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I think the issue is the difficulty of auditing electronic votes. Computers and databases have made it so easy to forge data--just look at Bernie Madoff. The

I think the issue is the difficulty of auditing electronic votes. Computers and databases have made it so easy to forge data--just look at Bernie Madoff. The best way to ameliorate these discomforts is to ensure that a list of eligible voters is made available every year (already available under the current system), as well as a list and sum total of those eligible that voted. We would need to assign every voter a UUID every time he votes, and provide the voter a printed receipt of the UUID and selected choices (if desired) on security paper (controlled stock of security paper with its own unique identifier to be accounted for), and publish all election results with the selected choices matched to a UUID on a website every year in CSV and HTML formats. I'm sure there will always be ways to tamper the system. The key is that if every one is able to watch the system (like open source code auditing), the risk of discrepancies or error is minimized. The UUID will allow the voter to confirm that his choices match the recorded results. If this system were implemented, it would be better than the status quo. The current system may seem better, but it's prone to human error (Scantrons not being scanned by an optical reader; hanging chads; etc).

yummyfajitas 16y ago
At least two obvious ways to hack your proposed system. Hackers could just add phony UUID/vote pairs to the totals. Activists could claim their vote was stolen if their preferred candidate loses. (We already saw a variant of the latter in 2000. Remember "I couldn't follow the arrow and accidentally voted buchanan"?). Further, if a person's vote is verifiable, it also opens the door to paying people for their votes.
- jasonjei 16y ago
  I can't think of a fix for paying people for their votes since that problem still exists today (albeit to a lesser extent than if a voter's vote were verifiable), but I imagine they wouldn't be able to keep it under wraps for very long. Anyone offering to pay money will definitely risk drawing attention to themselves, and I believe ethical people will report suspicious people to voting investigators. As far as the UUID/pair frauds, we could mail a confirmation letter to the voters stating that they voted. Since I don't think we could tie the UUID to the actual voter, we could tell them they participated in this year's election and to verify the results to the receipt. This part is compounded in difficulty partly due to federal voting regulations that don't allow us to tie a voter to his votes, so I think the only real way is to verify videotapes verifying that said voters appeared in person to vote. Again there are flaws and it will take more people to resolve the issues with electronic voting.
  - vidarh 16y ago
    Secret voting was brought in pretty much as a direct response to widespread coercion and purchasing of votes in many different places. It reduced the problem significantly by making it impossible (or at least significantly harder) to verify that you vote the way you promised. The UUID suggestion is worse than the way it used to be, as in the past you generally required people at the polling place to oversee the voting to ensure your people voted the way they were told/paid to do, while with a receipt available, you can monitor more people with fewer people of your own.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

At least two obvious ways to hack your proposed system. Hackers could just add phony UUID/vote pairs to the totals. Activists could claim their vote was stolen if their preferred candidate loses. (We already saw a variant of the latter in 2000. Remember "I couldn't follow the arrow and accidentally voted buchanan"?). Further, if a person's vote is verifiable, it also opens the door to paying people for their votes.

jasonjei 16y ago
I can't think of a fix for paying people for their votes since that problem still exists today (albeit to a lesser extent than if a voter's vote were verifiable), but I imagine they wouldn't be able to keep it under wraps for very long. Anyone offering to pay money will definitely risk drawing attention to themselves, and I believe ethical people will report suspicious people to voting investigators. As far as the UUID/pair frauds, we could mail a confirmation letter to the voters stating that they voted. Since I don't think we could tie the UUID to the actual voter, we could tell them they participated in this year's election and to verify the results to the receipt. This part is compounded in difficulty partly due to federal voting regulations that don't allow us to tie a voter to his votes, so I think the only real way is to verify videotapes verifying that said voters appeared in person to vote. Again there are flaws and it will take more people to resolve the issues with electronic voting.
- vidarh 16y ago
  Secret voting was brought in pretty much as a direct response to widespread coercion and purchasing of votes in many different places. It reduced the problem significantly by making it impossible (or at least significantly harder) to verify that you vote the way you promised. The UUID suggestion is worse than the way it used to be, as in the past you generally required people at the polling place to oversee the voting to ensure your people voted the way they were told/paid to do, while with a receipt available, you can monitor more people with fewer people of your own.