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> especially if it's shrowded behind inscruable crypto mumbo-jumbo HTTPS is shrouded behind inscrutable crypto, but nearly everyone trusts it with their credit

> especially if it's shrowded behind inscruable crypto mumbo-jumbo HTTPS is shrouded behind inscrutable crypto, but nearly everyone trusts it with their credit card details. Voting doesn't have to be any different. The implementation details don't matter, as long as there are easy-to-understand verification concepts such as receiving a "tracking number" for your vote that is then easy to see it was counted. And then journalists and other private election integrity observers who do random sampling from voter rolls and follow up on complaints. (This is not a complete list, just examples.) And remember, physical voting is actually tremendously complicated as well -- inscrutable optical scanners detecting which bubbles you filled in, and then... what? Who's actually adding the numbers, and where, and how? The point is, the details aren't really important as long as we're vaguely aware that there are election observers and journalists trying to catch any irregularities, and we all know it will be major news whenever they're found.

wakawaka28 2y ago
The difference between trusting HTTPS with credit card details and trusting crypto BS for voting is that you can easily tell if your credit card ends up abused. You can't easily tell if your vote is or isn't counted. You're generally right about each point in the process being a potential point of corruption. That's why voting systems need to be very simple and involve lots of people, even if it costs more. Ideally multiple independent parties would count the votes and compare results for discrepancies, until they reached an agreement.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  > You can't easily tell if your vote is or isn't counted. That's why I said: > such as receiving a "tracking number" for your vote that is then easy to see it was counted There absolutely has to be a way to easily tell if your vote is or isn't counted, and that it's part of the sum total. I don't know if Belenios specifically does this in a way that is easy to see, but there's nothing inherently difficult or impossible about it.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    I would concede that it's possible, but if you don't trust the system overall then it is basically impossible to solve the problem. And it's not just about making sure that your own vote is counted. It's about making sure there are no fake ballots cast. There are so many ways that illegitimate ballots can be cast, and I think an electronic system just makes it that much easier. At least with paper in person, someone has to show up and fool a poll worker. There's also a finite number of times that someone can commit fraud in person in one day.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      > It's about making sure there are no fake ballots cast. Yup, I was clear that I wasn't giving an exhaustive list of the necessary things. But that also has solutions that can be easy. The easiest is simply to make sure that the voting rolls are accurate, and that the size of the voting results has the exact same number of entries (because it also records every instance of not-voting). So that if everyone who is an eligible voter, and therefore received a tracking number (even if they didn't vote), and they look up their tracking number and it's accurate (including "didn't vote") -- then there's no "place" to insert fake/stuffed ballots, because it would necessarily make the number of tracking numbers larger than the size of the voter roll. (And of course, voter rolls can be sampled randomly to determine they're made of actual real people as well, to whatever accuracy you desire.) The point is, there are solutions to all of these things that don't involve some kind of blind faith in crypto. But rather just common-sense solutions where it's easy to understand that any massive gaming of the system will be detected.
schroeding 2y ago
> Voting doesn't have to be any different. Yes, it has to be. If you break the ability for the average citizen to understand exactly how and why your vote is counted, you undermine trust. Trust into the democratic process is the thing keeping a democracy alive. If someone currently says "<Country> / <Party> interfered with the voting process!", I can tell them to just observe their local polling station or even become part of the polling station staff themselves. Be there, check that the election staff doesn't start throwing away votes and count correctly. Check that the numbers they count are equal to the one on the official result for the polling station. It's all paper. It's easy to follow. If we put anything between this, which requires trust into a magic box with a display, I cannot do this. If your credit card is abused, you see it on your bank account, always. You cannot have the same certainty the same for an anonymous election - yes, they may have proof that their vote was correctly counted, but what about the polling station as a whole? The votes of the other citizens? Most people will not check, just as you may only get one observer per polling station max today (which is already enough to prevent fraud for the whole station, in the case of paper ballots). "Trust the journalists" does not fly. > And remember, physical voting is actually tremendously complicated as well It doesn't have to be. You don't need complex equipment, you can count directly in the polling station after it closes. Paper and people suffice.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  I completely disagree. You claim: > Check that the numbers they count are equal to the one on the official result for the polling station. It's all paper. It's easy to follow. I say that, using paper, it's not easy -- it's next to impossible for any individual to do. On the other hand, if I can download a file of voting results, import it into Excel, and run SUM(), it's about a million times easier. What's important to rely on is the fact that people are able to verify that their own votes are consistent with what's in the public votes (using something like tracking numbers), and we can also verify there isn't vote stuffing (which there's no room for, if the number of votes and "didn't-votes" equals the size of the voter rolls). You claim this "requires trust into a magic box with a display" but that's simply not true. All it requires is the ability for everyone to verify that their vote got included accurately, that people who didn't vote got included as not voting, and that nothing got stuffed on top. Paper and physical voting is actually far, far, far harder to independently verify and trust. It's just that until recently, we haven't had a practical alternative.
nihzm 2y ago
> Voting doesn't have to be any different From your long sibling thread I gather that for you it is more important to be able to verify the votes by yourself through the output of the voting system (the excel example) than to be able to reason through the voting system itself. Whereas for schroeding it is more important to be able to conceptually understand and scrutinize the voting process as a whole, even though it might be difficult for any single individual to check on that their own vote was counted. Correct me if the summary was not fair. Suppose we bring the two ideas to the extreme and imagine two voting systems: - an extermely complex, completely opaque voting system that can only be managed by experts to function correctly, but with a perfectly infallible way to individually check that their vote was correctly counted - an extremely obvious and straightforward way of voting such as paper ballots that are securely physically transported to a central location (all of them) and counted by people surrounded by observers (all in one sitting). clearly any individual cannot check that their vote was actually counted If there is a disagreement about the result of a vote because, let's say for the sake of the example that the losing party thinks they should have won; In the first system everybody can of course check their votes, but what if the losing party questions the checking system itself? Then it is on the experts to justify why the vote is correct (can they do it?). On the second system, because everybody can reason through it, it is on the losing party to prove that the vote was not performed correctly, by pointing at some part of the (simpler) voting procedure. I think that the second system is more robust in the sense that when there is a disagreement, it is easier regain everyone's trust. With simple procedures, the disagreeing party can make more meaningful demands on the people who manage the voting system to check that the vote was correct. In the first system it is the opposite, and because by definitions it is only understood by experts the losing party cannot do anything but to claim that the whole system is rigged. So, since voting systems are ultimately a tool to collectively take decisions, I'd say that there is more value in having a simple procedure than efficiency and extremely precise feedback for individual votes. The trust in voting systems is different than the one in credit card processing systems. Of course real electronic voting and real paper voting are neither of these two extremes, but choosing the e-voting moves us closer to the first system, while paper voting to the second.
- 9dev 2y ago
  > paper ballots that are securely physically transported to a central location (all of them) and counted by people surrounded by observers (all in one sitting). That is unnecessary complexity already. Ballots can be counted directly in the voting stations, by the local citizens. If you want to check your vote is counted correctly, stay to witness the counting. After the results have been counted, they can be communicated to the city hall via phone, so everyone in the room can hear it.
paradox460 2y ago
> nearly everyone I remember having a boss demand I put the authorize seal next to our credit card form, else it wouldn't be secure We used stripe
somerandomqaguy 2y ago
>HTTPS is shrouded behind inscrutable crypto, but nearly everyone trusts it with their credit card details. Credit card via HTTPS has a second layer to it though, the accountings/auditing layer. You can't achieve that with secret ballot voting without throwing out the secret part.
- baobabKoodaa 2y ago
  Yes you can, and that's the whole point of "verifiable" voting systems like OP.

