6 ms·

How do you tell if something goes wrong? I think what's often missing in these discussions is a need for automatic audits, too, even if not full audits initiall

by mtgx 8y ago

How do you tell if something goes wrong? I think what's often missing in these discussions is a need for automatic audits, too, even if not full audits initially but only for a small sample. If there is anything wrong found in that first series of audits, then a full audit should be requiered by law and there should be severe prison punishments for those state officials failing to start and finish those audits in the specified time after the election. Corrupt state officials should not be able to create any sort of delays or use them as an excuse.

gregmac 8y ago
I'm not sure how it's handled now, but what I'd like to see is after the election closes, a random method to select poll locations is used -- such as a lottery ball machine -- and those locations are then required to do a manual recount. No one has advance notice of which poll locations will do this, so there's no opportunity for cheating (eg, turning off a defeat device at the locations that will be audited). If there are any differences in the count then additional locations are required to also do a manual count, and if more than two locations have differences, all electronic numbers are trashed and the whole election is counted manually.
- CobrastanJorji 8y ago
  In order to defeat this system, the attacker would need control of the lottery ball machine. But we're already assuming that the attacker has control over some of the election machines, so while this is still strictly better, it's small comfort.
- stonesixone 8y ago
  This is basically what San Francisco, CA does. They use 3 10-sided dice to randomly choose 1% of ~600 precincts to manually audit. You can watch the random selection for the June 2018 election here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLSLlBkFY-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLSLlBkFY-Y
beat 8y ago
How do you tell if something goes wrong? Well, if you hand-count a voting machine, and it gives you a different result from the machine, then you know something went wrong. And if you hand-count a bunch of machines and they all have the same misbehavior, then it's time for throwing out the machine count altogether.
- XorNot 8y ago
  In Australia it's all hand-count, with machine count for verification. Specifically ballots are sorted by volunteers on election night to do the preferential voting, and then the stacks are counted and checked by essentially bill-counting style machines. Discrepancies mean someone else does a count and recount. The key to all of this is involving as much of the public as possible though: democracy is government by the people for the people, the people need to be involved in its operation. The only way you dispel the idea of rigging is by ensuring a large plurality of your population was involved each time and would attest to their neighbors that they saw no misbehavior. Electronic voting is based on trying to take people out of the process - it misses the point.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    This is the point I always try to hammer home. The inclusivity of paper voting is amazing. It doesn't matter if you are young or old, black or white, highly educated or illiterate, rich or poor, just about everyone can count ballots. And if you think someone is trying to fuck you over, you too can go count along or watch that ballot box all day to ensure nobody is tampering with it. Get a few hundred people in the same room that all don't trust one another and all count along. That's how you run an election.
    - briandear 8y ago
      ..and we verify that everyone actually voting is who they say they are.
      - beat 8y ago
specialist 8y ago
aka a recount. Rules vary by jurisdiction. eg When a contest is close. Some places already do partial recounts. It is expensive. Most jurisdictions don't have the budget.
rootusrootus 8y ago
One thing I'd like to see is that every ballot gets a UUID assigned when it is cast. You get a receipt. All votes get published on a public web site. You can tally the votes yourself if you want to check the accuracy of the reported totals, and you can check your own ID to see that the vote was recorded accurately. It's not a perfect idea, but I like the upsides more than the downsides.
- CobrastanJorji 8y ago
  This is unfortunately dangerous. It means that you can provide proof of your vote to others. That's no good; it makes buying votes or punishing workers/family members/whoever for voting the wrong way much easier. That said, there are some really interesting non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs for elections that accomplish what you're intending without this flaw. Their main downside is that, compared to tallying, they're complicated.

by mtgx 8y ago

gregmac 8y ago

I'm not sure how it's handled now, but what I'd like to see is after the election closes, a random method to select poll locations is used -- such as a lottery ball machine -- and those locations are then required to do a manual recount. No one has advance notice of which poll locations will do this, so there's no opportunity for cheating (eg, turning off a defeat device at the locations that will be audited). If there are any differences in the count then additional locations are required to also do a manual count, and if more than two locations have differences, all electronic numbers are trashed and the whole election is counted manually.

CobrastanJorji 8y ago
In order to defeat this system, the attacker would need control of the lottery ball machine. But we're already assuming that the attacker has control over some of the election machines, so while this is still strictly better, it's small comfort.
stonesixone 8y ago
This is basically what San Francisco, CA does. They use 3 10-sided dice to randomly choose 1% of ~600 precincts to manually audit. You can watch the random selection for the June 2018 election here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLSLlBkFY-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLSLlBkFY-Y

beat 8y ago

How do you tell if something goes wrong? Well, if you hand-count a voting machine, and it gives you a different result from the machine, then you know something went wrong. And if you hand-count a bunch of machines and they all have the same misbehavior, then it's time for throwing out the machine count altogether.

XorNot 8y ago
In Australia it's all hand-count, with machine count for verification. Specifically ballots are sorted by volunteers on election night to do the preferential voting, and then the stacks are counted and checked by essentially bill-counting style machines. Discrepancies mean someone else does a count and recount. The key to all of this is involving as much of the public as possible though: democracy is government by the people for the people, the people need to be involved in its operation. The only way you dispel the idea of rigging is by ensuring a large plurality of your population was involved each time and would attest to their neighbors that they saw no misbehavior. Electronic voting is based on trying to take people out of the process - it misses the point.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  This is the point I always try to hammer home. The inclusivity of paper voting is amazing. It doesn't matter if you are young or old, black or white, highly educated or illiterate, rich or poor, just about everyone can count ballots. And if you think someone is trying to fuck you over, you too can go count along or watch that ballot box all day to ensure nobody is tampering with it. Get a few hundred people in the same room that all don't trust one another and all count along. That's how you run an election.
  - briandear 8y ago
    ..and we verify that everyone actually voting is who they say they are.
    - beat 8y ago

specialist 8y ago

aka a recount. Rules vary by jurisdiction. eg When a contest is close. Some places already do partial recounts. It is expensive. Most jurisdictions don't have the budget.

rootusrootus 8y ago

One thing I'd like to see is that every ballot gets a UUID assigned when it is cast. You get a receipt. All votes get published on a public web site. You can tally the votes yourself if you want to check the accuracy of the reported totals, and you can check your own ID to see that the vote was recorded accurately. It's not a perfect idea, but I like the upsides more than the downsides.

CobrastanJorji 8y ago
This is unfortunately dangerous. It means that you can provide proof of your vote to others. That's no good; it makes buying votes or punishing workers/family members/whoever for voting the wrong way much easier. That said, there are some really interesting non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs for elections that accomplish what you're intending without this flaw. Their main downside is that, compared to tallying, they're complicated.