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That YouTube video is full of logical fallacies and wrong claims. And even if such a verification is impossible, I don't think we should reject incremental imp

That YouTube video is full of logical fallacies and wrong claims. And even if such a verification is impossible, I don't think we should reject incremental improvements just because the result is not yet perfect.

vladimirralev 10y ago
This video is a highly cited source on the issue, admittedly aimed at less educated viewers, but quite accurate. There have been no rebuttals since it was posted and there are serious computer scientists putting their name on it. If you want to write a substantial rebuttal, I am sure it will be huge news in the community. Even the simplest verifiable voting system is so complicated normal people will be confused how to use it and take advantage of it.
- bozho 10y ago
  http://techblog.bozho.net/why-all-the-fear-in-electronic-voting/ http://techblog.bozho.net/why-all-the-fear-in-electronic-vot...
  - vladimirralev 10y ago
    Well this article throws a bunch of different things out there suggesting that, first, Bulgaria will adopt verified electronic voting, and second, that electronic voting is sound enough and ready for deployment. Both of these points are false or unclear at best. Then the blog seems to suggest there is some sort of middle ground between verified voting and non-verified voting and it's OK to make some half-assed step in this direction, which is exactly what the video warns against. When people talk about electronic voting, typically this means the US-type of voting. And when someone talks about verifiable electronic voting, then they should start by making it clear that this is orders of magnitude more ambitious, it hasn't been deployed anywhere and Bulgaria will be the first country in the world to do it. This is a project of historical scale including the known practical difficulties with the current methods. It should not be advertised like a proven system working in EU and US like it is now. And like I said even if Bulgaria really adopts any sort of verifiable voting there will be so many confused people due to the nature of the process it will skew the results. Finally, again as the video explains paper vote counting may not be perfect, but it does require more people to involved in the fraud. This is a very important point. Results are available per area and each party makes sure the sum makes sense at least from a small sample.
onestone 10y ago
A couple of examples from the first minute of the video: - A ridiculous example of "electronic voting" is presented - voters download ballot papers, fill them, then email or fax them back. This obviously sucks in multiple ways. Therefore, all kinds of "electronic voting" must be broken. - Physical voting is very old, therefore it must have become solid and tamper-proof by now. This is not true. Physical voting is vulnerable to all kinds of manipulations, and they do happen on large scales. The wrong claims continue forward. Just because that dude sounds smart doesn't mean his clip has any value.
- vladimirralev 10y ago
  This "ridiculous" example is very real and famously practised to this day MASSIVELY in many countries [1]. It is the prime example of what most people understand as e-voting. He does address other types of voting as well later, including the "open-source bullet-proof machines". The guy explicitly says physical voting can be compromised easily too, but it requires much more people and it will exhibit patterns such as location stats, violence or outbursts of whistleblowers and it is more or less contained unless the whole country is on it in which case - good for them anyway. While with e-voting, you could technically be a very small group of people and you can model your fake results to be statistically plausible much better with no patterns. [1] https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/abroad/legal-matters/benefits/voting.html https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/abroad/legal-m...

vladimirralev 10y ago

This video is a highly cited source on the issue, admittedly aimed at less educated viewers, but quite accurate. There have been no rebuttals since it was posted and there are serious computer scientists putting their name on it. If you want to write a substantial rebuttal, I am sure it will be huge news in the community. Even the simplest verifiable voting system is so complicated normal people will be confused how to use it and take advantage of it.

bozho 10y ago
http://techblog.bozho.net/why-all-the-fear-in-electronic-voting/ http://techblog.bozho.net/why-all-the-fear-in-electronic-vot...
- vladimirralev 10y ago
  Well this article throws a bunch of different things out there suggesting that, first, Bulgaria will adopt verified electronic voting, and second, that electronic voting is sound enough and ready for deployment. Both of these points are false or unclear at best. Then the blog seems to suggest there is some sort of middle ground between verified voting and non-verified voting and it's OK to make some half-assed step in this direction, which is exactly what the video warns against. When people talk about electronic voting, typically this means the US-type of voting. And when someone talks about verifiable electronic voting, then they should start by making it clear that this is orders of magnitude more ambitious, it hasn't been deployed anywhere and Bulgaria will be the first country in the world to do it. This is a project of historical scale including the known practical difficulties with the current methods. It should not be advertised like a proven system working in EU and US like it is now. And like I said even if Bulgaria really adopts any sort of verifiable voting there will be so many confused people due to the nature of the process it will skew the results. Finally, again as the video explains paper vote counting may not be perfect, but it does require more people to involved in the fraud. This is a very important point. Results are available per area and each party makes sure the sum makes sense at least from a small sample.

onestone 10y ago

A couple of examples from the first minute of the video: - A ridiculous example of "electronic voting" is presented - voters download ballot papers, fill them, then email or fax them back. This obviously sucks in multiple ways. Therefore, all kinds of "electronic voting" must be broken. - Physical voting is very old, therefore it must have become solid and tamper-proof by now. This is not true. Physical voting is vulnerable to all kinds of manipulations, and they do happen on large scales. The wrong claims continue forward. Just because that dude sounds smart doesn't mean his clip has any value.

vladimirralev 10y ago
This "ridiculous" example is very real and famously practised to this day MASSIVELY in many countries [1]. It is the prime example of what most people understand as e-voting. He does address other types of voting as well later, including the "open-source bullet-proof machines". The guy explicitly says physical voting can be compromised easily too, but it requires much more people and it will exhibit patterns such as location stats, violence or outbursts of whistleblowers and it is more or less contained unless the whole country is on it in which case - good for them anyway. While with e-voting, you could technically be a very small group of people and you can model your fake results to be statistically plausible much better with no patterns. [1] https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/abroad/legal-matters/benefits/voting.html https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/abroad/legal-m...