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I see the authors are hanging out here so would like to make a question :) Do you believe that with the proper audit systems in place (e.g. open-source, open-h

I see the authors are hanging out here so would like to make a question :) Do you believe that with the proper audit systems in place (e.g. open-source, open-hardware, not rolling your own crypto, etc) it would still be possible to have a secure electronic voting system?

mulmen 9y ago
What is the value proposition of electronic voting machines? I'm not an expert on the technology but I would say that in 2018 and for the forseeable future there is no way to make an electronic voting machine that the public will trust. Arguably that is far more important than the tech stack.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  Speed, scaling, and ease of use to those who like touch screens. Schneier mentions those benefits in a nice essay that argues against electronic voting: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2004/11/the_problem_wit.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2004/11/the_problem_w...
- bloomingfractal 9y ago
  Assuming they work correctly the benefits are clear. If they can ever be made secure, it's what I wanted to know from the researchers.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    I'm sorry what are the benefits? They are not clear to me.
    - beisner 9y ago
      Accuracy. If you could somehow prove that every vote could accurately be tied to a human pulling a lever, confidence in election results would be higher. Also instantaneous results and no issues of a recount (like in the 2000 election, where the refusal of a recount in a state cost Al Gore the election).
      - dfaranha 9y ago
        Yes, in Brazil we don't even have the possibility of recounts, so reassuring! :)
        cassianoleal 9y ago
        On the other hand, the way votes were counted back in the days of the paper ballot were not something to be proud of either. Anyone who's been involved in counting votes has seen more vote count fraud than they could possibly try to explain to others. Everybody used to be involved in that, from the people counting who didn't want to be there and would do anything just to get over with it, to the party delegates, to the people in charge of the sections. I understand all the criticism and I praise your work in pushing for a more secure and auditable stack but it's hard to argue that the previous system was better in any way.
        dfaranha 9y ago
        Fortunately that's not what I am arguing. I am pushing for VVPATs instead. :)
        cassianoleal 9y ago
        I don't really see how that's superior to anything. It adds complexity to a system that's already hard to understand to large slices of the voters, and provides nearly no actual advantage to either the old paper ballot or the new electronic system. A potentially better approach would be to have the systems themselves publicly auditable and somehow have the live ballot devices verifiable.
        dfaranha 9y ago
        VVPATs do not add complexity, they cheaply allow a layman to verify if a proper record of his/her vote was produced. I can't parse your last sentence, sorry. PS: Yes, I would prefer to redesign the whole thing from scratch and tightly integrate physical and electronic records, as in an optical scanner, but this is very unlikely to happen anytime soon.
  - crpatino 9y ago
    You are seeing it the wrong way. Governments want to implement this regardless. And there are ruthless, well-connected individuals ready to supply "solutions". Even if those are not 100% secure (nothing is, of course), having open source turn-key solutions running on top of standard hardware would put a floor to the kind of kludges those individuals would be able to pass.
- hgontijo 9y ago
  The paper mentioned that the Brazilians considered electronic voting machines would be something to help fight against fraud. Besides that you could consider speed. The election results in Brazil are usually released on the same day of the election. In Brazil the election happens in a single day (on a Sunday) where the whole country is focused in doing one single thing - vote! :)
- muthdra 9y ago
  The propaganda states that it's the most secure voting system in the world and other countries envy us.
dfaranha 9y ago
The state-of-the-art is the STAR Voting system, which will probably not be manufactured due to lack of interest from industry partners: https://www.usenix.org/conference/evtwote13/workshop-program/presentation/bell https://www.usenix.org/conference/evtwote13/workshop-program... Optical scanners have a very good cost-benefit in terms of accuracy, complexity, transparency and usability. If you refer to paperless electronic voting, it will be always vulnerable to malicious insiders. In order to possibly prevent that, you would have to lock it down in such a way that no one would be able to audit the result after the fact, undermining the sole purpose of a public election.
muthdra 9y ago
Yes but we still use the oldest system of all. http://www.brunazo.eng.br/voto-e/textos/modelosUE.htm http://www.brunazo.eng.br/voto-e/textos/modelosUE.htm (in portuguese)

mulmen 9y ago

What is the value proposition of electronic voting machines? I'm not an expert on the technology but I would say that in 2018 and for the forseeable future there is no way to make an electronic voting machine that the public will trust. Arguably that is far more important than the tech stack.

