6 ms·

zero-knowledge proof is very nice... and could be used to prove election results: https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/466.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/466.pdf

defrost 4y ago
As demonstrated in central north america recently the real challenge isn't in proving election results .. it's in the greater social challenge of propagating belief and trust in the results in the face of concerted efforts to widely undermine such. That's a whole other kettle of fish.
- ehnto 4y ago
  The technobabble would probably erode confidence more than help the situation in the US, no matter how demonstrably true it is.
  - avmich 4y ago
    US can probably run two parallel simultaneous systems of record - the technobabble one and regular one, with regular one being the authoritative. After some practice is accumulated working with the other one, they can decide what to do next.
- pc86 4y ago
  "Central north america" is a really weird way of saying "the US."
  - defrost 4y ago
    "United States" is a weird description of the current situation within central north america.
    - googlryas 4y ago
      They're extremely united. In fact, I can cross over a dozen state borders per day and not even really realize I did so.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - wharfjumper 4y ago
        Tell that to the Dukes of Hazzard.
      - defrost 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hackerlight 4y ago
  That's why we should remove all voting machines. Not because they're unsafe, but because they're an attack vector for cynical actors to sow distrust. There's no way the small efficiency gain from automation is worth that cost.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - pexabit 4y ago
    I don’t think a scantron machine not connected to the Internet would sow distrust. We have seen them in our high schools. And Adversarial observers can validate the results on test samples quite easily. Which raises the question- why do we use the really awkward, blackbox and sometimes networked machines that we do, manufactured by weird companies rather than whoever makes scantron machines or whatever? And this isn’t just about “dumb Republicans” or what have you. Here’s Scott Aaronson [1] in 2016: > For that matter, if Russia or some other power hacked the trivially-hackable electronic voting machines that lack paper trails—machines that something like a third of American voters still used this election—there’s an excellent chance we’d never find out. “Antivirus on voting machines? You’re doing it wrong.” [2] The thing that really gets me is, even if you wanted to use machines, you wouldn’t use the weird machines made by shady companies that we do. Different counties would buy standard scantron machines used to grade high school finals off the shelf, and verify it in ways that are obvious to all of us. [1] https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=2957 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=2957 [2] https://xkcd.com/463/ https://xkcd.com/463/
    - jimbob45 4y ago
      Why do we use the really awkward, blackbox and sometimes networked machines that we do, manufactured by weird companies rather than whoever makes scantron machines or whatever? Because they’re cheap, states have to fund their own elections, and no governor will ever fund an election over schools or infrastructure. The real question is why elections are not federally funded. The answer is that states are afraid election funds will be withheld over speciously related issues, just as highway funds are withheld over drinking ages. IMHO the correct change is a constitutional amendment guaranteeing federal funding for all state elections that can’t be withheld for any reason.
- pexabit 4y ago
  Well secure and rather indisputably valid elections are a solved problem, and many countries manage it. Identified electors cast ballots on paper counted under recorded and public observation. (I think a scantron would be fine, too). It is just that we choose not to do this. A provably convincing election isn’t actually some hard, unsolved problem. (And yes- if you mention zero knowledge proofs in your story of why the election is safe, people will look askance because an observably valid election is a solved problem, and many countries manage it)
  - CodeSgt 4y ago
    Can you name a country where an actually observably valid election takes place? And by this I mean an election where, somehow, an individual would be able to see their individual ballot make it from wherever they cast it, to the counter, and could see how their specific ballot impacted/didn't impact the broader vote, and where (again, somehow) there was proof that no artificial or false votes were cast in the name of citizens who either don't exist or didn't participate. Even if there was a livestrem of the vote counting, that would mean nothing if we didn't see every step of transportation for every single vote from the ballot box to the counters office. A truly observably fair election is practically impossible if you mean to have any significant number of voters.
    - shakow 4y ago
      Maybe I missed something in your question, but what we have in France seems pretty close. Our ballots go into a transparent urn, you need to be registered in a voting office and show an ID paper to vote, and people counting the votes are typically a mix of local state employees and volunteers citizens (and given that most people don't want to spend their Sunday evening counting ballots, it's quite easy to get a place). Now I guess it moves the trust onto the ID system and the aggregation of local counts into national results.
      - qsort 4y ago
        Same exact process in Italy, except we also use ballot tagging to fight organized crime. For all the problems we have, trusting the results of an election isn't one...
- mc32 4y ago
  IIRC, Hillary was among a group claiming "stolen elections" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUqxX0YAafg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUqxX0YAafg and that her opponent was an illegitimate president... so, you know, it's not a unique claim. Also miss Abrams seems to make similar claims. These claims happen a bit in local elections.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    There’s a much longer and “prouder” tradition of Americans claiming elections were rigged stretching all the way back to when it was true. Bush v Gore is another recent example but older folks will probably remember claims about Kennedy’s election and Nixon’s in ‘60. Andrew Jackson is somewhat credibility accused. And that’s just presidential elections off the top of my head.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    On the one hand we have the Mueller report which finds that there was Russian interference in the 2016 election in the form of coordinated social media and other 'attacks' on the Clinton campaign. This seems to form some reasonable basis for making claims that the election was ‘stolen’ (informally, and clearly not a legal basis to overturn a result). On the other you have a narcissist who actually tried to overthrow democracy to stay in power and throws around utterly baseless claims of an organised conspiracy of direct vote subversion and interference in the election mechanism itself, who was also caught trying to coerce others to do that for him over the phone. These situations are not really comparable.
    - pyuser583 4y ago
      I’m pretty sure the multiple reports on electoral interference said the outcome of the election wasn’t affected.
      - Nursie 4y ago
        And? Again we have one person who thinks that the (proven) Russian interference might have taken the election away from her. She's probably wrong, so? We have a second who has actually tried to have a democratic result overturned and tries his best to undermine it at every turn, through 'soft' pressure by cajoling officials, through many failed court cases, through inflammatory rhetoric and eventually through raising a mob. A person who continues to attack the election result and throw accusations of vast, entirely unevidenced illegal conspiracies. These are not the same. It's a ridiculous false equivalence. I'm not American, I have no particular love for Hilary Clinton, but I saw the footage of January 6th and I know how out of the ordinary that is. Trump's conduct is far more than someone mithering about a loss they perceived as unfair, and to attempt to put these on a level is disingenuous at best.
vegetablepotpie 4y ago
In the paper the authors describe using a blockchain to store the results. The blockchain is only mined in private, by an administrator, where voter id information is removed after the election. What is the benefit of a blockchain over a table (csv, JSON, database, excel etc) to store the data? Blockchains application is when you need to reach shared consensus without trust. We’re not in this situation that the paper describes.

