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> cannot verify it contributed to the total votes received by the candidate for whom you voted Isn't this by design? If you can verify this, then someone else

> cannot verify it contributed to the total votes received by the candidate for whom you voted Isn't this by design? If you can verify this, then someone else can force you to verify it in front of them to make sure you did what they told you to do, and then we don't have a secret ballot anymore. It's not obvious to me that the risk of fraud from miscounting is worse than the risk of fraud from voter intimidation or bribery. Imagine everyone you know is posting screenshots of their verification on social media, and you voted for someone or something considered controversial in your community. If you post that verification you get harassed, if you don't post anything then everyone knows what that means and you get harassed anyway. That's the type of voter intimidation I'd worry about.

tzs 4y ago
> If you can verify this, then someone else can force you to verify it in front of them to make sure you did what they told you to do, and then we don't have a secret ballot anymore. Not being able to prove to someone else that you voted a particular way is called "coercion resistance", and it is in fact possible to design a voting system where you can verify you vote was included and counted correctly but that are coercion resistant. See this comment [1] from a while back about such a system. Link #3 in that comment is to a paper showing that system is coercion resistant. There are several systems that provide verifiability but are coercion resistant. The one discussed in that comment is noteworthy because it is an easy add-on to existing optical scan voting systems. The cryptographic cleverness that it depends on is in how the ballots are generated and what is printed on them, with the only modification in the voting booth is that you have to use a special marker to mark the ballots. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31675726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31675726
- burkaman 4y ago
  This is super interesting, thanks for posting. What a cool idea. However, I see two potential problems and I don't think this would satisfy anyone that is concerned about election security in America. First, this is vulnerable to someone accidentally or intentionally writing down the wrong code on their receipt, and then going on TV to display it as irrefutable proof of election fraud. With 150+ million people voting there is basically 100% chance that will happen many times. Second, this system proves that your ballot was received and uploaded to a government website. That does address a claim of "they threw my ballot in the trash", but it does not address: 1. They're busing in illegal voters 2. Election workers are all corrupt and are just making up the count 3. They flipped my vote 4. Foreign hackers infiltrated the system and added more votes 5. They added a bunch of fake votes last minute when my guy was about to win 6. My guy did 15% better in exit polls than the actual count, something is up etc. etc. Here's a list of real-life fraud claims, I don't think Scantegrity would resolve any of these: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims-none-credible/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims... To be clear I don't believe any of these things, but this is the sort of stuff you hear from people who are worried or claim to be worried about election fraud. They type of person who would be satisfied by their Scantegrity receipt is not the type of person who is currently making noise about election integrity. Sorry to move the goalposts, you completely addressed the issue I described in my last comment. I'm just trying to think through if this system would actually fix anything in the US, and I think it would not. I do think it's a good idea though, and it certainly wouldn't hurt.

tzs 4y ago

> If you can verify this, then someone else can force you to verify it in front of them to make sure you did what they told you to do, and then we don't have a secret ballot anymore. Not being able to prove to someone else that you voted a particular way is called "coercion resistance", and it is in fact possible to design a voting system where you can verify you vote was included and counted correctly but that are coercion resistant. See this comment [1] from a while back about such a system. Link #3 in that comment is to a paper showing that system is coercion resistant. There are several systems that provide verifiability but are coercion resistant. The one discussed in that comment is noteworthy because it is an easy add-on to existing optical scan voting systems. The cryptographic cleverness that it depends on is in how the ballots are generated and what is printed on them, with the only modification in the voting booth is that you have to use a special marker to mark the ballots. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31675726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31675726

burkaman 4y ago
This is super interesting, thanks for posting. What a cool idea. However, I see two potential problems and I don't think this would satisfy anyone that is concerned about election security in America. First, this is vulnerable to someone accidentally or intentionally writing down the wrong code on their receipt, and then going on TV to display it as irrefutable proof of election fraud. With 150+ million people voting there is basically 100% chance that will happen many times. Second, this system proves that your ballot was received and uploaded to a government website. That does address a claim of "they threw my ballot in the trash", but it does not address: 1. They're busing in illegal voters 2. Election workers are all corrupt and are just making up the count 3. They flipped my vote 4. Foreign hackers infiltrated the system and added more votes 5. They added a bunch of fake votes last minute when my guy was about to win 6. My guy did 15% better in exit polls than the actual count, something is up etc. etc. Here's a list of real-life fraud claims, I don't think Scantegrity would resolve any of these: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims-none-credible/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims... To be clear I don't believe any of these things, but this is the sort of stuff you hear from people who are worried or claim to be worried about election fraud. They type of person who would be satisfied by their Scantegrity receipt is not the type of person who is currently making noise about election integrity. Sorry to move the goalposts, you completely addressed the issue I described in my last comment. I'm just trying to think through if this system would actually fix anything in the US, and I think it would not. I do think it's a good idea though, and it certainly wouldn't hurt.