority by 6 or 7 the next day.

I can appreciate that the US is significantly larger than the UK, but pencil-and-paper voting with prompt manual counts is eminently possible.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#394

Post by Nursie »

themafia wrote: post #293
ggm wrote: post #3

I live in an economy where people vote with pencils on paper in cardboard booths and at scalable cost, it just works. Obviously the cost also has to scale linearly for the 200+m voter economies, and time becomes a factor, but for community acceptance I still think paper and pen/pencil beats machine hands down. (this is Australia. we have compulsory attendance at voting booths for eligible citizens, you can spoil your…

> we have compulsory attendance at voting booths for eligible citizens, you can spoil your paper or walk away but we enforce with a fine, participation in the one obligation of citizenship Then my refusal to vote should be counted. If enough people refuse to vote then the entire election should be cancelled and new candidates found. Otherwise this is a ridiculous catch 22 of state bullying to no actual purpose. Who w…

You can pay the fine or spoil your paper. If significant numbers do this, it will be reported publicly.

As it is though, people tend to vote for one of the parties on offer, of which there are many. And as it's also preference voting, Australia is not stuck in the trap of "better vote for A or B will get in" either. You can vote for C, with a fallback to D, E and F before putting in A as a back-stop.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#396

Post by PeterStuer »

True.

Mail in voting suffers from some of the same issues. We go to great lengths (cabins, curtains, no pictures allowed etc.) to ensure people can verifiably cast a free will vote, then open a giant loophole for potentially coerced, non private or transactional voting.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#397

Post by closewith »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #326
closewith wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a solved problem for in-person voting with indentical ballots and self-depositing into sealed ballot boxes. It is an unsolvable problem for mail in voting, which is why it should be prohibited in most cases.

Except for older republicans and military members in almost all states?

I'm not American, so I don't understand the older republican comment, but except in exceptionally adverse circumstances (astronauts on the ISS or submariners, etc) the military can provide ballot boxes to it's personnel.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#398

Post by closewith »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #255
closewith wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a solved problem for in-person voting with indentical ballots and self-depositing into sealed ballot boxes. It is an unsolvable problem for mail in voting, which is why it should be prohibited in most cases.

It’s also a solved problem for mail in. Double envelope systems, observable counting systems and standardized ballots that can checked for non uniqueness before voting are how they do it. People have thought hard about this, and it has worked fine for may states for decades now.

That only solves the double-counting problem, and it's fundamentally impossible to solve the voter ID and voter manipulation problems with postal voting.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#399

Post by matsemann »

badestrand wrote: post #237
golem14 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem, as I understand it, is that if you can prove to yourself that your vote was counted right, you can also prove it to the guy with the sledgehammer next to you saying "it would be a shame if something happened to your family, so prove how you voted"...

By that logic we have to get rid of mail-in voting as well because there could always be a sledgehammer guy standing next to someone in their own home.

If you however can go to a polling place afterwards and cast a new vote, that solves that issue, right? And then your mail-in just doesn't count.

Re: Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections

#400

Post by luxcem »

rmunn wrote: post #45

The thing about paper ballots is that the ways to cheat with them are well-known ("finding" ballots in the trunk of a car, "losing" ballot boxes on the way to the counting center, counting the ballots behind locked doors with observers not present, and so on), and have been well known for centuries. So the counters to them (ballot boxes sealed with an official seal once full, only sealed ballot boxes will be opened a…

Not only that but paper in a voting booth is so simple that anyone can check that it is done properly.

It may be a burdensome process, but very simple to understand. Every modernization of the process has major drawbacks.

– Electronic voting machines cannot be verified by just any voter, and the vote count is not transparent.

– Remote voting (even paper-based) does not guarantee freedom of choice: it cannot be ensured that the person is not under pressure at home, or even that it is truly that person who is voting.

- Voting alone in a private booth ensures that no one can verify who a person voted for. It is therefore difficult to buy votes, since it is impossible to confirm that a person followed any instructions.

The fact that any voter can verify and ensure that everything is conducted properly, without having to trust a third party, is essential to guaranteeing the integrity of the vote.

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