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It needs to allow secret votes though: Because of the importance of the right to a secret ballot, some E2E voting schemes also attempt to meet a third requir

by loopz 6y ago

It needs to allow secret votes though: Because of the importance of the right to a secret ballot, some E2E voting schemes also attempt to meet a third requirement, usually referred to as receipt freeness: No voter can demonstrate how he or she voted to any third party. Also, the more IT systems involved, the less people will be able to ascertain the process. Complex systems may have unknown and invisible weaknesses.

zug_zug 6y ago
So that's referring to the fact that because you have objective proof of who you voted for, maybe somebody could coerce (i.e. use violence) you to show them that proof. That's a tradeoff. I think the current election, or even just how screwed up elections are in other countries, show that it's probably an order of magnitude more important to have faith the process is objectively right, than to worry about the coercion scenario, which seems pretty contrived to me.
- benmmurphy 6y ago
  Large scale use of absentee ballots or mail in ballots also allows coercion of voters. Most of the E2E systems are designed so it's not possible for a voter to prove to a third party who they voted for.
- pmyteh 6y ago
  The concern isn't only coercion, it's also vote buying (which was very common at least in the UK before the secret ballot). If you can take the money and then vote for someone else, retail vote purchase falls apart. The existence of postal voting has already cracked this one open a bit, though.
m0zg 6y ago
You could still make the system more resilient to fraud, as well as easier to audit by introducing several levels of integrity protections. For example, it would cost next to nothing to capture pictures of all mail in ballot envelopes, and keep them for a few years. It would not cost much to release all voting data (both time series and totals) for free for statistical analysis in a uniform, machine readable format. Such data currently costs substantial amounts of money, and one of the most credible election integrity investigations (and the only one that yielded robust statistical evidence as far as I know) had to spend quarter of a million dollars to acquire it for several states. It would not cost much to capture the counting with a 4K webcam for future inspection and keep videos for a few years. It would not cost much to have uniform ballot mailing and arrival deadlines across states. It is also technically possible in 2020 to have voting systems that are not easily defeated after 1 minute intrusion by someone with the right tooling and a modicum of training. We have people on this site easily capable of designing such systems, as well as easily defeating the systems in use today. A lot of people (nearly all democrats) were interested in such things during Bush years, and demonstrated how easily hackable voting machines and systems are, only to promptly lose all interest and declare that everything is impenetrable the moment Obama was elected. Videos of their exposes are still on YouTube for everyone to see. For the record: I voted for Obama both times.
tzs 6y ago
You don't need complex systems for all E2E voting systems. Scantegrity II [1] uses pretty simple systems. A particularly nice thing is that casting your vote just involves filling in a bubble on a paper ballot--no electronics is involved at all in the voting booth. Machine counting just uses the simple optical scan counters that are an old and reliable technology. It also provides receipt freeness [2]. About half of all districts in the US already use the optical scan counters, which means if we switched to this half the districts would not need any expensive new equipment. All the mathematical/cryptographic magic is in how the ballots themselves are printed and in the pens used to fill the bubbles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity [2] https://eprint.iacr.org/2010/502.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2010/502.pdf
jjeaff 6y ago
Couldn't one just record a video of themselves voting to prove who they voted for?
- loopz 6y ago
  These are the things a proper election process need to hinder actually.

by loopz 6y ago

zug_zug 6y ago

So that's referring to the fact that because you have objective proof of who you voted for, maybe somebody could coerce (i.e. use violence) you to show them that proof. That's a tradeoff. I think the current election, or even just how screwed up elections are in other countries, show that it's probably an order of magnitude more important to have faith the process is objectively right, than to worry about the coercion scenario, which seems pretty contrived to me.

benmmurphy 6y ago
Large scale use of absentee ballots or mail in ballots also allows coercion of voters. Most of the E2E systems are designed so it's not possible for a voter to prove to a third party who they voted for.
pmyteh 6y ago
The concern isn't only coercion, it's also vote buying (which was very common at least in the UK before the secret ballot). If you can take the money and then vote for someone else, retail vote purchase falls apart. The existence of postal voting has already cracked this one open a bit, though.

m0zg 6y ago

You could still make the system more resilient to fraud, as well as easier to audit by introducing several levels of integrity protections. For example, it would cost next to nothing to capture pictures of all mail in ballot envelopes, and keep them for a few years. It would not cost much to release all voting data (both time series and totals) for free for statistical analysis in a uniform, machine readable format. Such data currently costs substantial amounts of money, and one of the most credible election integrity investigations (and the only one that yielded robust statistical evidence as far as I know) had to spend quarter of a million dollars to acquire it for several states. It would not cost much to capture the counting with a 4K webcam for future inspection and keep videos for a few years. It would not cost much to have uniform ballot mailing and arrival deadlines across states. It is also technically possible in 2020 to have voting systems that are not easily defeated after 1 minute intrusion by someone with the right tooling and a modicum of training. We have people on this site easily capable of designing such systems, as well as easily defeating the systems in use today. A lot of people (nearly all democrats) were interested in such things during Bush years, and demonstrated how easily hackable voting machines and systems are, only to promptly lose all interest and declare that everything is impenetrable the moment Obama was elected. Videos of their exposes are still on YouTube for everyone to see. For the record: I voted for Obama both times.

tzs 6y ago

You don't need complex systems for all E2E voting systems. Scantegrity II [1] uses pretty simple systems. A particularly nice thing is that casting your vote just involves filling in a bubble on a paper ballot--no electronics is involved at all in the voting booth. Machine counting just uses the simple optical scan counters that are an old and reliable technology. It also provides receipt freeness [2]. About half of all districts in the US already use the optical scan counters, which means if we switched to this half the districts would not need any expensive new equipment. All the mathematical/cryptographic magic is in how the ballots themselves are printed and in the pens used to fill the bubbles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity [2] https://eprint.iacr.org/2010/502.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2010/502.pdf

jjeaff 6y ago

Couldn't one just record a video of themselves voting to prove who they voted for?

loopz 6y ago
These are the things a proper election process need to hinder actually.