wakawaka28 2y ago

The difference between trusting HTTPS with credit card details and trusting crypto BS for voting is that you can easily tell if your credit card ends up abused. You can't easily tell if your vote is or isn't counted. You're generally right about each point in the process being a potential point of corruption. That's why voting systems need to be very simple and involve lots of people, even if it costs more. Ideally multiple independent parties would count the votes and compare results for discrepancies, until they reached an agreement.

crazygringo 2y ago
> You can't easily tell if your vote is or isn't counted. That's why I said: > such as receiving a "tracking number" for your vote that is then easy to see it was counted There absolutely has to be a way to easily tell if your vote is or isn't counted, and that it's part of the sum total. I don't know if Belenios specifically does this in a way that is easy to see, but there's nothing inherently difficult or impossible about it.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  I would concede that it's possible, but if you don't trust the system overall then it is basically impossible to solve the problem. And it's not just about making sure that your own vote is counted. It's about making sure there are no fake ballots cast. There are so many ways that illegitimate ballots can be cast, and I think an electronic system just makes it that much easier. At least with paper in person, someone has to show up and fool a poll worker. There's also a finite number of times that someone can commit fraud in person in one day.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    > It's about making sure there are no fake ballots cast. Yup, I was clear that I wasn't giving an exhaustive list of the necessary things. But that also has solutions that can be easy. The easiest is simply to make sure that the voting rolls are accurate, and that the size of the voting results has the exact same number of entries (because it also records every instance of not-voting). So that if everyone who is an eligible voter, and therefore received a tracking number (even if they didn't vote), and they look up their tracking number and it's accurate (including "didn't vote") -- then there's no "place" to insert fake/stuffed ballots, because it would necessarily make the number of tracking numbers larger than the size of the voter roll. (And of course, voter rolls can be sampled randomly to determine they're made of actual real people as well, to whatever accuracy you desire.) The point is, there are solutions to all of these things that don't involve some kind of blind faith in crypto. But rather just common-sense solutions where it's easy to understand that any massive gaming of the system will be detected.

