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> One of the (many) issues I have with cryptographic vote verification systems is that they don't prove there isn't a "second set of books" that all checks out,

> One of the (many) issues I have with cryptographic vote verification systems is that they don't prove there isn't a "second set of books" that all checks out, meanwhile we use the crooked books to determine who won. How could you fail to use the totals indicated by the database and not get caught? > I know these schemes are way, way more trouble than they're worth and either hinder a lot of the techniques we currently use to verify elections, or make political firestorms that make the election process even more fragile than it already is way more likely. Don't worry; I'm not going to spend the rest of my life pushing my scheme forward. I might make a toy implementation that people can use for vanity voting with friends. It might gain traction and wider acceptance that way. > I also strongly support compulsory voting That reminds me of Soviet Russia and satellites that always had 90+% turnouts. I can't imagine any reason for compulsory voting beside maintaining a facade of popular support for the system. There's a difference between returning invalid ballot and not voting; in the latter case you shouldn't appear on the list of voters. > law enforcement initiatives against voter intimidation I think the hard part isn't agreeing that voter intimidation is bad. The hard part is specifying what constitutes voter intimidation. I doubt that legislation could root it out, and there's a working solution to it: ballot secrecy. Ballot confidentiality isn't good enough, as someone could tell voters that an inside man will check how they voted. > and misinformation Carefulness here is essential to avoid sliding to an Orwellian dystopy. I'm not sure what measures I would be comfortable with, and I don't wonder if legislators feel the same way.

camgunz 5y ago
>> One of the (many) issues I have with cryptographic vote verification systems is that they don't prove there isn't a "second set of books" that all checks out, meanwhile we use the crooked books to determine who won. > How could you fail to use the totals indicated by the database and not get caught? Because unless you get enough people to use the token (and use it perfectly), you can fudge the margin enough to win. Let's imagine a town of 10,000 people where 2,000 people use the token, and the margin of victory for the mayor is 3,000 people. You can verify 2,000 of these votes (again, let's say we can do that reasonably accurately, which is already a big lift), but that leaves 8,000 votes the corrupt mayor can play with. Unless you get > 7,000 people to use the token very accurately, this system doesn't help. How would you actually fudge the vote you ask? My answer is that it's extremely, extremely hard to do, and therefore any system making this even harder to do isn't worth it. Someone else's answer is probably a person who wants a verification system like this in the first place; they might say bribery, machine tampering, whatever, all things we've never had even a single instance of ever. Well, there's this Republican County Clerk that maybe did something fishy, we'll see how that pans out, but yeah very very very few instances of. And imagine the downsides. 2,000 people used the token, but 500 of them misremembered it, and when they went looking their vote wasn't there. Shenanigans! Do over! Stop the steal! Etc. etc. And let's add on some other stuff: - Recounts work, and are triggered when small margins matter. Crypto systems almost certainly make recounts much harder. - Most of this system is already in place: the fact that you voted is already public record. - Adding the information of who you voted for is also very easy, but we don't do it to avoid pay-for-votes (I know your argument here is such kingpins would force voters to use new tokens and we'd detect it, but 1 no we wouldn't because we couldn't disambiguate that from population changes or people just being forgetful, and 2 tokens would either be tied to a single election or contain a voting history so you wouldn't need a new one anyway). - Any problems with this system introduce doubt into an election, and since it's very easy for a small number of partisan voters to do this ("hey my vote isn't in the system!"), we're asking for 5,000 diehard Republicans to call shenanigans in every urban Democratic precinct every election. >> I also strongly support compulsory voting > That reminds me of Soviet Russia and satellites that always had 90+% turnouts. I can't imagine any reason for compulsory voting beside maintaining a facade of popular support for the system. There's a difference between returning invalid ballot and not voting; in the latter case you shouldn't appear on the list of voters. You can't imagine reasons for compulsory voting because, and this is gonna sound a little rude but I think that's where we are here, you don't know a lot about elections and voting and haven't spent a lot of time learning and thinking about them. I suggest starting here [1]. >> law enforcement initiatives against voter intimidation > I think the hard part isn't agreeing that voter intimidation is bad. The hard part is specifying what constitutes voter intimidation. It's not actually hard at all. There are two major forms of voter intimidation: the cops will lock you up, and someone will beat you up. Generally voters are made aware of these possibilities with phone calls, emails, direct mail, and police/vigilante presence at polling places. These things are easy to outlaw, in fact they're already illegal! We just need cops to enforce the laws. If you're gonna say that'll take more than money, then I'd agree with you. > Ballot