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One person can design a button which votes wrong 1/30 times. One person can exploit a bug in the encryption implementation that allows you to access metadata ab

One person can design a button which votes wrong 1/30 times. One person can exploit a bug in the encryption implementation that allows you to access metadata about who voted for what. One person can design the UI of the voting booth to vote incorrectly in some cases. (and if you don't believe this is possible, take a look at some of the "underhanded c contest" [0] winners and how insanely simple some of those exploits are, and how powerful they can be). One person could write malware to search and phone home with any private voting keys that it can find and on election day that person can vote many times. We as a species can't even write a secure SSL implementation, and you think that we would be able to write a bulletproof voting cryptosystem that can be used by every single person? But even aside from that, what happens when a person loses their key? Are they disenfranchised for life? If there's a way to regenerate keys, what is stopping someone from regenerating a few extra every now and then and voting with them? How do people without a PC vote? Remember, voting isn't like a website or application. 100% of people need to have the ability to vote. If your system disenfranchises even one person who should legally be able to vote, it can't work. Paper is near perfect already. It takes a monumental amount of resources (and one hell of a literal paper trail) to sway a paper vote in any meaningful way. It's easy to count (you already vote in small counties and districts, just count them there and pass the numbers up the chain), and it's fairly quick (the US counts the votes for the presidential election by the end of the night! That's crazy!) With an electronic system, you need people to audit it. That means that only developers would be able to vet the voting system. Your "average joe" wouldn't be able to verify if his vote was cast, he would need to rely on others. And what percentage of developers know encryption well enough to be able to safely audit a cryptosystem? 10%? 1%? That's a hell of a lot of power to be putting in a small group of people's hands. With paper, anyone can verify. Any language, any "economic class", the illiterate, anyone. You can walk down and sit next to the ballot box in your district, and watch that thing all damn day. You can count along with everyone else at the end of the day, and you can sleep well knowing your vote was counted, as you watched it, and you can do the math yourself and make sure of it. Paper works. [0] http://www.underhanded-c.org/ http://www.underhanded-c.org/

cbanek 10y ago
Any system has flaws, that's for sure. I'm not saying either that everyone should have a key, or how that key would be distributed. I haven't even thought of what the system would look like. I don't think this system would need to be online either. But yes, I think such a system could be developed. And yes, I think the results could be audited. We have code running nuclear facilities, fighter jets, and other sensitive parts of our government. In terms of how easy it is, just look at how hard it was to get recounts of votes, not to mention the 'hanging chad' situation, where people were arguing over what the paper votes were. Even the UI on the paper is very important to the whole experience to not confuse the person. Right now your average joe isn't able to verify if their vote is cast on paper I believe. You have the number on your ballot, as least in nevada on a receipt, but validating that (or at least in a meaningful way, seeing the paper) is almost impossible. For local elections and non federal elections, I think the system would be easier to mess with, due to the fewer number of people involved in the system. Overall I'm not saying paper is bad, or that tech would be easier - voting is incredibly complicated. But I think it's entirely possible to design a good system. Personally I think the mail-in ballot systems are the best, but of course I'd like to have some way of checking on that, which isn't easy.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  I guess I just disagree. I just don't see what a safe secure electronic voting system would give us over the current paper system that makes it worth the downsides. And just to clarify, "validating" your vote is very simple. You just need to watch the box all day. You can (at least in my area) arrive at the opening of polls, inspect the ballot box, watch it get locked, then sit there and watch that thing all day. You could have 10 people, 100 people, all on different "sides" all watching the same box. Then when it comes time to count, you count along. By being there the whole time, you validate with your own eyes that nobody stuffed the box, and that every vote was counted. Sure, there are "attacks" that can be made against that, but they are very complicated and risky, and again even if you pull them off, you've just "hacked" a single district in a single county in a single state. You'll need a LOT of those to win an election, and not a single person involved can ever speak of it.

cbanek 10y ago

Any system has flaws, that's for sure. I'm not saying either that everyone should have a key, or how that key would be distributed. I haven't even thought of what the system would look like. I don't think this system would need to be online either. But yes, I think such a system could be developed. And yes, I think the results could be audited. We have code running nuclear facilities, fighter jets, and other sensitive parts of our government. In terms of how easy it is, just look at how hard it was to get recounts of votes, not to mention the 'hanging chad' situation, where people were arguing over what the paper votes were. Even the UI on the paper is very important to the whole experience to not confuse the person. Right now your average joe isn't able to verify if their vote is cast on paper I believe. You have the number on your ballot, as least in nevada on a receipt, but validating that (or at least in a meaningful way, seeing the paper) is almost impossible. For local elections and non federal elections, I think the system would be easier to mess with, due to the fewer number of people involved in the system. Overall I'm not saying paper is bad, or that tech would be easier - voting is incredibly complicated. But I think it's entirely possible to design a good system. Personally I think the mail-in ballot systems are the best, but of course I'd like to have some way of checking on that, which isn't easy.

Klathmon 10y ago
I guess I just disagree. I just don't see what a safe secure electronic voting system would give us over the current paper system that makes it worth the downsides. And just to clarify, "validating" your vote is very simple. You just need to watch the box all day. You can (at least in my area) arrive at the opening of polls, inspect the ballot box, watch it get locked, then sit there and watch that thing all day. You could have 10 people, 100 people, all on different "sides" all watching the same box. Then when it comes time to count, you count along. By being there the whole time, you validate with your own eyes that nobody stuffed the box, and that every vote was counted. Sure, there are "attacks" that can be made against that, but they are very complicated and risky, and again even if you pull them off, you've just "hacked" a single district in a single county in a single state. You'll need a LOT of those to win an election, and not a single person involved can ever speak of it.