5 ms·

Shameless plug: the city of San Francisco is trying to build an Open Source Voting System (officially!). Even the paper ballot scanners/tabulators in the US are

by rattray 10y ago

Shameless plug: the city of San Francisco is trying to build an Open Source Voting System (officially!). Even the paper ballot scanners/tabulators in the US are running proprietary, hackable software. If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in securing elections, now is a great time to get involved. There's a public meeting next week (sfgov.org/electionscommission). I'm also happy to get coffee and catch anyone up on where the effort stands – email in profile. EDIT: I should have clarified that the new system will remain a 100% paper ballot system. The software involved is to organize, print, tabulate, and tally ballots. There's a strong community that opposes inherently risky approaches involving things like digital storage and the internet (again, reach out if you're interested in joining!).

mcast 10y ago
Having open source voting systems is a great thing, but electronic voting is inherehently flawed and is a terrible idea. There's no way to prove the checksum of your software is real unless you have root access to the voting machine and are assuming the OS is not compromised. Decentralized electronic machines that print paper ballots for you (which you can physically verify), and submitting to a tabulator seem to be the safest option. But your paper ballot can be compromised in transit by a worker. I have also heard talks about using a blockchain-esque system for voting and verifying it online with a hash code. Here's a great video by Tom Scott: https://youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI https://youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > electronic voting is inherently flawed and is a terrible idea I see this expressed a lot. But the argument always seems to actually be that electronic voting doesn't play nicely with anonymous voting. It's possible that either might be a better choice than the other. If you give people a way to prove that they voted a certain way, then the election is robust against rigging, but you've also allowed vote-selling as a side effect.
  - mixmax 10y ago
    the vote-selling side effect is much larger than you'd like. In Denmark someone made a study and found out that when voting changed from public (everyone could see who voted for who) to anonymous the workers parties gained votes to the tune of double digit percentages. Presumably what happened before is that the landlords, owners and managers would tell the workers who it would be "best" to vote for if they'd like to keep their job or apartment. If I recall correctly this was around 1910 or so.
    - thaumasiotes 10y ago
      > the vote-selling side effect is much larger than you'd like. > In Denmark someone made a study and found out that when voting changed from public (everyone could see who voted for who) to anonymous the workers parties gained votes to the tune of double digit percentages. Is that a good thing in itself? How much of one?
      - jacobolus 10y ago
        Are you asking whether it is a good thing for people to be able to vote their conscience vs. voting however someone with social/economic leverage over them would prefer?
        jack9 10y ago
        "Good thing (tm)" is not a qualitative metric.
        thaumasiotes 10y ago
        Did the change make people better off? By how much? I don't see "the workers' parties get more votes" as a worthwhile end in itself, but maybe you're different.
        jacobolus 10y ago
        If the most powerful people in society can bully everyone into voting for their preferred candidate under threat of forceful personal retaliation if they don’t, what’s the point of voting at all? How do you define “make people better off”? Is political self-determination an end in itself, or is the whole political system just a means to material success for the ruling class? Personally I think having a wider distribution of power in the society is itself a goal worth fighting for. In the long term it tends to make the society more just, more stable, and more prosperous, and bring the political process more into alignment with solving concrete problems affecting the citizenry.
- pkd 10y ago
  The problem with that video is that it assumes that that the internet is involved at some stage. In India, that isn't the case. EVMs are not internet enabled, neither are they "programmed" by sticking a USB in them. They come in huge sealed boxes to the centres, and are carried back the same away. The data never leaves these machines. If my knowledge is correct, the data can only be accessed by a high ranking election official called the RO. Paper ballots were the norm in India for over 40 years before EVMs were introduced. Election fraud has been non-existent since then.
  - mixmax 10y ago
    As Tom Scott points out in the video you're just moving the problem. They may not be connected to the Internet, but surely someone has programmed them. Who? And how do you know noone has changed the software? If they've been programmed at one point they can be programmed again. It's Pandora's box.
  - r00fus 10y ago
    Non existent or completely hidden?
    - pkd 10y ago
      I would be very surprised if it could be "completely hidden" given the political partisanship that exists in India.
      - HaoZeke 10y ago
        Considering that the media is always howling about how the results have been tampered with.. Election fraud in India with evms is like hiding a tree in a forest, no-one would know for sure with all the allegations flying around.
  - roystonvassey 10y ago
    >Election fraud has been non-existent since then. Can you provide a source for this please?
- rattray 10y ago
  Thanks! Edited to clarify that it's still a paper ballot system. But you're certainly correct that there are many shades of gray here, with varying degrees of hypothetical and real danger of compromise. It's important to have skilled engineers play a part in the design of the system to help identify and avoid these problems. The city is putting together an Advisory Committee as we speak for this very purpose. I'd encourage anyone interested to apply.

