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Online voting in Finland: Conclusions and recommendations (2017) [pdf]
- chmaynard 9y agoI wonder if blockchain technology could play a role in the development of a secure and reliable online voting system.
- thg 9y agoI don't think the blockchain is going to protect you from a maniac with a wrench "convincing" you to vote the way he likes.
- wu-ikkyu 9y agoAnd how would a paper system prevent that?
- aurelijus 9y agoAt least where I am from you must go and cast a vote privately alone on paper. So this can't be executed on big scale, you could only force couple people to cast a specific vote without getting kicked out or arrested.
- askvictor 9y agoWhat's to stop a maniac with a wrench "convincing" you to transfer all of your money to his bank account electronically?
- thg 9y agoMoney transfers can be rolled back rather easily and unless that maniac has an offshore account, wants to be on the run for quite some time and get close enough to someone with enough money to actually make it worthwhile, it's hardly going to work out or be worth the trouble. Being coerced into voting for a certain party is a whole different problem, with different actors. You're not going to run the election again when the spouse of someone pressured them into voting against their will. How would you even want to prove it had happened in the first place? There's not going to be a paper trail without giving up voter secrecy, which is yet another problem.
- Donzo 9y agoWell, you could take some kind of unique voter ID number and run it through a one-way hash. Then you could check your vote, verify that it was accurately recorded, and view how each vote was tallied. The current system is terrible and better solutions exist.
- celticninja 9y agoThe current manual system works. Why is it terrible? Most results are available within 24-48 hours an electronic system may speed that up but for no appreciative benefit.
- cornholio 9y agoWhat's to stop you from selling your hashed voter ID to a vote buyer, before the tally is published? He verifies that your hash corresponds to the vote he purchased, and pays you the money (or doesn't beat you up, fire you, etc. I'm using "sell" in the generic coercion sense)
- wu-ikkyu 9y agoWhat's to stop you from selling you paper vote to someone?
- cornholio 9y agoFor a paper ballot, it's much more difficult and risky to prove delivery, yet you are fairly certain it's been counted. The grandparent proposes a perfect counting guarantee, at the cost of providing every voter and coercer a crypto proof of the ballot value, a very bad compromise.
- wu-ikkyu 9y agoWouldn't a cell phone video of the vote seller casting their ballot suffice as proof to the buyer?
- 9y ago
- Hamuko 9y agoAre you people still looking to find a single valid use case for the blockchain?
- acct1771 9y agoI mean, it seems pretty obvious. Any data you want to exist in decentralized semi-perpetuity. Historical accounts seem like a good place to start.
- braderhart 9y agoYES!
- dfox 9y agoBlockchain allows you to prove order in which some events happened and thus indirectly prove when such events happened (and in fact it is not some new technology, it is how really trusted timestamping authorities always worked). For voting you don't need to order or timestamp anything, so blockchains are mostly irrelevant.
- Y_Y 9y agoIf we can bank online, why can't we vote online? In the clever separation of powers that most modern states have it seems like the part that determines voting procedures and election boundaries should also be separated. Otherwise the incumbents are incentived to maintain the status quo!
- Ygg2 9y agoOther countries aren't that interested in your money. But imagine being able to swing elections...
- Erikun 9y agoThe report's conclusions are that there is not much to be gained by it, but significant risks. Banking online is a significant convenience, not having to go to a polling station once every four (or so) years is less of one. Also, as the report notes, the issue is mostly about legitimacy, not technology. How to you get people to feel safe that the secrecy of their ballot is kept and that the system isn't compromised and can be audited seem to be the big issues.
- gt_ 9y agoObviously a very different country but, in the US, and dependent on implementation details, there could be a lot to gain in terms of voter turn out.
- msl 9y agoIn Finland there is a period of time, before the election day, during which you can vote at all sorts of locations that have been set up in libraries, supermarkets and other locations people often visit. Pretty much the only reason not to vote is that you could not be bothered to, and I doubt online voting would help much with that.
- chrisseaton 9y ago> Pretty much the only reason not to vote is that you could not be bothered to I think some people have a principled stance against voting. You may not agree with that but it is another reason why people may still not vote.
- gt_ 9y ago>A separate recount of votes to detect and correct mistakes that have occurred in the vote count is not possible in online voting... If a recount of votes was carried out in an online voting system, it would be based on the information produced by the system itself and would give the same result as the actual count. This was easily my favorite part.
- vim_wannabe 9y agoAbsolutely love it when people are able to go against Change for the sake of change™.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Zhyl 9y agoIt's an alluring proposition, though. The student who is just learning about computers and digital ways of doing things will see the problem of voting as 'solvable' and would be able to list a large number of advantages to an electronic voting system. In that sense, I don't think anyone advocating electronic voting is trying to 'Change for the sake of change' (compared to, say, a police force trying to replace desktops with iPads). The naivety of it, though, is more the discussion that is being had.
