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> No, there aren’t. Yes there are, and I've documented several of them here: https://www.attejuvonen.fi/thesis/ https://www.attejuvonen.fi/thesis/ If you disa

> No, there aren’t. Yes there are, and I've documented several of them here: https://www.attejuvonen.fi/thesis/ https://www.attejuvonen.fi/thesis/ If you disagree, can you please be specific what exactly do you disagree about?

acdha 5y ago
That shows that in-person paper ballots are superior once you correct the system in Finland (P6/7 would normally be green for in person paper). More importantly, however, it’s a mistake to give all of those equal weight. For example, if married couples vote together a spouse can monitor or coerce their partner’s choice but that doesn’t scale up better than linearly, whereas all electronic systems which don’t rely on voter-verified paper ballots are subject to very hard to disprove allegations of widespread fraud. This is the conceptual problem to the very clever mathematical approaches: even if they are theoretically sound, it is much harder to build public confidence in a system which a fraction of a percent of the population understands.
- baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  > P6/7 would normally be green for in person paper I doubt that. Are there voting schemes out there which prevent people from bringing mobile phones inside a voting booth? If not, then spouses can walk to a polling station together, and one spouse can walk inside the voting booth alone, take a picture of the filled-out ballot, and then drop the ballot to the box in view of their spouse. If there is no method of preventing photography inside the voting booth, and no method of invalidating a cast vote afterwards, then spouses can easily prove to each other how they voted. > More importantly, however, it’s a mistake to give all of those equal weight. Fully agreed. > it is much harder to build public confidence in a system which a fraction of a percent of the population understands I agree that more complicated systems are harder to understand than simpler systems, especially to laypersons. That said, I do not think that laypersons have a very in-depth understanding of how their paper-voting schemes currently work. There's an element of trust that goes into it, like surely some smart people have verified that the voting system in place is alright. If we had a more complicated system in place, then laypersons would need a bit more of that trust. Laypersons have trust in things like online banking, even though it's technically a flaming garbage fire. People could just as well have trust in a cryptographically verified voting scheme.
  - acdha 5y ago
    > I doubt that. Are there voting schemes out there which prevent people from bringing mobile phones inside a voting booth? Well, this is one reason why the last three places I’ve lived don’t allow phone usage in the polling station and have processes for getting another ballot, but also none of the electronic systems can survive that level of control either — most of them make it substantially easier for the attacker, especially at scale. That last part is important because the more people are required to pull off an attack the less likely it is to be successful. > Laypersons have trust in things like online banking, even though it's technically a flaming garbage fire. People could just as well have trust in a cryptographically verified voting scheme. Banking has key differences, though, which I think are significant: you can do non-anonymous audits, you don’t need deniability, and most importantly you can restore losses after the fact.
    - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
      > Well, this is one reason why the last three places I’ve lived don’t allow phone usage in the polling station and have processes for getting another ballot Do they kindly ask people not to use phones inside the polling station, or do they actually bodyscan people for electronic devices when they go in the booth? Because if they just ask kindly, that's not preventing anything. Finland also has processes for getting another ballot, but only until you cast a ballot. You can't invalidate a ballot that has already been cast. So that means you can go in the voting booth, take a picture of how you voted, and then ask for another ballot. This would be sufficient to fool anyone trying to buy votes en masse, but it wouldn't fool the spouse of the voter, who could be physically present at the polling station. > none of the electronic systems can survive that level of control either Some of them do, actually. Some electronic voting systems craft proofs which are convincing to the voter, but only to the voter. This means that the voter can cryptographically verify that their vote has been cast correctly, but the voter wouldn't be able to convince a potential vote-buyer how they voted, because the voter could have potentially forged the proof. > Banking has key differences, though, which I think are significant: you can do non-anonymous audits, you don’t need deniability, and most importantly you can restore losses after the fact. Yes, online banking is a much easier problem. Despite that the actual implementation is garbage fire from 1970s. I was just trying to say that getting people to trust a complicated system is possible (e.g. people trust online banking, despite it being a complete garbage fire). Therefore, it could be possible to get people to trust a cryptographically verifiable voting system as well.

