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It boggles my mind as to why there is no, at least that I am aware of, FOSS solution that tackles this problem. Closed source non audited voting software makes

It boggles my mind as to why there is no, at least that I am aware of, FOSS solution that tackles this problem. Closed source non audited voting software makes no sense to anyone not getting income from selling "election solutions".

tialaramex 5y ago
Anybody who has thought about this problem and you might want to trust to build such a "FOSS solution" had the same conclusion: Use paper ballots It's boring but it works. Lots of places do this successfully. You don't need different software, you need to stop using software.
- BreakfastB0b 5y ago
  I worked on blockchain based voting system way back in 2013 for a year before coming to the same conclusion. Blockchain considers secure private key management outside of its threat model which is crazy when you think about it. The best argument I think I could make in favour of using paper over any electronic voting system is the scalability of an attack. Generally speaking changing one vote in an electronic system is just as easy as changing a million. Scaling a physical attack against paper ballots is much harder and actually increases the likelihood of getting caught. Also for blockchain in particular. It solves no problem existing mixed trust voting systems already solve more efficiently.
- jd3 5y ago
  The revised version of Ron Rivest's ThreeBallot[0][1][2] has always felt like a decent, albeit complex, solution to me. It's clear, relatively secure, auditable, verifiable, and somewhat anonymous. For those unfamiliar: > The idea is that you xor together 3 ballots when you vote, but one of the three ballots is published.[3] > The trick to the 3-ballot voting protocol is that not everyone can validate their vote. However, when a group of voters band together, they should be able to validate that a subset of their votes (1/3) were registered with high probability. > ... > With a sufficiently large group of voters checking results, the law of large numbers comes into play and they can statistically detect the presence of voting fraud.[4] You would still need to trust that the poll worker is tabulating correctly and working randomly, though that's an assumption that we're already making as it is. Scantegrity[5], Prêt à Voter[6], Helios[7], and Punchscan[8] also seem promising, though I'm not as familiar with them. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreeBallot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreeBallot [1]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv06c.pdf https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv06c.pdf [2]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/RS07.pdf https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/RS07.pdf [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554744 [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16598777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16598777 [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prêt_à_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prêt_à_Voter [7]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting [8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchscan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchscan
  - jd3 5y ago
    More recent research into auditable voting rules can be found in Rivest's Ternary Plurality Trees[0] and BatchVote[1]. [0]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs.html#Riv19i https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs.html#Riv19i [1]: http://fc17.ifca.ai/voting/papers/voting17_bv.pdf http://fc17.ifca.ai/voting/papers/voting17_bv.pdf
onionisafruit 5y ago
There are a few on github. None with any traction though. The one thing they all lack is lobbyists and slick salesmen.
HWR_14 5y ago
The contracts are worth nine-figures or more. There's too much money in selling your solution for FOSS to make headway.
stonesixone 5y ago
There is now: https://www.voting.works/ https://www.voting.works/ Their system has been used in real elections in Mississippi, and they’re actively working to expand to other states.

tialaramex 5y ago

Anybody who has thought about this problem and you might want to trust to build such a "FOSS solution" had the same conclusion: Use paper ballots It's boring but it works. Lots of places do this successfully. You don't need different software, you need to stop using software.

BreakfastB0b 5y ago
I worked on blockchain based voting system way back in 2013 for a year before coming to the same conclusion. Blockchain considers secure private key management outside of its threat model which is crazy when you think about it. The best argument I think I could make in favour of using paper over any electronic voting system is the scalability of an attack. Generally speaking changing one vote in an electronic system is just as easy as changing a million. Scaling a physical attack against paper ballots is much harder and actually increases the likelihood of getting caught. Also for blockchain in particular. It solves no problem existing mixed trust voting systems already solve more efficiently.
jd3 5y ago
The revised version of Ron Rivest's ThreeBallot[0][1][2] has always felt like a decent, albeit complex, solution to me. It's clear, relatively secure, auditable, verifiable, and somewhat anonymous. For those unfamiliar: > The idea is that you xor together 3 ballots when you vote, but one of the three ballots is published.[3] > The trick to the 3-ballot voting protocol is that not everyone can validate their vote. However, when a group of voters band together, they should be able to validate that a subset of their votes (1/3) were registered with high probability. > ... > With a sufficiently large group of voters checking results, the law of large numbers comes into play and they can statistically detect the presence of voting fraud.[4] You would still need to trust that the poll worker is tabulating correctly and working randomly, though that's an assumption that we're already making as it is. Scantegrity[5], Prêt à Voter[6], Helios[7], and Punchscan[8] also seem promising, though I'm not as familiar with them. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreeBallot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreeBallot [1]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv06c.pdf https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv06c.pdf [2]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/RS07.pdf https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/RS07.pdf [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554744 [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16598777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16598777 [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prêt_à_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prêt_à_Voter [7]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting [8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchscan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchscan
- jd3 5y ago
  More recent research into auditable voting rules can be found in Rivest's Ternary Plurality Trees[0] and BatchVote[1]. [0]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs.html#Riv19i https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs.html#Riv19i [1]: http://fc17.ifca.ai/voting/papers/voting17_bv.pdf http://fc17.ifca.ai/voting/papers/voting17_bv.pdf

onionisafruit 5y ago

There are a few on github. None with any traction though. The one thing they all lack is lobbyists and slick salesmen.

HWR_14 5y ago

The contracts are worth nine-figures or more. There's too much money in selling your solution for FOSS to make headway.

stonesixone 5y ago

There is now: https://www.voting.works/ https://www.voting.works/ Their system has been used in real elections in Mississippi, and they’re actively working to expand to other states.