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This primer misses the point that elections should be easy to participate in. The voters should need the ability or knowledge about encryption to participate. O

This primer misses the point that elections should be easy to participate in. The voters should need the ability or knowledge about encryption to participate. Otherwise it discriminated against voters from many historically underprivileged backgrounds. And the same goes for the people helping conduct the election. The ones who have to help with counting. I would rather have anyone above the age of 18 be able to count the votes without trusting corporations or complex open source programs. Let the community leaders and volunteers in under privileged parts of the country be able to simply count the votes. Otherwise we shut them out. Just my two cents. Well written post though.

crazygringo 7y ago
Huh? For the voter, this is literally the exact same as it is today -- fill in bubbles -- except that they also give you a copy of half your ballot, which you can simply toss if you're not personally interested in verifying election integrity. I fail to see any form of discrimination here whatsoever. Voters don't have to understand anything about encryption, any more than today they understand how results get from their voting machine to the NYT home page in under an hour, which is just as much of a black box to most people. And the trouble with people counting ballots, as always, is that it's error-prone (with recounts) and open to extreme manipulation to swing an election (as happens in many countries). So a technological solution increases trust -- it doesn't decrease it. And if you want to benefit voters from historically underprivileged backgrounds, well guess what -- election tampering is generally done to entrench a party or candidate in office for selfish gain, not the good of the country. And the poor and underprivileged are going to be the ones who suffer most from resulting police corruption, inflation, and economic mismanagement.
- kybernetikos 7y ago
  With paper ballots it's easy for anyone to get involved in verifying the trustworthiness of part of an election. You can watch the box that the votes are put into, you can be present at the opening of the box, you can participate in the count. All the key parts of the process can (and in most countries do) happen in public view, and even someone with a low level of education can gain high confidence that the election is fair, trusting only other people like themselves - no need to trust the corporation that built the machine, or the politicians currently in power - you can watch it from empty box to published voting district results, and as long as you think there are people like you in each district doing similar checks, you can be confident the entire vote was done correctly.
  - owenmarshall 7y ago
    I’ve yet to see a technological solution that doesn’t fall victim to this. I’m a reasonably intelligent software engineer and I would not trust myself to audit the described solution to know it does what it claims. I can, however, * review the receipt produced by the voting machine and ensure it matches * observe the random audits of submitted receipts to tabulated votes to be sure they match I can also trust that a wide section of the public can do those things as well.
  - crazygringo 7y ago
    Sorry, but that's just not true. If you look up how elections get rigged, there are all sorts of opportunities for corrupting the election, which actually happen all over the world -- ballot boxes getting swapped out, literally stuffed with extra votes, being hidden and forgotten completely, getting "lost" or "accidentally destroyed" to prevent a recount along with forged results, the list goes on and on. Yes the UN can send unbiased people to observe elections, but there just aren't enough to be present at every polling station and verify every step of the way. And the police tend to be happy to deny "unauthorized" people from observing... in the name of "security" to promote election integrity. So considering that even official UN observers historically have been unable to verify the trustworthiness of many elections, I don't understand how you think "anyone who can count" could possibly do so. You are right that ultimately it's based on trust, currently. But with technology we can have far greater certainty, and follow the phrase Reagan popularized: "trust, but verify". Elections deserve nothing less.
    - kybernetikos 7y ago
      My contention is that when there are things like you describe going on, it's usually fairly obvious to people (even those who can't count) because they weren't able to do the all points observation that the process allows. I'm describing elections where you can literally watch the box before it is sealed, to being opened, to having the votes counted and the count being published. If you're in a place where you are not able to do that, then yes, of course, you're running a high risk that the election is not fair. You don't even need people to be unbiased, you just need a selection of people with different allegiances who will be able to cry foul if they see something happening that is not right because they think it will damage their side. > But with technology we can have far greater certainty I have yet to see any technological solution that gives greater certainty than the ballot box system. Most of them allow the voter to prove their vote or involve many more actors that must be trusted. They also provide new central points of attack, where a well run paper vote is very distributed. I like Schneiers analysis of the papal election protocol: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/04/hacking_the_pap_1.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/04/hacking_the_p...
rusbus 7y ago
Pret a Voter _is_ easy to participate in. If you don't want or care about helping verify the results, you just vote in a pretty normal way, end of story. I've updated the post in a few places to help clarify this.
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  Exactly. Many consider ordinary voters caring about and helping in verifying the result an important aspect of democratic voting. If people don't understand the vote will be counted fairly, they may be more likely to decide there's no point participating in their democracy. Especially because most people can understand at a visceral level why all paper ballots are fair, why over complicate what isn't broken?

