9 ms·

Give each vote a uuid. Give the voter a receipt with their uuid and results. Post the full results online by uuid; voters can verify the recorded online result

by dilap 9y ago

Give each vote a uuid. Give the voter a receipt with their uuid and results. Post the full results online by uuid; voters can verify the recorded online result is faithful. Label the online results by voting site. Keep a count at each site of the number of people that voted. Verify this count more or less matches the results posted online.

denom 9y ago
That would result in scenarios like this: "I'll pay you X amount for a 'Yes' UUID". It's far better to keep the result anonymous. As for the counts, where I vote my name is recorded in a book and then I cast my ballot. So it should be possible to verify that the book tally and vote tally match.
- novalis78 9y ago
  I thought that's how democracy currently operates: you vote for me and I give you xyz. Now, combining this with a Blockchain and actually getting paid... hmmm...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- agarden 9y ago
  Then I'll go pay someone who voted 'yes' 1/2X for their UUID receipt and everyone is happy.
- improbable22 9y ago
  The last time I voted there was a campaign to remind you that taking a selfie with your ballot paper is illegal -- for exactly this reason.
- zanny 9y ago
  One way to do it would be to present the user with the number but not give them a physical / digital certificate of the UUID. If they are all public, the conspirator trying to buy votes cannot trust that their client isn't just looking up UUIDs and giving them a different one. You can write your identifier down, but you could also go online and look up any other identifier you want and use that one instead. The public ledger results could be timestamped so you can correlate your vote with the on chain results, but given a large enough election thousands of votes should be coming in every <unit of time the ledger uses> and you could pick any one that voted the way your sponsor wanted to claim to be your own. It is only a problem if results don't come in in real time I think. Trying to photograph the display would be just as much of a problem as taking a picture of your ballot today. The broad point is to convey the UUID in the only untrustable memory store, the human brain.
- dilap 9y ago
  I guess I'm not so worried about the "I'll pay you X" stuff vs. outright fraud. (And it already happens, anyway -- I had a friend who volunteered at a voting site here in SF for the last prez election, and he was quite surprised by how many elderly people came in, confused, just asking how they could vote "how they were supposed too".)
saint_fiasco 9y ago
Voting is supposed to be secret. If you have to give each voter a receipt with their uuid, it defeats the whole point.
- novalis78 9y ago
  But don't they all already have a uuid - called driver's license? And they are verified against some database if they are allowed to vote. Could not you encrypt the actual vote itself but make the rest transparent?
agarden 9y ago
A UUID could let one verify that one's own vote was correctly recorded, but it does nothing to prevent stuffing the ballot box, which seems to be the more normal way of swinging an election.
IncRnd 9y ago
This moves validation to people, requiring that everyone have internet access that is used to check their voter tally. Unfortunately, this system is neither trustworthy nor correct, as adding new UUIDs to the rolls defeats the system. A voting system is a security system that has to work in the presence of bad actors.
- dilap 9y ago
  My defense against adding new UDIDs was that each voting station is reporting their total # of people who voted, and you have the station associated with the UDID. If you add new UDIDs, you'll throw off those numbers.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    A voting system is not just the statement to use UUIDs, oh and to use some other check when you are shown that UUIDs are not complete. There is a lot that goes into actual large scale system design. P.S. You keep writing "UDID", but you really mean "UUID". The UDID is a specific implementation of unique device identifiers. They have nothing to do with individual people.
    - dilap 9y ago
      yeah, too much time w/ iphones — i meant uuid. i tried to fix two things with my proposal: changing votes and adding votes. let’s hear some concrete criticisms and suggestions. i dont feel like the current systems are particularly thoughtfully designed. we could probably do better in this HN thread. :)
      - IncRnd 9y ago
        > let’s hear some concrete criticisms and suggestions. If you don't present a design, you won't find anyone to critique it. My suggestion is to design something and then present it.
        9y ago
filoeleven 9y ago
As others have said, this can lead to vote buying or voter intimidation ("vote for x or I'll break your face") Spitballing here: What if you get the receipt with UUID and your choices, then at a separate kiosk only in the polling ststion you can enter your UUID to view the full results as posted online. Along with your UUID and results, a hash of the two is displayed and can be printed onto your receipt. Before leaving the station, you must detach and dispose of the plaintext voting choices, but you can hang onto the UUID + hash. At any time in the future, you can enter your UUID into the site, which will compute and display only the hash, giving you verification of no tampering but not disclosing any results to nefarious third parties.
- mipmap04 9y ago
  I feel people who don't understand hashing would have trouble understanding and trusting this. I like it though.
- dilap 9y ago
  Nice! Finding a good clean way to explain this will be a challenge though.
  - filoeleven 9y ago
    Well sex sells, right? So we say that the hash is the child of your UUID and your ballot choices, and that someone who voted the same way you did but has a different UUID will have a different-looking child. Same goes for if you had voted differently than you actually did: the kid would look different! You did say "a good clean way" though, so perhaps that analogy is inappropriate :) Maybe it could be explained in terms of one of those "superhero name generators"[0], where the initials used come from your UUID and the superhero name chunks come from your voting choices. Sure, a hash is a lot more mathematically complicated but the principle remains the same (to the point of the possibility of two different UUIDs and voting choices ending up with the same hash, just as anyone having the initials DJT will become The Incredible Golden Tornado). [0]http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/superhero-name-generator.jpg http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/superhero-...

