2 ms·

But do you agree that there needs to be something that keeps reinforcing the collective trust in the voting system such that this worst case scenario is not rea

by nihzm 2y ago

But do you agree that there needs to be something that keeps reinforcing the collective trust in the voting system such that this worst case scenario is not reached? If so, do you have an idea what that something could be when using a complex e-voting system? The best I can come up is to educate the public, but that is almost wishful thinking. rraghur says in the siblilng comment that keeping the voting systme open via OSS / reproducible builds / etc could be a source of trust, but I don't think that is sufficient for most people. We need a stronger argument, and I don't have one.

baobabKoodaa 2y ago
Of course there needs to be some level of public trust in the elections. I think that trust could come from the E2E verifiability of the voting system, and related to that, trust in the ability of independent experts to verify that the election was conducted fairly. (When the result of an election is verifiable by third parties, there is no longer a need to audit what software is running on the official machines, so there is no need for reproducible builds etc.)
- nihzm 2y ago
  It is possible, at least in principle, to have people trust that techonolgies such as E2E are secure and reliable. Indeed in some countries that is the case, but my point was slightly different. If you concede that we cannot have everyone understand (to take an example) E2E verifiability, then this technology cannot justify its own correctness to everyone. This means it is necessary to have a (possibly small) group of experts to educate / persuade the public that E2E verifiability actually works. But my point is essentially: why should they do it? There is no structural incentive for them to do so, other than the virtue of being a good citizen. There needs to be something that keeps reinforcing public trust. Self-evident systems do not require for this incentive structure to exist / be built. I fear that this could end up becoming akint to the erosion of trust in scientific evidence for political decisionmaking. Science was considered very trustworthy by most people at some point, but because there is little to no incentive for the scientists to inform the public about why what they do works (other than perhaps their personal desire to share the cool thing they are working on) and because scientific results are usually very complex there has been a pretty steady decline in trusting scientific evidence.

by nihzm 2y ago

baobabKoodaa 2y ago

Of course there needs to be some level of public trust in the elections. I think that trust could come from the E2E verifiability of the voting system, and related to that, trust in the ability of independent experts to verify that the election was conducted fairly. (When the result of an election is verifiable by third parties, there is no longer a need to audit what software is running on the official machines, so there is no need for reproducible builds etc.)

nihzm 2y ago
It is possible, at least in principle, to have people trust that techonolgies such as E2E are secure and reliable. Indeed in some countries that is the case, but my point was slightly different. If you concede that we cannot have everyone understand (to take an example) E2E verifiability, then this technology cannot justify its own correctness to everyone. This means it is necessary to have a (possibly small) group of experts to educate / persuade the public that E2E verifiability actually works. But my point is essentially: why should they do it? There is no structural incentive for them to do so, other than the virtue of being a good citizen. There needs to be something that keeps reinforcing public trust. Self-evident systems do not require for this incentive structure to exist / be built. I fear that this could end up becoming akint to the erosion of trust in scientific evidence for political decisionmaking. Science was considered very trustworthy by most people at some point, but because there is little to no incentive for the scientists to inform the public about why what they do works (other than perhaps their personal desire to share the cool thing they are working on) and because scientific results are usually very complex there has been a pretty steady decline in trusting scientific evidence.