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ok, a receipt. How is this supposed to facilitate a recount? Not all voters will retain their receipts. Not all voters will retained receipts will re-present t

ok, a receipt. How is this supposed to facilitate a recount? Not all voters will retain their receipts. Not all voters will retained receipts will re-present them in the event of the need of a recount. Are you saying a recount will be unnecessary if E2E is done properly? I read the linked article but didn't get it.

grzm 10y ago
I misspoke in saying "receipt". You're right that we can't rely on voters keeping their receipts for a recount. I meant a paper record of the vote kept in addition to the electronic record. I'm not sure where I might have given the impression that a recount would not be necessary. A paper record makes a recount possible and the election system auditable. The linked Wikipedia article on end-to-end auditable voting systems provides an overview and links to different methods of making voting systems more trustworthy. There's a lot of thought and details that go into it, and if it's something you're interested in, I suggest following up on some of the links and spending more time. I know it's taken me reading a lot of different articles and implementations, and I still need to look up different parts of it. I did find this slide deck from Ron Rivest helpful: "Auditability and Verifiability of Elections" ACM-IEEE talk March 16, 2016 https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv16x.pdf https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv16x.pdf Were there particular areas that didn't make sense to you?
- 58 10y ago
  It seems pretty simple to me. Have the machine print a receipt that shows your info and who you voted for, have the voter check it over and sign it, and then have the voter hand it in before leaving the voting station. The receipt is really no different than a paper ballot at that point. That's not to say that other security precautions can be ignored. Ideally I'd think there should be mature open-source software running on secure intranets for each voting station, and transparency at every level of the process, including better transparency in how those physical receipts are transported, handled, and stored.
  - melse 10y ago
    Bear in mind that by requiring each voter to sign their ballot slip, you're reducing the anonymity of the election, since it's potentially possible to prove that you voted in a certain way to sell your vote.
    - VLM 10y ago
      The gold standard, which has been deployed where I live for a couple decades now, is to skip all the e-voting network touchscreen foolishness and simply fill out an optical scantron sheet like the tests you probably filled out in school. The last step of voting is inserting the ballot into the scantron machine. Valid ballots are eaten, invalid are kicked back out at you. Theoretically the machine can output running totals at any time, and if you've never seen an optical scanner in action you'll be surprised how fast it can scan and grade a classrooms worth of multiple guess tests, less than a minute to scan and process perhaps a hundred tests, so a thousand people living in my voting district is not exactly a data processing challenge. The votes can obviously be counted by hand of course, they're just custom printed multiple guess test sheets. Optically scanned paper tapes and punch cards were contemporary in the 60s and optical scantron machines appeared shortly after. I'd estimate my state converted from mechanical voting machines and mimeograph machines to scantrons and photocopiers about the same time, lets say 1980 although maybe as late as 1984 or earlier in the 70s. I distinctly remember watching my parents vote one last time on an old fashioned voting machine when I was a little kid, probably voting for Nixon, may have been Reagan but I'd have been too old by then, I think. Old fashioned mechanical voting machines were cool and steam punk ish in appearance. Its such a simple, cheap, reliable system that it almost leads credence to claims that elections are being intentionally rigged. Its hard to explain otherwise why something so cheap simple and logical is being covered up and so few people know about it. Ironically I live in a non-swing state in a gerrymandered district so my vote has never mattered and never will, but at least if I ever get a chance to influence politics via voting, its pretty obvious my vote would be counted fairly.
    - zelos 10y ago
      Not that I'd hold the UK up as a good example of democracy, but here there is a unique ID on each ballot paper that is noted down on a list next to your name when you vote. The ID/name list is kept securely, but can be used to find a voter's ballot paper later in the case of a dispute over the result or fraud.
AimHere 10y ago
Receipts are retained by the guys holding the election, not the voters. A physical record of which way a vote was cast would be an excellent way of enabling bribery of voters, and no sane system would allow it. That's also why photographing a ballot paper is usually banned in polling stations.
kwhitefoot 10y ago
Giving a receipt for a vote is illegal in many places because it enables vote buying.
- 24gttghh 10y ago
  Which implies the ability to present your receipt to a third party for compensation of your vote?
- talmand 10y ago
  Does anybody make the argument that the lack of a receipt prevents vote buying?
  - ebalit 10y ago
    If you can claim to vote in a way when you voted another way, then no one is going to bribe or force you to vote in a given way. That what the voting booth and envelopes are for. Its not a random thing. Our voting systems are low tech, but it's well designed.
    - talmand 10y ago
      That's simple, if I were to engage in such deceitful practices then I would say payoff requires my candidate winning.
      - fgonzag 10y ago
        Not in Mexico, vote buying is pretty common. But over here it pretty much relies on the fact that poorer folk don't know your vote is completely anonymous. They'll tell you sure I'll give you money, a TV, cellphone, whatever. But I will find out if you don't vote for me, and most simply believe it. And in the latest election where the incumbent party lost, It was pretty publicized that they went to a lot of the poorer colonies to try and get their money, cell phones and tvs back. All quickly forgotten as soon as the media got a whiff of it. Buying votes in a first world country probably isn't possible as most people are somewhat (and probably wrongly) educated on the topic, and hold pretty firm views on it. However, it's a piece of pie on mostly illiterate people. Even then, people get tired, see the latest elections in Mexico.

