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It would be pseudo-anonymous like Bitcoin. You would keep the mapping between public keys and real-world identities private. But perhaps some percentage of peop

It would be pseudo-anonymous like Bitcoin. You would keep the mapping between public keys and real-world identities private. But perhaps some percentage of people would choose to waive their right to privacy, further strengthening trust in the system. Statistically, the public voters should be in line with the final outcome.

orev 7y ago
There’s no reason to have identifying information at all. That would be handled at the voting location just like it is now. Blockchain voting doesn’t mean you can then vote over the Internet — you’d just have a better type of system in place at the voting locations.
- jakeogh 7y ago
  Incrementalism is powerful.
jammygit 7y ago
I suppose every election they could randomly distribute voter ids that are unique to that election? Ie, pull an I'd from a hat at the polling station then use it and keep it for verification? Edit: undo auto'correct'
- hannasanarion 7y ago
  Because now you can prove to anybody which way you voted, opening yourself to blackmail, bribery, or duress. The secrecy of the vote is crucial to its integrity.
  - kazagistar 7y ago
    Maybe you could move things down the chain: make it illegal for any entity (with perhaps some exceptions for anonymity compliant polling) to ask for voting proof, with very significant felony punishments (large organizational fines, jailtime for individuals).
    - hannasanarion 7y ago
      Or you can just use a voting system where producing proof is non-trivial, like paper ballots.
    - xorcist 7y ago
      You may not want to sell your vote, but others will. And the mere suspicion that other people can sell their votes erodes trust in the system, making it useless for a democracy.
    - jakeogh 7y ago
      Criminals don't follow laws. Plenty of things are felonies, they still happen, often.
- joshfraser 7y ago
  "The secrecy of the vote is crucial to its integrity." Secrecy is also what makes it possible to stuff the ballot box with fake votes.
  - jfk13 7y ago
    And multiple independent observers watching the process can make that pretty hard to do at significant scale.
rectang 7y ago
I don't have such faith in blockchain anonymity. Data will leak. See the paper "Backpage and Bitcoin: Uncovering Human Traffickers" which talks about using timing based reconciliation, relationships between wallets, and superficial metadata within Bitcoin to deanonymize human traffickers: http://www.sysnet.ucsd.edu/sysnet/miscpapers/backcoin-kdd17.pdf http://www.sysnet.ucsd.edu/sysnet/miscpapers/backcoin-kdd17....
mcintyre1994 7y ago
> But perhaps some percentage of people would choose to waive their right to privacy, further strengthening trust in the system. This has the same problem. Didn't waive your right to privacy and provably vote for the right candidate - you're fired (or worse). That's why taking photos of a ballot isn't allowed, you can't have any way to show who you voted for.
- joshfraser 7y ago
  But what if our elections are rigged and we don't know it? Is it worth risking a faked election as long as we all feel good about it?
  - probably_wrong 7y ago
    As someone else in the thread pointed out, we already know of a better solution: paper. Any other solution so far turns out to be either convoluted and/or not as good. Somewhat related, it reminds me of this anecdote about hand-warming handlebars on bikes: http://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Complicator_0x27_s_Gloves http://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Complicator_0x27_s_Glove...
  - joshfraser 7y ago
    The problem with paper is that it's too easy to remove and replace the ballots you don't like.
    - ABCLAW 7y ago
      Not really. Best practices in the field involve having representatives from many to all parties present at each step of the voting process, from the distribution of ballots at the booth, to the counting, to the archiving of counted boxes pending recounts.
    - nomel 7y ago
      Being physical, you would physically have to remove the previous vote first. This would require some combination of a chemical process, color matching, and/or glue piecing back on. This all takes time, tight tolerances, and automation to a happen at an impactful scale, which minimal oversight would mostly prevent. Compare this to an SQL statement to change a whole states worth of votes in a few hundred milliseconds. You can always recount the paper. Whatever solution, it require the limitation of involving something physical and difficult to manipulate.
umanwizard 7y ago
If it’s even possible to waive anonymity, people will try to entice or coerce others to vote in a certain way, and require they prove it. That’s why taking a picture of your ballot is illegal in the US. This isn’t just a theoretical concern - there are various real-life allegations of it happening, in Southeastern Europe and other places.
- alexandercrohde 7y ago
  Meh, the concern of the integrity of the election itself is a thousand or a million times more pressing than the concern about somebody trying to coerce somebody. Plus such coercion isn't impossible now, like you said it can be done with a camera. Presumably if you're being coerced by threat the "illegal" doesn't really help you at all. It seems obscene to me to pass up such an obvious improvement like a verifiable record over such a theoretical concern.
  - hannasanarion 7y ago
    You know what else is verifiable? Paper.
    - joshfraser 7y ago
      For the record, I far prefer paper ballots over closed-source digital voting.
  - ABCLAW 7y ago
    >Meh, the concern of the integrity of the election itself is a thousand or a million times more pressing than the concern about somebody trying to coerce somebody. 1) Coercion is literally the biggest concern within elections. You put a big guy with a pair of brass knuckles outside of the polling location and he beats up everyone who comes out without a picture of his ballot with the right vote in place. Theoretical? Lol. This WAS and IS common. This is why we have international election observers. 2) There's no integrity loss with paper if things are done right. Every ballot given out at a voting booth is recorded - you can't stuff the box as a voter. The only way you can do so is if election officials from all parties collude to fudge the books together, which they would need to do in view of the public as they man the voting desks, or under the supervision of the locale manager during the end-of-night count.
astrodust 7y ago
Can we just not blockchain voting and move on to other things? Thanks.
Izkata 7y ago
> Statistically, the public voters should be in line with the final outcome. Not likely. Social stigma means the "acceptable" candidate would have a larger proportion of the public votes than total votes. For example, the Democrat candidate in Chicago.
village-idiot 7y ago
The problem with blockchains in this situation is that your security has to be perfect forever. If anyone figures out a way to de-anonymize votes, they get all of them due to the public and append only nature of blockchain systems.