nickpsecurity 9y ago
Speed, scaling, and ease of use to those who like touch screens. Schneier mentions those benefits in a nice essay that argues against electronic voting: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2004/11/the_problem_wit.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2004/11/the_problem_w...
bloomingfractal 9y ago
Assuming they work correctly the benefits are clear. If they can ever be made secure, it's what I wanted to know from the researchers.
- mulmen 9y ago
  I'm sorry what are the benefits? They are not clear to me.
  - beisner 9y ago
    Accuracy. If you could somehow prove that every vote could accurately be tied to a human pulling a lever, confidence in election results would be higher. Also instantaneous results and no issues of a recount (like in the 2000 election, where the refusal of a recount in a state cost Al Gore the election).
    - dfaranha 9y ago
      Yes, in Brazil we don't even have the possibility of recounts, so reassuring! :)
      - cassianoleal 9y ago
        On the other hand, the way votes were counted back in the days of the paper ballot were not something to be proud of either. Anyone who's been involved in counting votes has seen more vote count fraud than they could possibly try to explain to others. Everybody used to be involved in that, from the people counting who didn't want to be there and would do anything just to get over with it, to the party delegates, to the people in charge of the sections. I understand all the criticism and I praise your work in pushing for a more secure and auditable stack but it's hard to argue that the previous system was better in any way.
        dfaranha 9y ago
        Fortunately that's not what I am arguing. I am pushing for VVPATs instead. :)
        cassianoleal 9y ago
        I don't really see how that's superior to anything. It adds complexity to a system that's already hard to understand to large slices of the voters, and provides nearly no actual advantage to either the old paper ballot or the new electronic system. A potentially better approach would be to have the systems themselves publicly auditable and somehow have the live ballot devices verifiable.
        dfaranha 9y ago
        VVPATs do not add complexity, they cheaply allow a layman to verify if a proper record of his/her vote was produced. I can't parse your last sentence, sorry. PS: Yes, I would prefer to redesign the whole thing from scratch and tightly integrate physical and electronic records, as in an optical scanner, but this is very unlikely to happen anytime soon.
- crpatino 9y ago
  You are seeing it the wrong way. Governments want to implement this regardless. And there are ruthless, well-connected individuals ready to supply "solutions". Even if those are not 100% secure (nothing is, of course), having open source turn-key solutions running on top of standard hardware would put a floor to the kind of kludges those individuals would be able to pass.
hgontijo 9y ago
The paper mentioned that the Brazilians considered electronic voting machines would be something to help fight against fraud. Besides that you could consider speed. The election results in Brazil are usually released on the same day of the election. In Brazil the election happens in a single day (on a Sunday) where the whole country is focused in doing one single thing - vote! :)
muthdra 9y ago
The propaganda states that it's the most secure voting system in the world and other countries envy us.

dfaranha 9y ago

The state-of-the-art is the STAR Voting system, which will probably not be manufactured due to lack of interest from industry partners: https://www.usenix.org/conference/evtwote13/workshop-program/presentation/bell https://www.usenix.org/conference/evtwote13/workshop-program... Optical scanners have a very good cost-benefit in terms of accuracy, complexity, transparency and usability. If you refer to paperless electronic voting, it will be always vulnerable to malicious insiders. In order to possibly prevent that, you would have to lock it down in such a way that no one would be able to audit the result after the fact, undermining the sole purpose of a public election.

muthdra 9y ago

Yes but we still use the oldest system of all. http://www.brunazo.eng.br/voto-e/textos/modelosUE.htm http://www.brunazo.eng.br/voto-e/textos/modelosUE.htm (in portuguese)