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USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

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Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#41

Post by pgt »

Znafon wrote: post #35
pgt wrote: post #27

Maybe this is a dumb idea, but what if for each election we issued a ballot containing a unique, random, sequential prime number to every registered voter? Then, when counting the votes for each candidate we display the running product of all the primes counted for that candidate as a "checksum", or "check product". This retains privacy while allowing individual voters to easily verify that their vote was counted by…

What is a unique, random, sequential prime and how do you actually vote?

Issue 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17... up to N for N registered voters. Mix them up and hand out randomly. So let's say you get 5 and I get 7.

To vote, you cast your prime for a candidate, thereby consuming it. No two candidates can share a prime, because their checksums will have a common factor, which is not allowed.

If we both vote for candidate A, his checkproduct is now 35.

If ballots 11, 13 and 17 vote for candidate B, his checkproduct is 2431. Because 2431/5 = 486.2 (non-integer), you can verify that your vote was not counted for B, but it was for A, because 35/5 = 7 (an integer). And because 2431 and 35 don't share any factors, no two votes were counted twice.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#43

Post by Scarblac »

colordrops wrote: post #10
foepys wrote: post #2

All blockchain (and electronic for that matter) voting systems are inherently bad because they are not easy to verify. Nothing beats pen and paper in verifiability and ease of use. If done right with many eyes on the ballots, manipulation requires thousands of co-conspirators. The only downside is the slow speed.

You give one citizen one vote on the chain. They can personally verify that their vote was counted because the chain is visible. Counts can't be rigged because the entire chain is public. Voters can only vote by going to a physical location where they use a multi-key signature, one by the voter, and one by the local polling station, avoiding people selling off their keys. This is anonymous, traceable, and the vote ca…

It's not anonymous enough. If you sell your vote or are coerced, you can show your proof to the buyer.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#44

Post by pgt »

luckylion wrote: post #34
pgt wrote: post #27

Maybe this is a dumb idea, but what if for each election we issued a ballot containing a unique, random, sequential prime number to every registered voter? Then, when counting the votes for each candidate we display the running product of all the primes counted for that candidate as a "checksum", or "check product". This retains privacy while allowing individual voters to easily verify that their vote was counted by…

It allows for verification not only by the voter but also by third parties, doesn't it? That would make it possibly to sell votes (with proof!) or threaten people with repercussions unless they vote a certain way.

This is only a risk if ballots are not issued privately.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#45

Post by hwillis »

sebmellen wrote: post #30
barbegal wrote: post #20

You could easily replace the word Blockchain in this patent application with the word database and it would all still make sense. Blockchains (I prefer to call them Merkle trees) were invented 40 years ago. The interesting part about cryptocurrency based Blockchains that makes them unforgeable is that they contain proof of work. The work to create an entire Blockchain is equal to the sum of the work contained in each…

I strongly disagree. This is a comment from someone who (I presume) is unaware of the advances in Proof-of-Stake blockchains, and other consensus protocols like the Stellar Consensus Protocol. Databases do not have a distributed way to manage consensus - one of the main things that sets a blockchain apart from a distributed database. This consensus mechanism is what's important when something important (like an elect…

???

You absolutely do not want consensus anywhere near an election. Consensus is not about agreeing on the total balance of transactions, it's about agreeing on individual transactions. It implies that multiple people know what your vote was which is absolutely not what you want.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#46

Post by tdons »

kfrzcode wrote: post #6

Electronic voting is a terrible idea. Attacks on paper & pen ballot systems are much, much harder to scale. Here's Tom Scott with a great explanation of the basics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs

The same argument applies to the internet at large. Shall we move back to filing cabinets because that makes data leaks more difficult?

I'm sure that at some point we'll crack the electronic voting nut. But yeah: it's scary and the stakes are high. Then again, we've fixed electronic banking and that runs pretty nicely without many problems -- right?

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#47

Post by sebmellen »

luckylion wrote: post #34
pgt wrote: post #27

Maybe this is a dumb idea, but what if for each election we issued a ballot containing a unique, random, sequential prime number to every registered voter? Then, when counting the votes for each candidate we display the running product of all the primes counted for that candidate as a "checksum", or "check product". This retains privacy while allowing individual voters to easily verify that their vote was counted by…

It allows for verification not only by the voter but also by third parties, doesn't it? That would make it possibly to sell votes (with proof!) or threaten people with repercussions unless they vote a certain way.

If you see my above comment on a "Right to Vote" token system, which would abstract away the identity of any given vote, there is a solution for this:

Because the Right to Vote tokens and the accounts that they are voted with by are anonymous, no third-party knows which vote belongs to which person (except for arbitrary public-key strings). However, if a voter wants to check that their vote was counted, they can easily see that the token sent from their account was used to vote for a certain party.

Now, if a second layer of privacy and abstraction is needed, zero-knowledge proofs can offer that. This, however, is a completely different ball game.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#48

Post by aoowii »

Am I the only one still against network-based, and to a lesser extent electronic-based, voting?

It's near impossible to rig or suppress a physical election without a lot of effort, but one person can DDoS an entire network and no one can vote and the whole election needs to be scrapped.

Not even the strongest cryptographic or software systems are free from exploits (especially over time) and there's no way to be sure the open source code for the system is the same code actually being served on the system.

A lot of software has died by its own hubris by assuming their systems are secure and then a single 17 year old on 4chan finds a bug and ruins it all. You can't afford for that to happen in an election. Forget hackers, some skilled social engineering gets you the votes of thousands, but you cannot do that in person so easily.

I'm sure the problems have been discussed extensively but other niche problems include lack of availability for rural areas (which has been a huge problem even with paper voting). I think the only reliable voting system at scale is in person.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#49

Post by lalaland1125 »

pgt wrote: post #27

Maybe this is a dumb idea, but what if for each election we issued a ballot containing a unique, random, sequential prime number to every registered voter? Then, when counting the votes for each candidate we display the running product of all the primes counted for that candidate as a "checksum", or "check product". This retains privacy while allowing individual voters to easily verify that their vote was counted by…

This setup seems mostly pointless to me. Instead of publishing the product, why not just list the primes themselves? Both should be roughly equivalent and just publishing the list of primes would be simpler. And then once you do that, why even use prime numbers? Just assign unique tokens to voters.

What exact security garantee are you trying to provide that wouldn't also be satisfied by just giving each voter a token and publishing the token lists?

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#50

Post by plankers »

aoowii wrote: post #48

Am I the only one still against network-based, and to a lesser extent electronic-based, voting? It's near impossible to rig or suppress a physical election without a lot of effort, but one person can DDoS an entire network and no one can vote and the whole election needs to be scrapped. Not even the strongest cryptographic or software systems are free from exploits (especially over time) and there's no way to be sure…

You're not the only one.

https://xkcd.com/2030/

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