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Please work with David Recordon to make anonymous blockchain-enabled voting happen. It puts the tamperproof feature to work, and there are some measures in pla

Please work with David Recordon to make anonymous blockchain-enabled voting happen. It puts the tamperproof feature to work, and there are some measures in place for voting that help ensure the data being placed on the blockchain is actually authentic. Maybe the press too EDIT: would love to hear opposing downvoting views. our votes are already digital and tamperable

ekr____ 4y ago
Do you mean on HN or in real elections? In real elections, the situation is actually quite complicated depending on where you live. Specifically: - Many people vote on paper with hand counting, which is of course not digital. - Many people vote on paper with machine counting, which is straightforwardly auditable. - Many people vote on Direct Recording Electronic (touchscreen) machines. Some of these have paper trails which can be audited and some do not. Some background here on conventional voting systems: https://educatedguesswork.org/tags/voting/ https://educatedguesswork.org/tags/voting/ There has been quite a bit of work on cryptographic voting, but the blockchain feature doesn't really help that much, because the votes are signed and there is a public record of who voted and who did not. The complicated piece is ensuring the votes haven't been tampered with while keeping them secret, but again, the blockchain doesn't help here. The deployment problems around cryptographic voting are largely about endpoint security and user comprehension of what's happening.
- Kalanos 4y ago
  "vote on paper with hand counting" how is the sum communicated and stored?
  - RandomLensman 4y ago
    By phone and on paper, for example. Depending on which country you are in, these systems are very robust and difficult to tamper, as granular results are published and counting is decentralized. And here's the kicker: where I live, people can get pretty randomly drafted into counting and support duty for election day, i.e., not easy to insert enough malicious actors into those emptying the boxes, counting the ballots etc.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - ekr____ 4y ago
    A variety of ways. However the counting itself is usually done in the open which means that people can observe that (1) the counting is done correctly and (2) is then transmitted and reported correctly.
nullc 4y ago
> EDIT: would love to hear opposing downvoting views. our votes are already digital and tamperable So instead of making them less tamperable you instead want to make it seamless to buy and sell votes as well as less private? Blockchains solve precisely zero of the hard problems in voting, and instead add tons of problems. Cryptography for voting? Absolutely-- sure. There is plenty that cryptography has to offer, but not the blockchain part. Bitcoin is useful, but blockchain voting is a receipt for corruption.
- Kalanos 4y ago
  what problems would it add? you haven't actually made a point yet. the blockchain would provide a tamper-proof record of each vote. that is an improvement. i don't understand what benefits hashing would add.
  - nullc 4y ago
    A public tamper-proof record of each vote, unless it's extremely carefully constructed would deeply undermine voting because it would make it extremely easy to buy or coerce votes: "Vote the way I say or you're fired". ... you also get awesome effects like letting miners simply censor votes they don't like. If you just want to make sure votes aren't being discarded there are thousands of ways to accomplish that, including, e.g. sending receipts to the candidates or their parties themselves. Adding a public blockchain to it doesn't solve any issue that isn't solved with simpler and safer mechanisms, it's the absolute worst of cargo-cult engineering.

ekr____ 4y ago

Do you mean on HN or in real elections? In real elections, the situation is actually quite complicated depending on where you live. Specifically: - Many people vote on paper with hand counting, which is of course not digital. - Many people vote on paper with machine counting, which is straightforwardly auditable. - Many people vote on Direct Recording Electronic (touchscreen) machines. Some of these have paper trails which can be audited and some do not. Some background here on conventional voting systems: https://educatedguesswork.org/tags/voting/ https://educatedguesswork.org/tags/voting/ There has been quite a bit of work on cryptographic voting, but the blockchain feature doesn't really help that much, because the votes are signed and there is a public record of who voted and who did not. The complicated piece is ensuring the votes haven't been tampered with while keeping them secret, but again, the blockchain doesn't help here. The deployment problems around cryptographic voting are largely about endpoint security and user comprehension of what's happening.

Kalanos 4y ago
"vote on paper with hand counting" how is the sum communicated and stored?
- RandomLensman 4y ago
  By phone and on paper, for example. Depending on which country you are in, these systems are very robust and difficult to tamper, as granular results are published and counting is decentralized. And here's the kicker: where I live, people can get pretty randomly drafted into counting and support duty for election day, i.e., not easy to insert enough malicious actors into those emptying the boxes, counting the ballots etc.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- ekr____ 4y ago
  A variety of ways. However the counting itself is usually done in the open which means that people can observe that (1) the counting is done correctly and (2) is then transmitted and reported correctly.

nullc 4y ago

> EDIT: would love to hear opposing downvoting views. our votes are already digital and tamperable So instead of making them less tamperable you instead want to make it seamless to buy and sell votes as well as less private? Blockchains solve precisely zero of the hard problems in voting, and instead add tons of problems. Cryptography for voting? Absolutely-- sure. There is plenty that cryptography has to offer, but not the blockchain part. Bitcoin is useful, but blockchain voting is a receipt for corruption.

Kalanos 4y ago
what problems would it add? you haven't actually made a point yet. the blockchain would provide a tamper-proof record of each vote. that is an improvement. i don't understand what benefits hashing would add.
- nullc 4y ago
  A public tamper-proof record of each vote, unless it's extremely carefully constructed would deeply undermine voting because it would make it extremely easy to buy or coerce votes: "Vote the way I say or you're fired". ... you also get awesome effects like letting miners simply censor votes they don't like. If you just want to make sure votes aren't being discarded there are thousands of ways to accomplish that, including, e.g. sending receipts to the candidates or their parties themselves. Adding a public blockchain to it doesn't solve any issue that isn't solved with simpler and safer mechanisms, it's the absolute worst of cargo-cult engineering.