confidentiality isn't good enough, as someone could tell voters that an inside man will check how they voted. People assume this is about learning how someone voted, but you can actually just keep certain people from voting and achieve that result. This is actually how voter intimidation works; you tell women that their husbands will find out how they voted, and you tell people of color the cops will be there. It doesn't need to be more complex than that, because it's already super effective. >> and misinformation > Carefulness here is essential to avoid sliding to an Orwellian dystopy This is also pretty easy to tamp down on; this kind of misinformation is usually incorrect polling place information or time--sometimes it's more creative like "drop your ballot off at this (fake) mailbox", but that kind of thing is rare. Again this is also super illegal (the FEC exists for a reason), we just need cops to enforce the laws. [1]: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Br_LIFT_Every_Voice_final.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Br_LIFT...
- TheMonarchist 5y ago
  > It's not actually hard at all. There are two major forms of voter intimidation: the cops will lock you up, and someone will beat you up. Generally voters are made aware of these possibilities with phone calls, emails, direct mail, and police/vigilante presence at polling places. These things are easy to outlaw, in fact they're already illegal! Those are clear cases and I would have been surprised if they had not been crimes already. > We just need cops to enforce the laws. If you're gonna say that'll take more than money, then I'd agree with you. As any crime it must be proved in court to convince the culprit. > People assume this is about learning how someone voted, but you can actually just keep certain people from voting and achieve that result. Ballot secrecy still more than halves the effects of voter intimidation. Instead of making people vote certain way, you can only keep them from voting because you don't know how they would vote. Such intimidators could actually harm their preferred candidate. > you tell women that their husbands will find out how they voted Admittedly this is something ballot secrecy can't fix, but neither can legislation. Married couples spend a lot of time together privately, leaving ample opportunity for intimidation with little risk of getting caught. > Because unless you get enough people to use the token (and use it perfectly), you can fudge the margin enough to win. Of course, but you have to fudge it in the database too to avoid detection. Also you can alter only the counts of popular tokens (such as no token) without detection. People could give a token with no intent to check it just to prevent exactly this. For that corrupt mayor can't know which tokens are really checked, so he can manipulate only the counts of popular tokens or risk getting caught. > 2,000 people used the token, but 500 of them misremembered it, and when they went looking their vote wasn't there. To help their memory they could keep a copy of the token with the risk of someone discovering it. > I know your argument here is such kingpins would force voters to use new tokens and we'd detect it, but 1 no we wouldn't because we couldn't disambiguate that from population changes or people just being forgetful, and 2 tokens would either be tied to a single election or contain a voting history so you wouldn't need a new one anyway If they allowed using an existing token, they wouldn't know whether the voter they pay used it or someone else just happened to vote as they wanted. The effect of population changes could be detected from the records of who voted. Forgetfulness is a real confounding factor but it shouldn't vary much between elections. > "hey my vote isn't in the system!" They would be mostly ignored unless they would be numerous, as anyone that cares could just check whether his own vote was counted. > I suggest starting here [1]. They point at demographic underrepresentation as grounds for compulsory voting. I think members of underrepresented groups just vote by their feet; they don't have a candidate they would vote, and compulsory voting won't give them one. It would end up being exactly the kind of facelift I would call keeping up appearance of working democracy. There's also a list of countries with compulsory voting. I think it tells more of those countries than of compulsory voting. Also some discontinued historical cases are mentioned. In my mind those weigh far more than current adopters. It's not hard to imagine that people don't want to go through the trouble of voting if their options are "more of the same" and "even more of the same". > this kind of misinformation is usually incorrect polling place information or time--sometimes it's more creative like "drop your ballot off at this (fake) mailbox", but that kind of thing is rare. Again this is also super illegal (the FEC exists for a reason), we just need cops to enforce the laws. Those are again pretty obvious cases and I would have been surprised if they weren't crimes already. I suppose apprehending the perpetrators could be difficult, especially if they are foreign agents. I think you would also have to prove intent, though arguably if you are going to spread such info in writing, it would be reasonable to check that you at least got it right. Generally I think the most effective way to combat misinformation is spreading correct information and trusting that people can discern the truth. Sure we are, that it is not he that hath good gold, that is afraid to bring it to the touchstone, but he that hath the counterfeit. -- KJV Translators To The Reader, ¶ The unwillingness of our chief adversaries that the Scriptures should be divulged in the mother tongue, &c.

