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Swiss Town Holds First Internet Vote
felix.rauch writes "According to an article on Swissinfo, a small town near Geneva (Switzerland) held the first Internet-based vote this weekend. 44% of the voters (323) cast teir ballot over the Internet. Officials believe it may have been the first Internet-vote worldwide. While the Swiss media seem enthusiastic about the project, I see serious security and privacy concerns. The voters had to enter a 16-digit password, as well as their birthplace, date of birth and another number sent to them by post. Personally I think Internet-voting should be avoided until it's implemented by an open zero-knowledge protocol and checkable afterwards. