4 ms·

Systems that can be understood by maybe 10% of the population aren't really transparent.

oggy 12y ago
I assume you mean that its transparency can be understood by 10% of the population, not how you use them (Pret a Voter for instance is quite straightforward). Still, that's a fair objection. I can counter it with two points, though. First, I don't really understand how the current system in my country works. There are constituencies, preferential voting, overhang seats, etc. Second, what is the process of ensuring transparency? Surely I, as an individual, could not just go and demand to see and count all the ballots myself. I would need to turn to somebody I trust. This would stay the same, except that this time that somebody could be anyone who understands mixnets and zero-knowledge proofs, rather than a select number of political organizations.
- specialist 12y ago
  Surely I, as an individual, could not just go and demand to see and count all the ballots myself. Different jurisdiction, different rules, so YMMV (at least in the USA). Sometimes manual recounts are automatically triggered for highly contested races. And sometimes campaigns can pay for a recount. I would need to turn to somebody I trust. The system I "trust" is mutual distrust. If all the candidates (campaigns) agree on the count, then I am much more likely to accept the final tally. Whenever someone in election administration says "trust us", I know I'm being conned.
  - oggy 12y ago
    Are you saying that you, just by the virtue of being a voter in your constituency, can go to the local election office, and demand that you yourself count all the ballots? Anyway mutual distrust is what the proposed e-voting systems rely on. You need to trust k out of n (where k can be tuned between 1 and n) parties involved that your vote privacy won't be compromised. Maybe you're not prepared to trust any single one of them and that's a valid objection. On the other hand, you do get more verifiability with e-voting - anyone who is able to comprehend how the system works can verify that the votes have been tallied correctly.
    - ddingus 12y ago
      No, he's saying that if there is some problem with the election, the actual record of the voter intent for all the voters can be dragged into a court of law and sorted out. This can be done under the public eye, with mutually distrustful parties evaluating the vote intent fairly, and in the open. That's something electronic systems do not, and are not capable of offering us. Why? They do not record voter intent, only what a machine determined the intent to be. A voter must trust the machine, and can never really understand whether or not their vote intent record actually reflects their intent, They cannot understand this because, unlike media which presents an unbroken chain of trust between intent and the record of the intent used for the tally, electronic means are a proxy, and do not use human readable records, which breaks the chain of trust. A voter can and should be suspect in this case as the creator of the proxy (machine) may well not be compliant with both their intent and the law.

oggy 12y ago

I assume you mean that its transparency can be understood by 10% of the population, not how you use them (Pret a Voter for instance is quite straightforward). Still, that's a fair objection. I can counter it with two points, though. First, I don't really understand how the current system in my country works. There are constituencies, preferential voting, overhang seats, etc. Second, what is the process of ensuring transparency? Surely I, as an individual, could not just go and demand to see and count all the ballots myself. I would need to turn to somebody I trust. This would stay the same, except that this time that somebody could be anyone who understands mixnets and zero-knowledge proofs, rather than a select number of political organizations.

specialist 12y ago
Surely I, as an individual, could not just go and demand to see and count all the ballots myself. Different jurisdiction, different rules, so YMMV (at least in the USA). Sometimes manual recounts are automatically triggered for highly contested races. And sometimes campaigns can pay for a recount. I would need to turn to somebody I trust. The system I "trust" is mutual distrust. If all the candidates (campaigns) agree on the count, then I am much more likely to accept the final tally. Whenever someone in election administration says "trust us", I know I'm being conned.
- oggy 12y ago
  Are you saying that you, just by the virtue of being a voter in your constituency, can go to the local election office, and demand that you yourself count all the ballots? Anyway mutual distrust is what the proposed e-voting systems rely on. You need to trust k out of n (where k can be tuned between 1 and n) parties involved that your vote privacy won't be compromised. Maybe you're not prepared to trust any single one of them and that's a valid objection. On the other hand, you do get more verifiability with e-voting - anyone who is able to comprehend how the system works can verify that the votes have been tallied correctly.
  - ddingus 12y ago
    No, he's saying that if there is some problem with the election, the actual record of the voter intent for all the voters can be dragged into a court of law and sorted out. This can be done under the public eye, with mutually distrustful parties evaluating the vote intent fairly, and in the open. That's something electronic systems do not, and are not capable of offering us. Why? They do not record voter intent, only what a machine determined the intent to be. A voter must trust the machine, and can never really understand whether or not their vote intent record actually reflects their intent, They cannot understand this because, unlike media which presents an unbroken chain of trust between intent and the record of the intent used for the tally, electronic means are a proxy, and do not use human readable records, which breaks the chain of trust. A voter can and should be suspect in this case as the creator of the proxy (machine) may well not be compliant with both their intent and the law.