camgunz 5y ago

>> One of the (many) issues I have with cryptographic vote verification systems is that they don't prove there isn't a "second set of books" that all checks out, meanwhile we use the crooked books to determine who won. > How could you fail to use the totals indicated by the database and not get caught? Because unless you get enough people to use the token (and use it perfectly), you can fudge the margin enough to win. Let's imagine a town of 10,000 people where 2,000 people use the token, and the margin of victory for the mayor is 3,000 people. You can verify 2,000 of these votes (again, let's say we can do that reasonably accurately, which is already a big lift), but that leaves 8,000 votes the corrupt mayor can play with. Unless you get > 7,000 people to use the token very accurately, this system doesn't help. How would you actually fudge the vote you ask? My answer is that it's extremely, extremely hard to do, and therefore any system making this even harder to do isn't worth it. Someone else's answer is probably a person who wants a verification system like this in the first place; they might say bribery, machine tampering, whatever, all things we've never had even a single instance of ever. Well, there's this Republican County Clerk that maybe did something fishy, we'll see how that pans out, but yeah very very very few instances of. And imagine the downsides. 2,000 people used the token, but 500 of them misremembered it, and when they went looking their vote wasn't there. Shenanigans! Do over! Stop the steal! Etc. etc. And let's add on some other stuff: - Recounts work, and are triggered when small margins matter. Crypto systems almost certainly make recounts much harder. - Most of this system is already in place: the fact that you voted is already public record. - Adding the information of who you voted for is also very easy, but we don't do it to avoid pay-for-votes (I know your argument here is such kingpins would force voters to use new tokens and we'd detect it, but 1 no we wouldn't because we couldn't disambiguate that from population changes or people just being forgetful, and 2 tokens would either be tied to a single election or contain a voting history so you wouldn't need a new one anyway). - Any problems with this system introduce doubt into an election, and since it's very easy for a small number of partisan voters to do this ("hey my vote isn't in the system!"), we're asking for 5,000 diehard Republicans to call shenanigans in every urban Democratic precinct every election. >> I also strongly support compulsory voting > That reminds me of Soviet Russia and satellites that always had 90+% turnouts. I can't imagine any reason for compulsory voting beside maintaining a facade of popular support for the system. There's a difference between returning invalid ballot and not voting; in the latter case you shouldn't appear on the list of voters. You can't imagine reasons for compulsory voting because, and this is gonna sound a little rude but I think that's where we are here, you don't know a lot about elections and voting and haven't spent a lot of time learning and thinking about them. I suggest starting here [1]. >> law enforcement initiatives against voter intimidation > I think the hard part isn't agreeing that voter intimidation is bad. The hard part is specifying what constitutes voter intimidation. It's not actually hard at all. There are two major forms of voter intimidation: the cops will lock you up, and someone will beat you up. Generally voters are made aware of these possibilities with phone calls, emails, direct mail, and police/vigilante presence at polling places. These things are easy to outlaw, in fact they're already illegal! We just need cops to enforce the laws. If you're gonna say that'll take more than money, then I'd agree with you. > Ballot confidentiality isn't good enough, as someone could tell voters that an inside man will check how they voted. People assume this is about learning how someone voted, but you can actually just keep certain people from voting and achieve that result. This is actually how voter intimidation works; you tell women that their husbands will find out how they voted, and you tell people of color the cops will be there. It doesn't need to be more complex than that, because it's already super effective. >> and misinformation > Carefulness here is essential to avoid sliding to an Orwellian dystopy This is also pretty easy to tamp down on; this kind of misinformation is usually incorrect polling place information or time--sometimes it's more creative like "drop your ballot off at this (fake) mailbox", but that kind of thing is rare. Again this is also super illegal (the FEC exists for a reason), we just need cops to enforce the laws. [1]: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Br_LIFT_Every_Voice_final.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Br_LIFT...

