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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

#431

Post by JanisErdmanis »

crazygringo wrote: post #306
BurningFrog wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would also mean someone could force you to show who/what you voted for.

No, because they have no idea what your true ballot ID was. They can force you to show them a ballot, the idea is that all ballot ID's get made public. You could be showing them anybody's and they'll never have any way of knowing.

It seems you mean something simailar to Selene voting system where a tally board is published containing tracker vote pairs. Each voter can decrypt their tracker once the voting phase closes to check the vote and also means to fake the decryption for claiming another other tracker from the tally board as yours.

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

#432

Post by gus_massa »

joe_mamba wrote: post #407
pdpi wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you haven’t lived under a dictatorship. It might not be a sledgehammer, but breaking voter secrecy and pressuring people to vote the “right” way is very much a thing.

You don't need a dictatorship to nudge people to vote the "right" way, just incentives for the masses: Vote for me and I'll increase your pensions, the other guy wants to decrease your pensions. Vote for me and I'll increase wages of gov workers and civil servants, the other guy wants to fire gov workers. VOte for me and I'll increase your welfare and give you free* housing. etc... etc. The gov has masses of people t…

At some level, incentives, masses bribes and political polices are interchangeable. A few almost real examples from Argentina:

Party A) Keep the 80% discount in the electricity and gas bills

Party B) Reduce inflation from 200% y.o.y. to 50% y.o.y.

Party C) [I don't remember]

Party D) "A normal country"

---

PS: D was a slogan, they got less than 5% of the votes.

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

#433

Post by direwolf20 »

somenameforme wrote: post #314
godelski wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the bigger concern is that mail in ballots lead to fake ballots being submitted. Though I've seen no convincing evidence of this happening at any meaningful scale and the arguments seem unconvincing since you don't get a ballot unless verified with a state ID and your ballot has a unique ID associated with your name, preventing a double spend. Personally, my concern is that with mail in ballots some nutjob th…

In 2020 a number of states were sending out mail-in ballots to every single registered voter, even if they didn't request it. Those states were CA, CO, DC, HI, NJ, NV, OR, UT, VT, and WA. [1] [1] - https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voti...

What's wrong with that?

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

#434

Post by direwolf20 »

femto wrote: post #357
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…

> it just works The biggest reason "it just works" is that the Australian Electoral Commission, the organisation that sets electoral boundaries and runs the election, is independent of the government. Other reasons are compulsory voting and preferential voting. In my mind, it is these three things that keep Australia's democracy relatively healthy.

And yet the people keep voting for some of the strictest internet surveillance laws in the world.

"The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia" said a politician asked about his policy of making encryption illegal.

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

#435

Post by rstuart4133 »

croon wrote: post #426
endgame wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some really clever systems that let you prove that you voted without leaking how you voted. Unfortunately, explaining them to Joe Q. Public in such a way that he's going to trust your election is a very tough sell, whereas counting paper is a much easier process to explain. And that's before you begin worrying that the developer of your whizz-bang mathematically-provable voting system is a) going to win the…

I have had this discussion many times before, with people smarter than me, and I have not yet reached a counter argument to the idea that if you can only prove that you voted (and not couple each vote to a voter), how can you prove that innumerable votes were added to the record, or that your vote is correct? You can either couple every vote to a voter and risk oppressive monitoring of votes at scale or coercion at m…

You could try reading the Wikipedia article on the end to end voter veritable system called Prêt à Voter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%AAt_%C3%A0_Voter It's not that hard to grok how it works because there is no complicated math involved.

It allows any voter to verify their vote was accurately recorded in the reported total. The usual argument against is you need a lot of people to verify, and most won't. That's probably true when everyone is confident in the outcome, but I'm not so sure it works be true if there was a wiff of fraud in the air.

> how can you prove that innumerable votes were added to the record, or that your vote is correct?

In Australia it's easy to prove no votes to the record because everyone on the rolls must vote, or they get fined. Ergo total votes must equal the number of people on the roll minus the number fined. As for "your vote was counted" - read the Wikipedia article. These systems do prove that, while keeping your ballot secret.

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

#436

Post by themafia »

GJim wrote: post #406
themafia wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Then my refusal to vote should be counted. Then spoil your paper. Spoiling your paper shows that you got off your arse and voted to say "I don't want any of these people". (See the number of spoilt votes in the UK Police and Crime Commissioner elections for a prime example of this; many in the UK disagreed with politicising the police and spoilt their papers in protest) By simply not voting, the assumption is you a…

> shows that you got off your arse

Is that the point of democracy?

> See the number of spoilt votes in the UK Police and Crime Commissioner elections

The candidate was still elected with a turnout of 15.3%. This is farcical to give this person a mandate where they clearly earned none. Shouldn't the parties get off their arse and pick better people for office? I'm busy and I pay taxes. What are you hassling me for?

> the assumption is

Assume whatever you like.

> the politicians will not care either.

I hate to be flip, but your entire tenor has brought it out of me, and this is the hardest to take. Then why would else would they run for office? They need my approval by engaging in a national cargo cult ritual to function properly? You accept this from your "leadership?"

How has that actually worked out in practice?

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

#437

Post by themafia »

crote wrote: post #367
themafia wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Which country doesn't count spoiled or blank votes? And the whole "cancel the election and find new candidates" is pretty pointless when anyone can start a political party of their own and participate in the election.

> Which country doesn't count spoiled or blank votes?

The USA. We have districts where turnout is as low as 25% of eligible voters.

> anyone can start a political party of their own and participate in the election.

You don't get federal funding and the FCC doesn't force networks to cover your party or include you in debates until you win 5% on a national platform. Have fun actually doing this. Which was the only reason I voted for Nader. I wanted the greens to have a standing in the US. It's never even come close to happening since.

> "cancel the election and find new candidates"

Then your political parties will engage in a race to the bottom with you. You don't sense this already happening?

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

#438

Post by themafia »

Nursie wrote: post #394
themafia wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> it will be reported publicly.

Does this manifest as any real political outcome?

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

#439

Post by bluGill »

HaZeust wrote: post #375
bluGill wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote buying and worse 'vote for me or I'll shoot you'. Buying is the more common scam but there are worse options for evil people

You can also do this today by telling someone to take a picture of their vote by smartphone or you'll shoot them. Millions post a picture of their ballot on high-energy political forums every 2 years already. This hypothetical is unhelpful.

Where I live phone use is not allowed in the room where the voting is
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