crazygringo 7y ago

Huh? For the voter, this is literally the exact same as it is today -- fill in bubbles -- except that they also give you a copy of half your ballot, which you can simply toss if you're not personally interested in verifying election integrity. I fail to see any form of discrimination here whatsoever. Voters don't have to understand anything about encryption, any more than today they understand how results get from their voting machine to the NYT home page in under an hour, which is just as much of a black box to most people. And the trouble with people counting ballots, as always, is that it's error-prone (with recounts) and open to extreme manipulation to swing an election (as happens in many countries). So a technological solution increases trust -- it doesn't decrease it. And if you want to benefit voters from historically underprivileged backgrounds, well guess what -- election tampering is generally done to entrench a party or candidate in office for selfish gain, not the good of the country. And the poor and underprivileged are going to be the ones who suffer most from resulting police corruption, inflation, and economic mismanagement.

kybernetikos 7y ago
With paper ballots it's easy for anyone to get involved in verifying the trustworthiness of part of an election. You can watch the box that the votes are put into, you can be present at the opening of the box, you can participate in the count. All the key parts of the process can (and in most countries do) happen in public view, and even someone with a low level of education can gain high confidence that the election is fair, trusting only other people like themselves - no need to trust the corporation that built the machine, or the politicians currently in power - you can watch it from empty box to published voting district results, and as long as you think there are people like you in each district doing similar checks, you can be confident the entire vote was done correctly.
- owenmarshall 7y ago
  I’ve yet to see a technological solution that doesn’t fall victim to this. I’m a reasonably intelligent software engineer and I would not trust myself to audit the described solution to know it does what it claims. I can, however, * review the receipt produced by the voting machine and ensure it matches * observe the random audits of submitted receipts to tabulated votes to be sure they match I can also trust that a wide section of the public can do those things as well.
- crazygringo 7y ago
  Sorry, but that's just not true. If you look up how elections get rigged, there are all sorts of opportunities for corrupting the election, which actually happen all over the world -- ballot boxes getting swapped out, literally stuffed with extra votes, being hidden and forgotten completely, getting "lost" or "accidentally destroyed" to prevent a recount along with forged results, the list goes on and on. Yes the UN can send unbiased people to observe elections, but there just aren't enough to be present at every polling station and verify every step of the way. And the police tend to be happy to deny "unauthorized" people from observing... in the name of "security" to promote election integrity. So considering that even official UN observers historically have been unable to verify the trustworthiness of many elections, I don't understand how you think "anyone who can count" could possibly do so. You are right that ultimately it's based on trust, currently. But with technology we can have far greater certainty, and follow the phrase Reagan popularized: "trust, but verify". Elections deserve nothing less.
  - kybernetikos 7y ago
    My contention is that when there are things like you describe going on, it's usually fairly obvious to people (even those who can't count) because they weren't able to do the all points observation that the process allows. I'm describing elections where you can literally watch the box before it is sealed, to being opened, to having the votes counted and the count being published. If you're in a place where you are not able to do that, then yes, of course, you're running a high risk that the election is not fair. You don't even need people to be unbiased, you just need a selection of people with different allegiances who will be able to cry foul if they see something happening that is not right because they think it will damage their side. > But with technology we can have far greater certainty I have yet to see any technological solution that gives greater certainty than the ballot box system. Most of them allow the voter to prove their vote or involve many more actors that must be trusted. They also provide new central points of attack, where a well run paper vote is very distributed. I like Schneiers analysis of the papal election protocol: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/04/hacking_the_pap_1.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/04/hacking_the_p...

rusbus 7y ago

Pret a Voter _is_ easy to participate in. If you don't want or care about helping verify the results, you just vote in a pretty normal way, end of story. I've updated the post in a few places to help clarify this.

iudqnolq 7y ago
Exactly. Many consider ordinary voters caring about and helping in verifying the result an important aspect of democratic voting. If people don't understand the vote will be counted fairly, they may be more likely to decide there's no point participating in their democracy. Especially because most people can understand at a visceral level why all paper ballots are fair, why over complicate what isn't broken?