orev 7y ago

There’s no reason to have identifying information at all. That would be handled at the voting location just like it is now. Blockchain voting doesn’t mean you can then vote over the Internet — you’d just have a better type of system in place at the voting locations.

jakeogh 7y ago
Incrementalism is powerful.

jammygit 7y ago

I suppose every election they could randomly distribute voter ids that are unique to that election? Ie, pull an I'd from a hat at the polling station then use it and keep it for verification? Edit: undo auto'correct'

hannasanarion 7y ago
Because now you can prove to anybody which way you voted, opening yourself to blackmail, bribery, or duress. The secrecy of the vote is crucial to its integrity.
- kazagistar 7y ago
  Maybe you could move things down the chain: make it illegal for any entity (with perhaps some exceptions for anonymity compliant polling) to ask for voting proof, with very significant felony punishments (large organizational fines, jailtime for individuals).
  - hannasanarion 7y ago
    Or you can just use a voting system where producing proof is non-trivial, like paper ballots.
  - xorcist 7y ago
    You may not want to sell your vote, but others will. And the mere suspicion that other people can sell their votes erodes trust in the system, making it useless for a democracy.
  - jakeogh 7y ago
    Criminals don't follow laws. Plenty of things are felonies, they still happen, often.
joshfraser 7y ago
"The secrecy of the vote is crucial to its integrity." Secrecy is also what makes it possible to stuff the ballot box with fake votes.
- jfk13 7y ago
  And multiple independent observers watching the process can make that pretty hard to do at significant scale.

