The Perils Of E-Voting

ozric99 writes: " Voting in your pajamas is unsafe. So says the latest study published by the Voting Integrity Project, a non-partisan group based in Arlington, Va. that has openly attacked the Arizona Democratic Party's Internet primary election in March." As far as I can tell, this comes down to an authentication issue -- much the problems that certain voting wards have had in the past, e.g. the recently dead mysteriously arising from their graves and voting.

Comments

BBC Report has more...

[MostlyHarmless]

I found this report on their web server... don't bother looking for it because it seems to have disappeared. Huh.

"Insiders say that they decided to fix the problem after a person named "w3 r00ted ju! ph34r m3!!!" was elected Governer by a margin of 36,000 to 147. Police refuse to comment on the identity of this mysterious person; an anonymous source has stated that they are too busy due to those 147 people all having their credit card number stolen."

Vote in private in public

[Bazman]

Lets assume the slashdot poll is as secure as any vote for a president might be. Whats to stop me going to the office next door, pointing my Nerf Supermaxx 1500 at his head and getting him to vote for 'Hemos'?

Can I do that at a public voting station? No. Polling stations are public so that we can all see whats going on, and we have booths so that the individual has privacy. These two conditions seem essential to a fair and free vote. I dont see how they can be duplicated via the internet.

Baz

Authentication isn't the real problem!

[The Infamous TommyD]

Anonymity is the problem. Even if the system is 100% secure against unauthorized voting and ballot box stuffing, we still need a system that prevents the goverment or voting authority from tying votes to the voter.

Sure, there exist hypothetical systems for secure anonymous voting, but they are atrociously unscalable. See Schneier's book for the details on these schemes.

The problem boils down to "How do we ensure that only citizens vote, each only votes once, and still not be able to tell for whom they voted?"
Oh, and you want it scaleable????

This is very difficult.

Re:Hrmph. Voting unsafe?

[Golias]

Currently, politicians get into office by NOT playing the middle.

Clinton and Gore are both moderate liberals.

Their opponents in '92 and '96 were Bush the Elder and Bob Dole, both moderate conservatives.

The strongest third-party showing, by a w--i--d--e margin, was Ross Perot, a dead-center moderate who campaigned to reduce the debt in 92 and repeal NAFTA in 96.

The extremes on both sides (Jackson, Forbes, Brown, Buchannan, Quayle, etc.) all got spanked by those who could stand more towards the center.

The result has been meaningless elections between nearly identical candidates full of moderately bad proposals. Playing the center has been the winning strategy since 1988. No presidential candidate has been able to build a nantional coalition of radicals and win since Reagan... and even he needed the "Reagan Democrats" to get elected.