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Removing trust completely is a pretty high bar... but there are different voting schemes out there and some of them do a pretty good job of removing a lot of th

Removing trust completely is a pretty high bar... but there are different voting schemes out there and some of them do a pretty good job of removing a lot of the trust. Cryptography is typically involved, but blockchain is not needed. I wrote more about this here: https://www.attejuvonen.fi/thesis/ https://www.attejuvonen.fi/thesis/

tsimionescu 5y ago
Here by "remove trust" I didn't mean "trust-less assurance that voting is correct", I meant "you have no reason to trust that the system recorded your vote correctly". A basic problem with electronic & cryptographic voting systems is that it is impossible for a non-expert to convince themselves that the system is working correctly. In-person paper voting has this property by virtue of the simplicity of the system and the ability for regular people to observe it's working. This also normally includes members of all political parties participating in the vote, giving a high degree of confidence that either (a) the voting was correct, or (b) the parties you voted for are colluding, so the result is meaningless anyway.
- baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  You write as if there is only one voting scheme for in-person paper voting, and as if laypersons by and large trust the results of paper voting elections. Neither of these claims is true. First of all, there is more than one in-person paper voting system, and some in-person paper voting systems involve cryptography. Secondly, layperson DO NOT by and large trust the results of paper voting elections. You don't need to look further than the previous presidential election in the U.S., in which a significant portion of votes were cast on paper ballots, and a large portion of the population STILL does not trust that those votes were counted correctly. And if you look at developing countries handling their own paper ballot elections, you will find out that many of those elections are manipulated, and people do not trust the results. That said, I agree with your general sentiment that adding electronic and cryptographic elements to a voting scheme will make that scheme generally "less understandable" to a layperson, such that they need to defer to "expert opinion" on whether that voting scheme can be trusted. However, it's not a binary thing like you make it out to be; people do not 100% trust your chosen paper voting scheme and 0% trust your chosen electronic voting scheme. Anyway, I feel like "how do we get people to trust the results of the election more than they currently do" is a secondary problem. The main problem is how we can actually secure the results of the election while maintaining ballot secrecy. It's more important.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    > Secondly, layperson DO NOT by and large trust the results of paper voting elections. That is false. Though there is some distrust in many parts of the world, the overall consensus is that the result of the vote was at least close to the real vote. Even in the USA after the recent election, many focused on accusations of fraud about voting machines (the infamous comments about "Hugo Chavez's machines"). I do agree that it's not a 100%/0% thing in practice - some people will always choose to trust or mistrust the government regardless of other facts; and some people know or are convinced by facts that others don't believe or don't have access to to trust or mistrust. However, I would say the right response to pure electronic voting would actually be 0%. It's actually out of gullibility and misunderstanding that people put any trust in pure electronic voting *, when in fact it can be attacked in ways that not even the best expert in the world would ever notice, and this can be done by sophisticated out of state attackers (such as the USA or Chinese spy agencies). In such a high-stakes environment, you can't trust the CPU, you can't trust the RAM, you can't trust the USB controller, you can't trust the cables - everything could have been rigged to perform different computations than what was apparently programmed, and this would be often be impossible to prove. * with the possible exception of electronic voting systems that make everyone's vote public, with obvious downsides. Though even there, I have some reservations - if I claim I voted differently than what the public ledger shows, what happens next?
    - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
      You're again describing one type of electronic voting, while making an argument against all forms of electronic voting. Regarding this specific type of "black box" electronic voting, yes, I agree with you, it's horrible. Now, it isn't the only type of electronic voting out there. I recommend you familiarize with other types before making sweeping arguments like that.
galaxyLogic 5y ago
That's a great page especially the graphic: https://www.attejuvonen.fi/static/5553d78133d27e12a9d1d3e6f18003ca/a8715/voting_schemes_comparison.jpg https://www.attejuvonen.fi/static/5553d78133d27e12a9d1d3e6f1... If we want more democracy I think we must get some help from technology. Liquid Democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy ) sounds like an approach that would be hard to do without computers.

tsimionescu 5y ago

Here by "remove trust" I didn't mean "trust-less assurance that voting is correct", I meant "you have no reason to trust that the system recorded your vote correctly". A basic problem with electronic & cryptographic voting systems is that it is impossible for a non-expert to convince themselves that the system is working correctly. In-person paper voting has this property by virtue of the simplicity of the system and the ability for regular people to observe it's working. This also normally includes members of all political parties participating in the vote, giving a high degree of confidence that either (a) the voting was correct, or (b) the parties you voted for are colluding, so the result is meaningless anyway.

baobabKoodaa 5y ago
You write as if there is only one voting scheme for in-person paper voting, and as if laypersons by and large trust the results of paper voting elections. Neither of these claims is true. First of all, there is more than one in-person paper voting system, and some in-person paper voting systems involve cryptography. Secondly, layperson DO NOT by and large trust the results of paper voting elections. You don't need to look further than the previous presidential election in the U.S., in which a significant portion of votes were cast on paper ballots, and a large portion of the population STILL does not trust that those votes were counted correctly. And if you look at developing countries handling their own paper ballot elections, you will find out that many of those elections are manipulated, and people do not trust the results. That said, I agree with your general sentiment that adding electronic and cryptographic elements to a voting scheme will make that scheme generally "less understandable" to a layperson, such that they need to defer to "expert opinion" on whether that voting scheme can be trusted. However, it's not a binary thing like you make it out to be; people do not 100% trust your chosen paper voting scheme and 0% trust your chosen electronic voting scheme. Anyway, I feel like "how do we get people to trust the results of the election more than they currently do" is a secondary problem. The main problem is how we can actually secure the results of the election while maintaining ballot secrecy. It's more important.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > Secondly, layperson DO NOT by and large trust the results of paper voting elections. That is false. Though there is some distrust in many parts of the world, the overall consensus is that the result of the vote was at least close to the real vote. Even in the USA after the recent election, many focused on accusations of fraud about voting machines (the infamous comments about "Hugo Chavez's machines"). I do agree that it's not a 100%/0% thing in practice - some people will always choose to trust or mistrust the government regardless of other facts; and some people know or are convinced by facts that others don't believe or don't have access to to trust or mistrust. However, I would say the right response to pure electronic voting would actually be 0%. It's actually out of gullibility and misunderstanding that people put any trust in pure electronic voting *, when in fact it can be attacked in ways that not even the best expert in the world would ever notice, and this can be done by sophisticated out of state attackers (such as the USA or Chinese spy agencies). In such a high-stakes environment, you can't trust the CPU, you can't trust the RAM, you can't trust the USB controller, you can't trust the cables - everything could have been rigged to perform different computations than what was apparently programmed, and this would be often be impossible to prove. * with the possible exception of electronic voting systems that make everyone's vote public, with obvious downsides. Though even there, I have some reservations - if I claim I voted differently than what the public ledger shows, what happens next?
  - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
    You're again describing one type of electronic voting, while making an argument against all forms of electronic voting. Regarding this specific type of "black box" electronic voting, yes, I agree with you, it's horrible. Now, it isn't the only type of electronic voting out there. I recommend you familiarize with other types before making sweeping arguments like that.

galaxyLogic 5y ago

That's a great page especially the graphic: https://www.attejuvonen.fi/static/5553d78133d27e12a9d1d3e6f18003ca/a8715/voting_schemes_comparison.jpg https://www.attejuvonen.fi/static/5553d78133d27e12a9d1d3e6f1... If we want more democracy I think we must get some help from technology. Liquid Democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy ) sounds like an approach that would be hard to do without computers.