schroeding 2y ago

> Voting doesn't have to be any different. Yes, it has to be. If you break the ability for the average citizen to understand exactly how and why your vote is counted, you undermine trust. Trust into the democratic process is the thing keeping a democracy alive. If someone currently says "<Country> / <Party> interfered with the voting process!", I can tell them to just observe their local polling station or even become part of the polling station staff themselves. Be there, check that the election staff doesn't start throwing away votes and count correctly. Check that the numbers they count are equal to the one on the official result for the polling station. It's all paper. It's easy to follow. If we put anything between this, which requires trust into a magic box with a display, I cannot do this. If your credit card is abused, you see it on your bank account, always. You cannot have the same certainty the same for an anonymous election - yes, they may have proof that their vote was correctly counted, but what about the polling station as a whole? The votes of the other citizens? Most people will not check, just as you may only get one observer per polling station max today (which is already enough to prevent fraud for the whole station, in the case of paper ballots). "Trust the journalists" does not fly. > And remember, physical voting is actually tremendously complicated as well It doesn't have to be. You don't need complex equipment, you can count directly in the polling station after it closes. Paper and people suffice.

crazygringo 2y ago
I completely disagree. You claim: > Check that the numbers they count are equal to the one on the official result for the polling station. It's all paper. It's easy to follow. I say that, using paper, it's not easy -- it's next to impossible for any individual to do. On the other hand, if I can download a file of voting results, import it into Excel, and run SUM(), it's about a million times easier. What's important to rely on is the fact that people are able to verify that their own votes are consistent with what's in the public votes (using something like tracking numbers), and we can also verify there isn't vote stuffing (which there's no room for, if the number of votes and "didn't-votes" equals the size of the voter rolls). You claim this "requires trust into a magic box with a display" but that's simply not true. All it requires is the ability for everyone to verify that their vote got included accurately, that people who didn't vote got included as not voting, and that nothing got stuffed on top. Paper and physical voting is actually far, far, far harder to independently verify and trust. It's just that until recently, we haven't had a practical alternative.

nihzm 2y ago

> Voting doesn't have to be any different From your long sibling thread I gather that for you it is more important to be able to verify the votes by yourself through the output of the voting system (the excel example) than to be able to reason through the voting system itself. Whereas for schroeding it is more important to be able to conceptually understand and scrutinize the voting process as a whole, even though it might be difficult for any single individual to check on that their own vote was counted. Correct me if the summary was not fair. Suppose we bring the two ideas to the extreme and imagine two voting systems: - an extermely complex, completely opaque voting system that can only be managed by experts to function correctly, but with a perfectly infallible way to individually check that their vote was correctly counted - an extremely obvious and straightforward way of voting such as paper ballots that are securely physically transported to a central location (all of them) and counted by people surrounded by observers (all in one sitting). clearly any individual cannot check that their vote was actually counted If there is a disagreement about the result of a vote because, let's say for the sake of the example that the losing party thinks they should have won; In the first system everybody can of course check their votes, but what if the losing party questions the checking system itself? Then it is on the experts to justify why the vote is correct (can they do it?). On the second system, because everybody can reason through it, it is on the losing party to prove that the vote was not performed correctly, by pointing at some part of the (simpler) voting procedure. I think that the second system is more robust in the sense that when there is a disagreement, it is easier regain everyone's trust. With simple procedures, the disagreeing party can make more meaningful demands on the people who manage the voting system to check that the vote was correct. In the first system it is the opposite, and because by definitions it is only understood by experts the losing party cannot do anything but to claim that the whole system is rigged. So, since voting systems are ultimately a tool to collectively take decisions, I'd say that there is more value in having a simple procedure than efficiency and extremely precise feedback for individual votes. The trust in voting systems is different than the one in credit card processing systems. Of course real electronic voting and real paper voting are neither of these two extremes, but choosing the e-voting moves us closer to the first system, while paper voting to the second.

9dev 2y ago
> paper ballots that are securely physically transported to a central location (all of them) and counted by people surrounded by observers (all in one sitting). That is unnecessary complexity already. Ballots can be counted directly in the voting stations, by the local citizens. If you want to check your vote is counted correctly, stay to witness the counting. After the results have been counted, they can be communicated to the city hall via phone, so everyone in the room can hear it.

paradox460 2y ago

> nearly everyone I remember having a boss demand I put the authorize seal next to our credit card form, else it wouldn't be secure We used stripe

somerandomqaguy 2y ago

>HTTPS is shrouded behind inscrutable crypto, but nearly everyone trusts it with their credit card details. Credit card via HTTPS has a second layer to it though, the accountings/auditing layer. You can't achieve that with secret ballot voting without throwing out the secret part.

baobabKoodaa 2y ago
Yes you can, and that's the whole point of "verifiable" voting systems like OP.