4 ms·

This leads to the problem of letting _other people_ force you to show them how you voted. This is a real problem! The secret vote isn't just about making sure

by rtpg 8y ago

This leads to the problem of letting _other people_ force you to show them how you voted. This is a real problem! The secret vote isn't just about making sure that you can choose privately, but also about making sure that other people don't have ways of coercing you into certain choices.

keymone 8y ago
There are ways to solve this issue with cryptography.
- lolc 8y ago
  Such a solution is of the sort where you can't make up your own opinion if the two (hopefully) experts that looked at it disagree. And if they happen to agree you still have to trust them because you'd have to train for several years to be able to follow their argument.
- tijl 8y ago
  No there aren't. If you can check your vote, then your abusive spouse, your boss or somebody else who has power over you, can force you to show them your vote.
  - rcxdude 8y ago
    Not neccessarily, you can have a system where you can retrieve 'proof' of having voted in any way you want, and you can verify via some secret information used when voting, but making the UX of such a feature good enough that it's actually usable by someone in those circumstances is not at all easy.
    - keymone 8y ago
      yes, this ^ never said it's easy, but it is possible.
    - therein 8y ago
      Voter goes in to vote. They are given two random words. One for candidate A, one for candidate B. They are told they should remember the code-word matching their choice if they later want to scan the printed out QR code (or enter their vote uuid) to one of the validator websites. Voter makes their choice, completes the process. A thermal printout is printed with their vote uuid and a QR code meant to make it easy to input it. Now anyone can get that printout with the uuid and scan it and see the code-word representing the voter's selection. However the association is only known to the voter and if asked, the voter can say that's what it was.
  - keymone 8y ago
    https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/96589 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/96589 page 35
    - abathur 8y ago
      Nice to read this. I've been thinking for a while that it would be nice to have paper ballots with the ability to cryptographically verify the inclusion of your vote in totals all the way up (ballot collection box, polling location, district, city, county, state, nation).
- usrusr 8y ago
  Only if the crypto is designed to be run in your head, so that you can lie to someone who wants proof. Good luck implementing that through education. Consider the simplest case, a binary choice. The system tells you (and only you, and only once and without tangible record) that the public copy will either be inverted or not, a one bit one time pad. Kind of feasible, but already hard enough: will you really assume tampering when the bit that makes the public record match your vote does not match your memory? Then imagine scaling to something more meaningful than a binary vote, even just to more than one binary. I can't see that actually working out.
50korangutang 8y ago
Our current system allows others to know how you voted, postal votes are coercible and not secret. Your coercer could post your vote so electronic voting is only as vulenerable in this respect as our current system.

by rtpg 8y ago

keymone 8y ago

There are ways to solve this issue with cryptography.

lolc 8y ago
Such a solution is of the sort where you can't make up your own opinion if the two (hopefully) experts that looked at it disagree. And if they happen to agree you still have to trust them because you'd have to train for several years to be able to follow their argument.
tijl 8y ago
No there aren't. If you can check your vote, then your abusive spouse, your boss or somebody else who has power over you, can force you to show them your vote.
- rcxdude 8y ago
  Not neccessarily, you can have a system where you can retrieve 'proof' of having voted in any way you want, and you can verify via some secret information used when voting, but making the UX of such a feature good enough that it's actually usable by someone in those circumstances is not at all easy.
  - keymone 8y ago
    yes, this ^ never said it's easy, but it is possible.
  - therein 8y ago
    Voter goes in to vote. They are given two random words. One for candidate A, one for candidate B. They are told they should remember the code-word matching their choice if they later want to scan the printed out QR code (or enter their vote uuid) to one of the validator websites. Voter makes their choice, completes the process. A thermal printout is printed with their vote uuid and a QR code meant to make it easy to input it. Now anyone can get that printout with the uuid and scan it and see the code-word representing the voter's selection. However the association is only known to the voter and if asked, the voter can say that's what it was.
- keymone 8y ago
  https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/96589 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/96589 page 35
  - abathur 8y ago
    Nice to read this. I've been thinking for a while that it would be nice to have paper ballots with the ability to cryptographically verify the inclusion of your vote in totals all the way up (ballot collection box, polling location, district, city, county, state, nation).
usrusr 8y ago
Only if the crypto is designed to be run in your head, so that you can lie to someone who wants proof. Good luck implementing that through education. Consider the simplest case, a binary choice. The system tells you (and only you, and only once and without tangible record) that the public copy will either be inverted or not, a one bit one time pad. Kind of feasible, but already hard enough: will you really assume tampering when the bit that makes the public record match your vote does not match your memory? Then imagine scaling to something more meaningful than a binary vote, even just to more than one binary. I can't see that actually working out.

50korangutang 8y ago

Our current system allows others to know how you voted, postal votes are coercible and not secret. Your coercer could post your vote so electronic voting is only as vulenerable in this respect as our current system.