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Electronic voting should be allowed but not unless it prints out a ballot with all your selections on it so you can verify and have a real paper trail; not some

Electronic voting should be allowed but not unless it prints out a ballot with all your selections on it so you can verify and have a real paper trail; not some bit in a database that can be changed and most likely has been changed in the past based on grand jury testimony from one of the diebold programmers. As a programmer knowing how insecure programs are I want paper for something like this.

potatolicious 14y ago
> "Electronic voting should be allowed but not unless it prints out a ballot with all your selections on it so you can verify and have a real paper trail" The lack of a receipt is deliberate and prevents vote-buying. A carbon copy of your vote will open as many avenues to fraud as it will close.
- weaksauce 14y ago
  Not what I was meaning. A physical ballot that you can actually put into a box that then gets counted. You don't get to keep it.
- Firehed 14y ago
  With everyone and their dog carrying around a camera in their pocket by means of a cell phone? Hardly. Anyone interested in selling their vote could easily take a photo of their ballot (with some identifying info added to the photo as well to show it wasn't a copy from a friend) to prove they voted the way they were paid. Even if this theoretically did increase the chance of vote-buying, I think it's still a worthwhile tradeoff for the massive increase in accountability we get from it.
  - trhtrsh 14y ago
    What does it matter what the voter takes a photo of? That has no proven relationship to what bit is stored in the machine's memory.
    - Firehed 14y ago
      People could falsify the ballot to the buyer.
deleted 14y ago
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danielweber 14y ago
I've used this machine in another state, and it absolutely generates a paper trail. There is a rolling receipt going on the left-hand side of the machine behind glass that records every single button press you do, and scrolls out of view when you complete voting so the next guy can't see it. It's not perfect, and not my preferred system, but it's pretty decent.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  I'd prefer to keep a receipt for myself, with a randomly generated serial number on it, so at some point I could verify that the digital record of my vote #158FA134 matches the paper receipt and who I voted for.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    As others have said, this is exactly how you can start buying votes. Pull any book about cryptographic voting off the shelf and this is treated as a design flaw.
    - pavel_lishin 14y ago
      I think I missed the discussions in the thread; how is verifiability (is that a word?) a design flaw?
      - danielweber 14y ago
        Because if you can prove to a third-party how you voted, you can sell your vote, or coerce someone else to vote a certain way. It's one of the biggest challenges in crypto-voting systems. And there are some solutions. But we need to hammer down on the "silly people, why not just print a receipt" idea really hard.
        pavel_lishin 14y ago
        But I still would like to be able to have it proven to me that the way I voted matches what the system records. To me, that seems more important, but I also cannot say that it's more important than your points. Hm.

potatolicious 14y ago

> "Electronic voting should be allowed but not unless it prints out a ballot with all your selections on it so you can verify and have a real paper trail" The lack of a receipt is deliberate and prevents vote-buying. A carbon copy of your vote will open as many avenues to fraud as it will close.

weaksauce 14y ago
Not what I was meaning. A physical ballot that you can actually put into a box that then gets counted. You don't get to keep it.
Firehed 14y ago
With everyone and their dog carrying around a camera in their pocket by means of a cell phone? Hardly. Anyone interested in selling their vote could easily take a photo of their ballot (with some identifying info added to the photo as well to show it wasn't a copy from a friend) to prove they voted the way they were paid. Even if this theoretically did increase the chance of vote-buying, I think it's still a worthwhile tradeoff for the massive increase in accountability we get from it.
- trhtrsh 14y ago
  What does it matter what the voter takes a photo of? That has no proven relationship to what bit is stored in the machine's memory.
  - Firehed 14y ago
    People could falsify the ballot to the buyer.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

danielweber 14y ago

I've used this machine in another state, and it absolutely generates a paper trail. There is a rolling receipt going on the left-hand side of the machine behind glass that records every single button press you do, and scrolls out of view when you complete voting so the next guy can't see it. It's not perfect, and not my preferred system, but it's pretty decent.

pavel_lishin 14y ago
I'd prefer to keep a receipt for myself, with a randomly generated serial number on it, so at some point I could verify that the digital record of my vote #158FA134 matches the paper receipt and who I voted for.
- danielweber 14y ago
  As others have said, this is exactly how you can start buying votes. Pull any book about cryptographic voting off the shelf and this is treated as a design flaw.
  - pavel_lishin 14y ago
    I think I missed the discussions in the thread; how is verifiability (is that a word?) a design flaw?
    - danielweber 14y ago
      Because if you can prove to a third-party how you voted, you can sell your vote, or coerce someone else to vote a certain way. It's one of the biggest challenges in crypto-voting systems. And there are some solutions. But we need to hammer down on the "silly people, why not just print a receipt" idea really hard.
      - pavel_lishin 14y ago
        But I still would like to be able to have it proven to me that the way I voted matches what the system records. To me, that seems more important, but I also cannot say that it's more important than your points. Hm.