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To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

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Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#71

Post by richardknop »

feintruled wrote: post #64
richardknop wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should be solved by issuing a free government ID, not by compromising and creating a giant loophole when potentially citizens of other countries can vote in your election and there is no way to verify that.

Not as easy as it sounds. I was in a Government office for some tax related reason and was in line behind some guys trying to apply for their 'electrical card' (sic, electoral). This is in N. Ireland, which unlike the rest of the UK requires ID to vote. They were having to be talked through filling in the form only to hit a roadblock when it came to proof of address. After expressing their voluble disbelief at some l…

That's implementation problem, not an argument against making sure only eligible citizens can vote.

Why not have a national ID like in some European countries? Issue it at age of 15, you can go to a government office with parents when you are 15 and get your ID.

You can pass a sensible legislation for this. Have a grace period of 2 election cycles to allow all the people who want to vote enough time to get their ID (10 years is more than enough time to prove your address).

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#72

Post by octalmage »

pjmorris wrote: post #50
drdaeman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are attempts to create an end-to-end auditable voting systems. Where you don't have to trust the organizers or machinery to not trick you, and you can validate that your vote was counted correctly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_sy... Sadly, as far as I know, none is without issues (older systems were found to have various problems, and newer stuff is still bleeding edge that wasn't y…

The trick is that you don't just have to convince somebody (a security expert) that the system is trustworthy, you have to convince everyone (voters) that the system is trustworthy. Anything more complicated than paper ballots counted in public will leave room for doubt.

Paper ballots leave a lot of room for doubt in my mind. How you can you recount the ballots and come up with a different number? This shouldn't be possible, but it happens all the time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_recount

Thinking out loud here, how about a blockchain based solution? Each user gets a new address, and that address is printed on a receipt after you vote. This way you can verify your vote at anytime, and the votes can be counted in public.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#73

Post by TeMPOraL »

cmiles74 wrote: post #65
danirod wrote: post #3

Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.

The vote processing chain is lengthy, it is inevitable that a computer system will be inserted somewhere in that chain. Right now the push is to have these systems right at the front, facing the voter, but that isn't the only time the votes are processed electronically. In my district we vote by coloring in little circles with a #2 pencil, we then feed that directly into an electronic machine that tallies the results…

> With so many links in the chain, it's my opinion that it's unreasonable to expect them all to be processed by people. It won't scale and I'm not convinced that it's that much safer anyway.

I think the main argument for physical voting is that it's much safer precisely because it doesn't scale well - and so attacks against it don't scale well either. The manpower requirements buy you security.

> As painful as it is, I think we all need to trust the state, to some degree, to do the jobs that are the responsibility of the state.

I agree, but I think it does not apply to elections - simply because it's the one place where both the ruling party and competing groups have very strong incentives to mess with the process.

> Once the votes have been tallied for a district, isn't it possible to tamper with them as they are transmitted up the chain to the next link in the processing?

Yes, but again, the argument goes, the less scalable and more manpower-intensive the whole process is, the more difficult is to hack it.

> I think that is possible, the best we can hope for is to push for as much transparency as possible and hope that, if it comes to it, we have enough data to detect such tampering.

I agree with the call for transparency, but I also agree with the people who point out that inserting electronic systems destroys that transparency (too easy to hack, too complex for general population to inspect).

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#74

Post by zython »

warcode wrote: post #55
danhardman wrote: post #11

I'd like to reference Tom Scott's video[0] here. There is no need for an electronic voting system, paper ballots work perfectly. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI

Until you want to scale due to using rapid direct democracy. Paper ballots will still WORK perfectly, but the workload will be massive.

Which is something you can justify IMO for a direct, just, free, equal and confidential election.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#75

Post by rotten »

danirod wrote: post #3

Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.

Why use a voting machine at all? Isn't the main point of having a polling location simply so you can verify your identity? If we could come up with a system that allowed one's identity to be verified online, or by postal service, then do we really need thousands of machines collecting the votes. Couldn't it be centralized to a handful of more easily audited systems?

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#76

Post by vertex-four »

rotten wrote: post #75
danirod wrote: post #3

Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.

Why use a voting machine at all? Isn't the main point of having a polling location simply so you can verify your identity? If we could come up with a system that allowed one's identity to be verified online, or by postal service, then do we really need thousands of machines collecting the votes. Couldn't it be centralized to a handful of more easily audited systems?

No, the point of a polling station is so that there's provably no coercion. You fill out your ballot in secret, you're not permitted to take a photograph of it, and you place it in the ballot box without telling anybody what you've voted for.

The more you allow people to vote from their homes, the more likely it is that people can be coerced into voting the way their partner, employer, or otherwise, want them to.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#77

Post by cletus »

To protect voting don't use electronic voting.

Paper ballots (the kind with marks read optically, not the ridiculous punch cards at the center of the Florida 2000 debacle) are easy to use and understand with a very low error rate and keep a paper trail, being the actual ballots.

I don't understand why anyone other than the companies who sell e-voting machines actually want electronic voting.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#78

Post by chiph »

rotten wrote: post #75
danirod wrote: post #3

Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.

Why use a voting machine at all? Isn't the main point of having a polling location simply so you can verify your identity? If we could come up with a system that allowed one's identity to be verified online, or by postal service, then do we really need thousands of machines collecting the votes. Couldn't it be centralized to a handful of more easily audited systems?

There's some challenging requirements around this. You need to positively identify someone as having the right and ability to vote (no dead people voting like in Illinois). You need to make sure they vote only once (no ballot box stuffing). You need to make sure their vote wasn't coerced (as far as you can). You need to make sure their vote is anonymous (to protect the voters from retaliation). And it needs to be easy enough so that your 80 year old grandmother can do it.
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