by dilap 9y ago

denom 9y ago

That would result in scenarios like this: "I'll pay you X amount for a 'Yes' UUID". It's far better to keep the result anonymous. As for the counts, where I vote my name is recorded in a book and then I cast my ballot. So it should be possible to verify that the book tally and vote tally match.

novalis78 9y ago
I thought that's how democracy currently operates: you vote for me and I give you xyz. Now, combining this with a Blockchain and actually getting paid... hmmm...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
agarden 9y ago
Then I'll go pay someone who voted 'yes' 1/2X for their UUID receipt and everyone is happy.
improbable22 9y ago
The last time I voted there was a campaign to remind you that taking a selfie with your ballot paper is illegal -- for exactly this reason.
zanny 9y ago
One way to do it would be to present the user with the number but not give them a physical / digital certificate of the UUID. If they are all public, the conspirator trying to buy votes cannot trust that their client isn't just looking up UUIDs and giving them a different one. You can write your identifier down, but you could also go online and look up any other identifier you want and use that one instead. The public ledger results could be timestamped so you can correlate your vote with the on chain results, but given a large enough election thousands of votes should be coming in every <unit of time the ledger uses> and you could pick any one that voted the way your sponsor wanted to claim to be your own. It is only a problem if results don't come in in real time I think. Trying to photograph the display would be just as much of a problem as taking a picture of your ballot today. The broad point is to convey the UUID in the only untrustable memory store, the human brain.
dilap 9y ago
I guess I'm not so worried about the "I'll pay you X" stuff vs. outright fraud. (And it already happens, anyway -- I had a friend who volunteered at a voting site here in SF for the last prez election, and he was quite surprised by how many elderly people came in, confused, just asking how they could vote "how they were supposed too".)

saint_fiasco 9y ago

Voting is supposed to be secret. If you have to give each voter a receipt with their uuid, it defeats the whole point.

novalis78 9y ago
But don't they all already have a uuid - called driver's license? And they are verified against some database if they are allowed to vote. Could not you encrypt the actual vote itself but make the rest transparent?

agarden 9y ago

A UUID could let one verify that one's own vote was correctly recorded, but it does nothing to prevent stuffing the ballot box, which seems to be the more normal way of swinging an election.

IncRnd 9y ago

This moves validation to people, requiring that everyone have internet access that is used to check their voter tally. Unfortunately, this system is neither trustworthy nor correct, as adding new UUIDs to the rolls defeats the system. A voting system is a security system that has to work in the presence of bad actors.

dilap 9y ago
My defense against adding new UDIDs was that each voting station is reporting their total # of people who voted, and you have the station associated with the UDID. If you add new UDIDs, you'll throw off those numbers.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  A voting system is not just the statement to use UUIDs, oh and to use some other check when you are shown that UUIDs are not complete. There is a lot that goes into actual large scale system design. P.S. You keep writing "UDID", but you really mean "UUID". The UDID is a specific implementation of unique device identifiers. They have nothing to do with individual people.
  - dilap 9y ago
    yeah, too much time w/ iphones — i meant uuid. i tried to fix two things with my proposal: changing votes and adding votes. let’s hear some concrete criticisms and suggestions. i dont feel like the current systems are particularly thoughtfully designed. we could probably do better in this HN thread. :)
    - IncRnd 9y ago
      > let’s hear some concrete criticisms and suggestions. If you don't present a design, you won't find anyone to critique it. My suggestion is to design something and then present it.
      - 9y ago

filoeleven 9y ago

As others have said, this can lead to vote buying or voter intimidation ("vote for x or I'll break your face") Spitballing here: What if you get the receipt with UUID and your choices, then at a separate kiosk only in the polling ststion you can enter your UUID to view the full results as posted online. Along with your UUID and results, a hash of the two is displayed and can be printed onto your receipt. Before leaving the station, you must detach and dispose of the plaintext voting choices, but you can hang onto the UUID + hash. At any time in the future, you can enter your UUID into the site, which will compute and display only the hash, giving you verification of no tampering but not disclosing any results to nefarious third parties.

mipmap04 9y ago
I feel people who don't understand hashing would have trouble understanding and trusting this. I like it though.
dilap 9y ago
Nice! Finding a good clean way to explain this will be a challenge though.
- filoeleven 9y ago
  Well sex sells, right? So we say that the hash is the child of your UUID and your ballot choices, and that someone who voted the same way you did but has a different UUID will have a different-looking child. Same goes for if you had voted differently than you actually did: the kid would look different! You did say "a good clean way" though, so perhaps that analogy is inappropriate :) Maybe it could be explained in terms of one of those "superhero name generators"[0], where the initials used come from your UUID and the superhero name chunks come from your voting choices. Sure, a hash is a lot more mathematically complicated but the principle remains the same (to the point of the possibility of two different UUIDs and voting choices ending up with the same hash, just as anyone having the initials DJT will become The Incredible Golden Tornado). [0]http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/superhero-name-generator.jpg http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/superhero-...