defrost 4y ago

As demonstrated in central north america recently the real challenge isn't in proving election results .. it's in the greater social challenge of propagating belief and trust in the results in the face of concerted efforts to widely undermine such. That's a whole other kettle of fish.

ehnto 4y ago
The technobabble would probably erode confidence more than help the situation in the US, no matter how demonstrably true it is.
- avmich 4y ago
  US can probably run two parallel simultaneous systems of record - the technobabble one and regular one, with regular one being the authoritative. After some practice is accumulated working with the other one, they can decide what to do next.
pc86 4y ago
"Central north america" is a really weird way of saying "the US."
- defrost 4y ago
  "United States" is a weird description of the current situation within central north america.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    They're extremely united. In fact, I can cross over a dozen state borders per day and not even really realize I did so.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - wharfjumper 4y ago
      Tell that to the Dukes of Hazzard.
    - defrost 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hackerlight 4y ago
That's why we should remove all voting machines. Not because they're unsafe, but because they're an attack vector for cynical actors to sow distrust. There's no way the small efficiency gain from automation is worth that cost.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pexabit 4y ago
  I don’t think a scantron machine not connected to the Internet would sow distrust. We have seen them in our high schools. And Adversarial observers can validate the results on test samples quite easily. Which raises the question- why do we use the really awkward, blackbox and sometimes networked machines that we do, manufactured by weird companies rather than whoever makes scantron machines or whatever? And this isn’t just about “dumb Republicans” or what have you. Here’s Scott Aaronson [1] in 2016: > For that matter, if Russia or some other power hacked the trivially-hackable electronic voting machines that lack paper trails—machines that something like a third of American voters still used this election—there’s an excellent chance we’d never find out. “Antivirus on voting machines? You’re doing it wrong.” [2] The thing that really gets me is, even if you wanted to use machines, you wouldn’t use the weird machines made by shady companies that we do. Different counties would buy standard scantron machines used to grade high school finals off the shelf, and verify it in ways that are obvious to all of us. [1] https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=2957 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=2957 [2] https://xkcd.com/463/ https://xkcd.com/463/
  - jimbob45 4y ago
    Why do we use the really awkward, blackbox and sometimes networked machines that we do, manufactured by weird companies rather than whoever makes scantron machines or whatever? Because they’re cheap, states have to fund their own elections, and no governor will ever fund an election over schools or infrastructure. The real question is why elections are not federally funded. The answer is that states are afraid election funds will be withheld over speciously related issues, just as highway funds are withheld over drinking ages. IMHO the correct change is a constitutional amendment guaranteeing federal funding for all state elections that can’t be withheld for any reason.
pexabit 4y ago
Well secure and rather indisputably valid elections are a solved problem, and many countries manage it. Identified electors cast ballots on paper counted under recorded and public observation. (I think a scantron would be fine, too). It is just that we choose not to do this. A provably convincing election isn’t actually some hard, unsolved problem. (And yes- if you mention zero knowledge proofs in your story of why the election is safe, people will look askance because an observably valid election is a solved problem, and many countries manage it)
- CodeSgt 4y ago
  Can you name a country where an actually observably valid election takes place? And by this I mean an election where, somehow, an individual would be able to see their individual ballot make it from wherever they cast it, to the counter, and could see how their specific ballot impacted/didn't impact the broader vote, and where (again, somehow) there was proof that no artificial or false votes were cast in the name of citizens who either don't exist or didn't participate. Even if there was a livestrem of the vote counting, that would mean nothing if we didn't see every step of transportation for every single vote from the ballot box to the counters office. A truly observably fair election is practically impossible if you mean to have any significant number of voters.
  - shakow 4y ago
    Maybe I missed something in your question, but what we have in France seems pretty close. Our ballots go into a transparent urn, you need to be registered in a voting office and show an ID paper to vote, and people counting the votes are typically a mix of local state employees and volunteers citizens (and given that most people don't want to spend their Sunday evening counting ballots, it's quite easy to get a place). Now I guess it moves the trust onto the ID system and the aggregation of local counts into national results.
    - qsort 4y ago
      Same exact process in Italy, except we also use ballot tagging to fight organized crime. For all the problems we have, trusting the results of an election isn't one...
mc32 4y ago
IIRC, Hillary was among a group claiming "stolen elections" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUqxX0YAafg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUqxX0YAafg and that her opponent was an illegitimate president... so, you know, it's not a unique claim. Also miss Abrams seems to make similar claims. These claims happen a bit in local elections.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  There’s a much longer and “prouder” tradition of Americans claiming elections were rigged stretching all the way back to when it was true. Bush v Gore is another recent example but older folks will probably remember claims about Kennedy’s election and Nixon’s in ‘60. Andrew Jackson is somewhat credibility accused. And that’s just presidential elections off the top of my head.
- Nursie 4y ago
  On the one hand we have the Mueller report which finds that there was Russian interference in the 2016 election in the form of coordinated social media and other 'attacks' on the Clinton campaign. This seems to form some reasonable basis for making claims that the election was ‘stolen’ (informally, and clearly not a legal basis to overturn a result). On the other you have a narcissist who actually tried to overthrow democracy to stay in power and throws around utterly baseless claims of an organised conspiracy of direct vote subversion and interference in the election mechanism itself, who was also caught trying to coerce others to do that for him over the phone. These situations are not really comparable.
  - pyuser583 4y ago
    I’m pretty sure the multiple reports on electoral interference said the outcome of the election wasn’t affected.
    - Nursie 4y ago
      And? Again we have one person who thinks that the (proven) Russian interference might have taken the election away from her. She's probably wrong, so? We have a second who has actually tried to have a democratic result overturned and tries his best to undermine it at every turn, through 'soft' pressure by cajoling officials, through many failed court cases, through inflammatory rhetoric and eventually through raising a mob. A person who continues to attack the election result and throw accusations of vast, entirely unevidenced illegal conspiracies. These are not the same. It's a ridiculous false equivalence. I'm not American, I have no particular love for Hilary Clinton, but I saw the footage of January 6th and I know how out of the ordinary that is. Trump's conduct is far more than someone mithering about a loss they perceived as unfair, and to attempt to put these on a level is disingenuous at best.

vegetablepotpie 4y ago

In the paper the authors describe using a blockchain to store the results. The blockchain is only mined in private, by an administrator, where voter id information is removed after the election. What is the benefit of a blockchain over a table (csv, JSON, database, excel etc) to store the data? Blockchains application is when you need to reach shared consensus without trust. We’re not in this situation that the paper describes.