- moccachino 9y agoOne of the often cited advantage of online voting is that everyone can do it without needing to interrupt their day and thus more people would perhaps vote. That 'advantage' might be revealing itself now as a liability now that we see what effect the lack of face-to-face time has on people, especially in political discussions.
- woliveirajr 9y ago> The monitoring group came into the conclusion that online voting should not be introduced in general elections, because the risks involved are greater than the benefits. I wish some countries would look carefully at this conclusion. I think I'll even send this to some "media influentiers". I think I'll send to some friends. I think I'm gonna cry a bit.
- tauntz 9y agoOn the same topic, Finland's neighbour, Estonia, has had online voting for over 10 years (since 2005). https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-governance/i-voting/ https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-governance/i-voting/ https://www.valimised.ee/en/internet-voting/internet-voting-estonia https://www.valimised.ee/en/internet-voting/internet-voting-...
- tom_mellior 9y agoHere's an evaluation of the Estonian system (originally from 2014, I believe) by independent experts: https://estoniaevoting.org/ https://estoniaevoting.org/ Money quote: "What we found alarmed us. There were staggering gaps in procedural and operational security, and the architecture of the system leaves it open to cyberattacks from foreign powers, such as Russia. These attacks could alter votes or leave election outcomes in dispute. We have confirmed these attacks in our lab — they are real threats. We urgently recommend that Estonia discontinue use of the system."
- rumcajz 9y agoA talk from CCC here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT0e9yTD2M8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT0e9yTD2M8
- Avamander 9y agoI expected some heavy vulnerabilities, but most of it is just FUD (and outdated in addition to that). But I agree that the e-voting system could be done better, with more auditing and etc.
- pfg 9y agoResearchers have found many, many flaws in Estonia's e-voting system[1]. [1]: https://estoniaevoting.org/ https://estoniaevoting.org/
- aqsalose 9y agoAccording to some security professionals (see the link in a sibling comment) Estonia's system has vulnerabilities, but my guess is that complaints will continue to be ignored until there's concrete evidence that someone has falsified an election result.
- a_imho 9y agosortition > voting, at least for choosing representatives
- shaki-dora 9y agoExcellent! It used to be that the tech community was the most vocal against any scheme to increase the use of tech in voting. That consensus seems to have weakened. So to all the blockchain-proponents etc: remember that it’s not enough for elections to just be safe. They also need to be safe in a way that is obvious to non-cryptographers. Many countries run elections on paper ballots and with public ally-observeable counting of votes. They do so in rural communities as well as cities with millions of voters. They rarely see voters waiting in line for more than a few minutes. And the costs are neglible in the grand scheme of things. That is the gold standard for elections, and it’s actually damn easy to achieve.
- denzil_correa 9y ago> Excellent! It used to be that the tech community was the most vocal against any scheme to increase the use of tech in voting. That consensus seems to have weakened. How? Here's the main conclusion from the report > The monitoring group came into the conclusion that online voting should not be introduced in general elections, because the risks involved are greater than the benefits.
- shaki-dora 9y agoI was commenting on the impression I get from reading comments here, on Twitter, blog posts etc. When the topic used to come up, for example in response to the Florida fiasco in the election of 2000, the response was almost universally negative. That seems to have changed somewhat, with many more people willing to advocate complicated technical solutions. This report, and others by professional organizations like the EFF still follow the old consensus, possibly because they are run by people socialized in that environment. But I’m worried what such reports will say in 2030 if the arguments I made above are not universally understood.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- svantana 9y ago> it’s not enough for elections to just be safe. They also need to be safe in a way that is obvious to non-cryptographers Not as much so in nations where people generally trust experts and government officials, and where conspiracy theories are mostly on the fringe (i.e. not the U.S.). Although I agree that it's preferable if non-techies can understand the mechanisms, and the downside of paper ballots plus mail-in is already pretty small.
- pjc50 9y agoYou've reminded me to participate in the Scottish Government's electoral consultation. https://consult.gov.scot/elections/electoral-reform/ https://consult.gov.scot/elections/electoral-reform/ Online voting is a means of handing the election directly to hackers, without having to go through the tedious intermediary of "fake news" and so on.
- gsnedders 9y agoI'd totally missed that was happening; thanks for the link!
- hippich 9y agoWhile paper voting being simple and reliable is valid point, what tech can bring (of course if costs, security, etc will be solved to trust it as much as we trust paper voting) much more granular voting options. So instead of waiting for specific large event to put some question on a ballot, state could send push notification to cellphones asking to vote for specific proposition and quickly get response. This would enable democratic process for much larger number of state projects instead of relying on elected officials and people hired by elected officials.
- specialist 9y agoThat's called an opinion poll. Or marketing research. Voter fatigue is already a severe problem. More direct democracy has plenty of down sides. The alternative is to organize, lobby, participate. Bring the heat. So much that whoever's in the way sees the light. Campaigns and elections are just the opening acts of democracy.