by rattray 10y ago

mcast 10y ago

Having open source voting systems is a great thing, but electronic voting is inherehently flawed and is a terrible idea. There's no way to prove the checksum of your software is real unless you have root access to the voting machine and are assuming the OS is not compromised. Decentralized electronic machines that print paper ballots for you (which you can physically verify), and submitting to a tabulator seem to be the safest option. But your paper ballot can be compromised in transit by a worker. I have also heard talks about using a blockchain-esque system for voting and verifying it online with a hash code. Here's a great video by Tom Scott: https://youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI https://youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI

thaumasiotes 10y ago
> electronic voting is inherently flawed and is a terrible idea I see this expressed a lot. But the argument always seems to actually be that electronic voting doesn't play nicely with anonymous voting. It's possible that either might be a better choice than the other. If you give people a way to prove that they voted a certain way, then the election is robust against rigging, but you've also allowed vote-selling as a side effect.
- mixmax 10y ago
  the vote-selling side effect is much larger than you'd like. In Denmark someone made a study and found out that when voting changed from public (everyone could see who voted for who) to anonymous the workers parties gained votes to the tune of double digit percentages. Presumably what happened before is that the landlords, owners and managers would tell the workers who it would be "best" to vote for if they'd like to keep their job or apartment. If I recall correctly this was around 1910 or so.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    > the vote-selling side effect is much larger than you'd like. > In Denmark someone made a study and found out that when voting changed from public (everyone could see who voted for who) to anonymous the workers parties gained votes to the tune of double digit percentages. Is that a good thing in itself? How much of one?
    - jacobolus 10y ago
      Are you asking whether it is a good thing for people to be able to vote their conscience vs. voting however someone with social/economic leverage over them would prefer?
      - jack9 10y ago
        "Good thing (tm)" is not a qualitative metric.
      - thaumasiotes 10y ago
        Did the change make people better off? By how much? I don't see "the workers' parties get more votes" as a worthwhile end in itself, but maybe you're different.
        jacobolus 10y ago
        If the most powerful people in society can bully everyone into voting for their preferred candidate under threat of forceful personal retaliation if they don’t, what’s the point of voting at all? How do you define “make people better off”? Is political self-determination an end in itself, or is the whole political system just a means to material success for the ruling class? Personally I think having a wider distribution of power in the society is itself a goal worth fighting for. In the long term it tends to make the society more just, more stable, and more prosperous, and bring the political process more into alignment with solving concrete problems affecting the citizenry.
pkd 10y ago
The problem with that video is that it assumes that that the internet is involved at some stage. In India, that isn't the case. EVMs are not internet enabled, neither are they "programmed" by sticking a USB in them. They come in huge sealed boxes to the centres, and are carried back the same away. The data never leaves these machines. If my knowledge is correct, the data can only be accessed by a high ranking election official called the RO. Paper ballots were the norm in India for over 40 years before EVMs were introduced. Election fraud has been non-existent since then.
- mixmax 10y ago
  As Tom Scott points out in the video you're just moving the problem. They may not be connected to the Internet, but surely someone has programmed them. Who? And how do you know noone has changed the software? If they've been programmed at one point they can be programmed again. It's Pandora's box.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Non existent or completely hidden?
  - pkd 10y ago
    I would be very surprised if it could be "completely hidden" given the political partisanship that exists in India.
    - HaoZeke 10y ago
      Considering that the media is always howling about how the results have been tampered with.. Election fraud in India with evms is like hiding a tree in a forest, no-one would know for sure with all the allegations flying around.
- roystonvassey 10y ago
  >Election fraud has been non-existent since then. Can you provide a source for this please?
rattray 10y ago
Thanks! Edited to clarify that it's still a paper ballot system. But you're certainly correct that there are many shades of gray here, with varying degrees of hypothetical and real danger of compromise. It's important to have skilled engineers play a part in the design of the system to help identify and avoid these problems. The city is putting together an Advisory Committee as we speak for this very purpose. I'd encourage anyone interested to apply.