acdha 5y ago

That shows that in-person paper ballots are superior once you correct the system in Finland (P6/7 would normally be green for in person paper). More importantly, however, it’s a mistake to give all of those equal weight. For example, if married couples vote together a spouse can monitor or coerce their partner’s choice but that doesn’t scale up better than linearly, whereas all electronic systems which don’t rely on voter-verified paper ballots are subject to very hard to disprove allegations of widespread fraud. This is the conceptual problem to the very clever mathematical approaches: even if they are theoretically sound, it is much harder to build public confidence in a system which a fraction of a percent of the population understands.

baobabKoodaa 5y ago
> P6/7 would normally be green for in person paper I doubt that. Are there voting schemes out there which prevent people from bringing mobile phones inside a voting booth? If not, then spouses can walk to a polling station together, and one spouse can walk inside the voting booth alone, take a picture of the filled-out ballot, and then drop the ballot to the box in view of their spouse. If there is no method of preventing photography inside the voting booth, and no method of invalidating a cast vote afterwards, then spouses can easily prove to each other how they voted. > More importantly, however, it’s a mistake to give all of those equal weight. Fully agreed. > it is much harder to build public confidence in a system which a fraction of a percent of the population understands I agree that more complicated systems are harder to understand than simpler systems, especially to laypersons. That said, I do not think that laypersons have a very in-depth understanding of how their paper-voting schemes currently work. There's an element of trust that goes into it, like surely some smart people have verified that the voting system in place is alright. If we had a more complicated system in place, then laypersons would need a bit more of that trust. Laypersons have trust in things like online banking, even though it's technically a flaming garbage fire. People could just as well have trust in a cryptographically verified voting scheme.
- acdha 5y ago
  > I doubt that. Are there voting schemes out there which prevent people from bringing mobile phones inside a voting booth? Well, this is one reason why the last three places I’ve lived don’t allow phone usage in the polling station and have processes for getting another ballot, but also none of the electronic systems can survive that level of control either — most of them make it substantially easier for the attacker, especially at scale. That last part is important because the more people are required to pull off an attack the less likely it is to be successful. > Laypersons have trust in things like online banking, even though it's technically a flaming garbage fire. People could just as well have trust in a cryptographically verified voting scheme. Banking has key differences, though, which I think are significant: you can do non-anonymous audits, you don’t need deniability, and most importantly you can restore losses after the fact.
  - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
    > Well, this is one reason why the last three places I’ve lived don’t allow phone usage in the polling station and have processes for getting another ballot Do they kindly ask people not to use phones inside the polling station, or do they actually bodyscan people for electronic devices when they go in the booth? Because if they just ask kindly, that's not preventing anything. Finland also has processes for getting another ballot, but only until you cast a ballot. You can't invalidate a ballot that has already been cast. So that means you can go in the voting booth, take a picture of how you voted, and then ask for another ballot. This would be sufficient to fool anyone trying to buy votes en masse, but it wouldn't fool the spouse of the voter, who could be physically present at the polling station. > none of the electronic systems can survive that level of control either Some of them do, actually. Some electronic voting systems craft proofs which are convincing to the voter, but only to the voter. This means that the voter can cryptographically verify that their vote has been cast correctly, but the voter wouldn't be able to convince a potential vote-buyer how they voted, because the voter could have potentially forged the proof. > Banking has key differences, though, which I think are significant: you can do non-anonymous audits, you don’t need deniability, and most importantly you can restore losses after the fact. Yes, online banking is a much easier problem. Despite that the actual implementation is garbage fire from 1970s. I was just trying to say that getting people to trust a complicated system is possible (e.g. people trust online banking, despite it being a complete garbage fire). Therefore, it could be possible to get people to trust a cryptographically verifiable voting system as well.