rectang 7y ago

I don't have such faith in blockchain anonymity. Data will leak. See the paper "Backpage and Bitcoin: Uncovering Human Traffickers" which talks about using timing based reconciliation, relationships between wallets, and superficial metadata within Bitcoin to deanonymize human traffickers: http://www.sysnet.ucsd.edu/sysnet/miscpapers/backcoin-kdd17.pdf http://www.sysnet.ucsd.edu/sysnet/miscpapers/backcoin-kdd17....

mcintyre1994 7y ago

> But perhaps some percentage of people would choose to waive their right to privacy, further strengthening trust in the system. This has the same problem. Didn't waive your right to privacy and provably vote for the right candidate - you're fired (or worse). That's why taking photos of a ballot isn't allowed, you can't have any way to show who you voted for.

joshfraser 7y ago
But what if our elections are rigged and we don't know it? Is it worth risking a faked election as long as we all feel good about it?
- probably_wrong 7y ago
  As someone else in the thread pointed out, we already know of a better solution: paper. Any other solution so far turns out to be either convoluted and/or not as good. Somewhat related, it reminds me of this anecdote about hand-warming handlebars on bikes: http://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Complicator_0x27_s_Gloves http://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Complicator_0x27_s_Glove...
- joshfraser 7y ago
  The problem with paper is that it's too easy to remove and replace the ballots you don't like.
  - ABCLAW 7y ago
    Not really. Best practices in the field involve having representatives from many to all parties present at each step of the voting process, from the distribution of ballots at the booth, to the counting, to the archiving of counted boxes pending recounts.
  - nomel 7y ago
    Being physical, you would physically have to remove the previous vote first. This would require some combination of a chemical process, color matching, and/or glue piecing back on. This all takes time, tight tolerances, and automation to a happen at an impactful scale, which minimal oversight would mostly prevent. Compare this to an SQL statement to change a whole states worth of votes in a few hundred milliseconds. You can always recount the paper. Whatever solution, it require the limitation of involving something physical and difficult to manipulate.

umanwizard 7y ago

If it’s even possible to waive anonymity, people will try to entice or coerce others to vote in a certain way, and require they prove it. That’s why taking a picture of your ballot is illegal in the US. This isn’t just a theoretical concern - there are various real-life allegations of it happening, in Southeastern Europe and other places.

alexandercrohde 7y ago
Meh, the concern of the integrity of the election itself is a thousand or a million times more pressing than the concern about somebody trying to coerce somebody. Plus such coercion isn't impossible now, like you said it can be done with a camera. Presumably if you're being coerced by threat the "illegal" doesn't really help you at all. It seems obscene to me to pass up such an obvious improvement like a verifiable record over such a theoretical concern.
- hannasanarion 7y ago
  You know what else is verifiable? Paper.
  - joshfraser 7y ago
    For the record, I far prefer paper ballots over closed-source digital voting.
- ABCLAW 7y ago
  >Meh, the concern of the integrity of the election itself is a thousand or a million times more pressing than the concern about somebody trying to coerce somebody. 1) Coercion is literally the biggest concern within elections. You put a big guy with a pair of brass knuckles outside of the polling location and he beats up everyone who comes out without a picture of his ballot with the right vote in place. Theoretical? Lol. This WAS and IS common. This is why we have international election observers. 2) There's no integrity loss with paper if things are done right. Every ballot given out at a voting booth is recorded - you can't stuff the box as a voter. The only way you can do so is if election officials from all parties collude to fudge the books together, which they would need to do in view of the public as they man the voting desks, or under the supervision of the locale manager during the end-of-night count.

astrodust 7y ago

Can we just not blockchain voting and move on to other things? Thanks.

Izkata 7y ago

> Statistically, the public voters should be in line with the final outcome. Not likely. Social stigma means the "acceptable" candidate would have a larger proportion of the public votes than total votes. For example, the Democrat candidate in Chicago.

village-idiot 7y ago

The problem with blockchains in this situation is that your security has to be perfect forever. If anyone figures out a way to de-anonymize votes, they get all of them due to the public and append only nature of blockchain systems.