4 ms·

If you can verify your own vote after the fact, then you can be compelled to prove what you've voted, thus making vote selling and vote under threat possible.

If you can verify your own vote after the fact, then you can be compelled to prove what you've voted, thus making vote selling and vote under threat possible. Deniable voting — aka not being able to verify a single vote — is a feature of paper-based voting, not a drawback.

anigbrowl 9y ago
It's easy to subvert that. The Nazis established compliance through a mix of rumor and intimidation; creating the belief that ballots were secretly marked or numbered in some contexts, or simply forcing open voting in others. http://www.newsweek.com/tainted-electoral-victory-hitler-554859 http://www.newsweek.com/tainted-electoral-victory-hitler-554... https://books.google.com/books?id=iG4ud0PxeDMC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=nazis+numbered+ballots&source=bl&ots=yAissaI8Zb&sig=oSc-EW8OREVdbq43f11fDqy2c20&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3ruu4n_bXAhVRw2MKHZm3CM8Q6AEIVjAH#v=onepage&q=nazis%20numbered%20ballots&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=iG4ud0PxeDMC&pg=PA110&lpg=... It doesn't matter whether you actually mark the ballots or not if a sufficiently large number of people believe you might have done so. And considering how we're regularly reminded that laser printers leave tiny microdot patterns that allow the identification of which individual unit printed something, what makes you think voters could not be persuaded to believe the same thing about ballots, regardless of the fact that they're produced by offset lithography? Most people already live in a world where the technology is indistinguishable from magic. Rationalists often mistakenly believe that everyone or at least a substantial majority of the population are as rational and well-informed as they are. They're not.
jmgrosen 9y ago
> If you can verify your own vote after the fact, then you can be compelled to prove what you've voted, thus making vote selling and vote under threat possible. That's not the case. Imagine this system: upon receiving your ballot at the polling place, you find n candidates, each with random numbers from 1 to n associated with them. You pick candidate #i, submit that vote, and take home a receipt saying you voted for candidate #i. Then proof is later posted that your vote was counted for candidate #i (using some fancy crypto). Then you can verify that your vote was indeed counted for the correct candidate, but no one (not even you, were you to forget) can tell who that candidate is. For more information on these sorts of voting systems, see https://www.usvotefoundation.org/sites/default/files/E2EVIV_full_report.pdf https://www.usvotefoundation.org/sites/default/files/E2EVIV_.... It's intended as a review of remote voting systems, but a lot of it apply to other types of systems as well.
- TheGRS 9y ago
  That's pretty clever. I've been reading this discussion off and on a lot today because I'm pretty fascinated that so many people feel so strongly against electronic voting and would rather have paper. On Hacker News of all places. Yes there are ways to manipulate any system, but being software developers we should all know that there are ways to fix these things and make it better. That's what we're all here for, not for regression to old systems that seem great on paper (ha!), but for progression and new systems that work better.
  - Arkanosis 9y ago
    I'd argue that “being software developers we should all know that there” is no way “to fix these things” reliably. I can understand non-technical people buying bullshit about so-called “secure” software, but anyone having an idea of what software looks like should know that there is no such thing and feel responsible for teaching people about it. Plus, voting machines in use so far have been so blatantly insecure (eg. requirement to use a well known insecure old version of Java-in-the-browser for French people abroad at the French elections of 2012) that it's just impossible to trust people currently working on these matters.
- benchaney 9y ago
  This doesn't actually solve the problem in any meaningful sense. If you have no way of checking to make sure who candidate #i is, you have no way of verifying that your vote was counted correctly, regardless of what you read on a screen when you voted. "fancy crypto" doesn't magically solve this problem.

anigbrowl 9y ago

It's easy to subvert that. The Nazis established compliance through a mix of rumor and intimidation; creating the belief that ballots were secretly marked or numbered in some contexts, or simply forcing open voting in others. http://www.newsweek.com/tainted-electoral-victory-hitler-554859 http://www.newsweek.com/tainted-electoral-victory-hitler-554... https://books.google.com/books?id=iG4ud0PxeDMC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=nazis+numbered+ballots&source=bl&ots=yAissaI8Zb&sig=oSc-EW8OREVdbq43f11fDqy2c20&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3ruu4n_bXAhVRw2MKHZm3CM8Q6AEIVjAH#v=onepage&q=nazis%20numbered%20ballots&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=iG4ud0PxeDMC&pg=PA110&lpg=... It doesn't matter whether you actually mark the ballots or not if a sufficiently large number of people believe you might have done so. And considering how we're regularly reminded that laser printers leave tiny microdot patterns that allow the identification of which individual unit printed something, what makes you think voters could not be persuaded to believe the same thing about ballots, regardless of the fact that they're produced by offset lithography? Most people already live in a world where the technology is indistinguishable from magic. Rationalists often mistakenly believe that everyone or at least a substantial majority of the population are as rational and well-informed as they are. They're not.

jmgrosen 9y ago

> If you can verify your own vote after the fact, then you can be compelled to prove what you've voted, thus making vote selling and vote under threat possible. That's not the case. Imagine this system: upon receiving your ballot at the polling place, you find n candidates, each with random numbers from 1 to n associated with them. You pick candidate #i, submit that vote, and take home a receipt saying you voted for candidate #i. Then proof is later posted that your vote was counted for candidate #i (using some fancy crypto). Then you can verify that your vote was indeed counted for the correct candidate, but no one (not even you, were you to forget) can tell who that candidate is. For more information on these sorts of voting systems, see https://www.usvotefoundation.org/sites/default/files/E2EVIV_full_report.pdf https://www.usvotefoundation.org/sites/default/files/E2EVIV_.... It's intended as a review of remote voting systems, but a lot of it apply to other types of systems as well.

TheGRS 9y ago
That's pretty clever. I've been reading this discussion off and on a lot today because I'm pretty fascinated that so many people feel so strongly against electronic voting and would rather have paper. On Hacker News of all places. Yes there are ways to manipulate any system, but being software developers we should all know that there are ways to fix these things and make it better. That's what we're all here for, not for regression to old systems that seem great on paper (ha!), but for progression and new systems that work better.
- Arkanosis 9y ago
  I'd argue that “being software developers we should all know that there” is no way “to fix these things” reliably. I can understand non-technical people buying bullshit about so-called “secure” software, but anyone having an idea of what software looks like should know that there is no such thing and feel responsible for teaching people about it. Plus, voting machines in use so far have been so blatantly insecure (eg. requirement to use a well known insecure old version of Java-in-the-browser for French people abroad at the French elections of 2012) that it's just impossible to trust people currently working on these matters.
benchaney 9y ago
This doesn't actually solve the problem in any meaningful sense. If you have no way of checking to make sure who candidate #i is, you have no way of verifying that your vote was counted correctly, regardless of what you read on a screen when you voted. "fancy crypto" doesn't magically solve this problem.