grzm 10y ago

I misspoke in saying "receipt". You're right that we can't rely on voters keeping their receipts for a recount. I meant a paper record of the vote kept in addition to the electronic record. I'm not sure where I might have given the impression that a recount would not be necessary. A paper record makes a recount possible and the election system auditable. The linked Wikipedia article on end-to-end auditable voting systems provides an overview and links to different methods of making voting systems more trustworthy. There's a lot of thought and details that go into it, and if it's something you're interested in, I suggest following up on some of the links and spending more time. I know it's taken me reading a lot of different articles and implementations, and I still need to look up different parts of it. I did find this slide deck from Ron Rivest helpful: "Auditability and Verifiability of Elections" ACM-IEEE talk March 16, 2016 https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv16x.pdf https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv16x.pdf Were there particular areas that didn't make sense to you?

58 10y ago
It seems pretty simple to me. Have the machine print a receipt that shows your info and who you voted for, have the voter check it over and sign it, and then have the voter hand it in before leaving the voting station. The receipt is really no different than a paper ballot at that point. That's not to say that other security precautions can be ignored. Ideally I'd think there should be mature open-source software running on secure intranets for each voting station, and transparency at every level of the process, including better transparency in how those physical receipts are transported, handled, and stored.
- melse 10y ago
  Bear in mind that by requiring each voter to sign their ballot slip, you're reducing the anonymity of the election, since it's potentially possible to prove that you voted in a certain way to sell your vote.
  - VLM 10y ago
    The gold standard, which has been deployed where I live for a couple decades now, is to skip all the e-voting network touchscreen foolishness and simply fill out an optical scantron sheet like the tests you probably filled out in school. The last step of voting is inserting the ballot into the scantron machine. Valid ballots are eaten, invalid are kicked back out at you. Theoretically the machine can output running totals at any time, and if you've never seen an optical scanner in action you'll be surprised how fast it can scan and grade a classrooms worth of multiple guess tests, less than a minute to scan and process perhaps a hundred tests, so a thousand people living in my voting district is not exactly a data processing challenge. The votes can obviously be counted by hand of course, they're just custom printed multiple guess test sheets. Optically scanned paper tapes and punch cards were contemporary in the 60s and optical scantron machines appeared shortly after. I'd estimate my state converted from mechanical voting machines and mimeograph machines to scantrons and photocopiers about the same time, lets say 1980 although maybe as late as 1984 or earlier in the 70s. I distinctly remember watching my parents vote one last time on an old fashioned voting machine when I was a little kid, probably voting for Nixon, may have been Reagan but I'd have been too old by then, I think. Old fashioned mechanical voting machines were cool and steam punk ish in appearance. Its such a simple, cheap, reliable system that it almost leads credence to claims that elections are being intentionally rigged. Its hard to explain otherwise why something so cheap simple and logical is being covered up and so few people know about it. Ironically I live in a non-swing state in a gerrymandered district so my vote has never mattered and never will, but at least if I ever get a chance to influence politics via voting, its pretty obvious my vote would be counted fairly.
  - zelos 10y ago
    Not that I'd hold the UK up as a good example of democracy, but here there is a unique ID on each ballot paper that is noted down on a list next to your name when you vote. The ID/name list is kept securely, but can be used to find a voter's ballot paper later in the case of a dispute over the result or fraud.

AimHere 10y ago

Receipts are retained by the guys holding the election, not the voters. A physical record of which way a vote was cast would be an excellent way of enabling bribery of voters, and no sane system would allow it. That's also why photographing a ballot paper is usually banned in polling stations.

kwhitefoot 10y ago

Giving a receipt for a vote is illegal in many places because it enables vote buying.

24gttghh 10y ago
Which implies the ability to present your receipt to a third party for compensation of your vote?
talmand 10y ago
Does anybody make the argument that the lack of a receipt prevents vote buying?
- ebalit 10y ago
  If you can claim to vote in a way when you voted another way, then no one is going to bribe or force you to vote in a given way. That what the voting booth and envelopes are for. Its not a random thing. Our voting systems are low tech, but it's well designed.
  - talmand 10y ago
    That's simple, if I were to engage in such deceitful practices then I would say payoff requires my candidate winning.
    - fgonzag 10y ago
      Not in Mexico, vote buying is pretty common. But over here it pretty much relies on the fact that poorer folk don't know your vote is completely anonymous. They'll tell you sure I'll give you money, a TV, cellphone, whatever. But I will find out if you don't vote for me, and most simply believe it. And in the latest election where the incumbent party lost, It was pretty publicized that they went to a lot of the poorer colonies to try and get their money, cell phones and tvs back. All quickly forgotten as soon as the media got a whiff of it. Buying votes in a first world country probably isn't possible as most people are somewhat (and probably wrongly) educated on the topic, and hold pretty firm views on it. However, it's a piece of pie on mostly illiterate people. Even then, people get tired, see the latest elections in Mexico.