TheMonarchist 5y ago
> It's not actually hard at all. There are two major forms of voter intimidation: the cops will lock you up, and someone will beat you up. Generally voters are made aware of these possibilities with phone calls, emails, direct mail, and police/vigilante presence at polling places. These things are easy to outlaw, in fact they're already illegal! Those are clear cases and I would have been surprised if they had not been crimes already. > We just need cops to enforce the laws. If you're gonna say that'll take more than money, then I'd agree with you. As any crime it must be proved in court to convince the culprit. > People assume this is about learning how someone voted, but you can actually just keep certain people from voting and achieve that result. Ballot secrecy still more than halves the effects of voter intimidation. Instead of making people vote certain way, you can only keep them from voting because you don't know how they would vote. Such intimidators could actually harm their preferred candidate. > you tell women that their husbands will find out how they voted Admittedly this is something ballot secrecy can't fix, but neither can legislation. Married couples spend a lot of time together privately, leaving ample opportunity for intimidation with little risk of getting caught. > Because unless you get enough people to use the token (and use it perfectly), you can fudge the margin enough to win. Of course, but you have to fudge it in the database too to avoid detection. Also you can alter only the counts of popular tokens (such as no token) without detection. People could give a token with no intent to check it just to prevent exactly this. For that corrupt mayor can't know which tokens are really checked, so he can manipulate only the counts of popular tokens or risk getting caught. > 2,000 people used the token, but 500 of them misremembered it, and when they went looking their vote wasn't there. To help their memory they could keep a copy of the token with the risk of someone discovering it. > I know your argument here is such kingpins would force voters to use new tokens and we'd detect it, but 1 no we wouldn't because we couldn't disambiguate that from population changes or people just being forgetful, and 2 tokens would either be tied to a single election or contain a voting history so you wouldn't need a new one anyway If they allowed using an existing token, they wouldn't know whether the voter they pay used it or someone else just happened to vote as they wanted. The effect of population changes could be detected from the records of who voted. Forgetfulness is a real confounding factor but it shouldn't vary much between elections. > "hey my vote isn't in the system!" They would be mostly ignored unless they would be numerous, as anyone that cares could just check whether his own vote was counted. > I suggest starting here [1]. They point at demographic underrepresentation as grounds for compulsory voting. I think members of underrepresented groups just vote by their feet; they don't have a candidate they would vote, and compulsory voting won't give them one. It would end up being exactly the kind of facelift I would call keeping up appearance of working democracy. There's also a list of countries with compulsory voting. I think it tells more of those countries than of compulsory voting. Also some discontinued historical cases are mentioned. In my mind those weigh far more than current adopters. It's not hard to imagine that people don't want to go through the trouble of voting if their options are "more of the same" and "even more of the same". > this kind of misinformation is usually incorrect polling place information or time--sometimes it's more creative like "drop your ballot off at this (fake) mailbox", but that kind of thing is rare. Again this is also super illegal (the FEC exists for a reason), we just need cops to enforce the laws. Those are again pretty obvious cases and I would have been surprised if they weren't crimes already. I suppose apprehending the perpetrators could be difficult, especially if they are foreign agents. I think you would also have to prove intent, though arguably if you are going to spread such info in writing, it would be reasonable to check that you at least got it right. Generally I think the most effective way to combat misinformation is spreading correct information and trusting that people can discern the truth. Sure we are, that it is not he that hath good gold, that is afraid to bring it to the touchstone, but he that hath the counterfeit. -- KJV Translators To The Reader, ¶ The unwillingness of our chief adversaries that the Scriptures should be divulged in the mother tongue, &c.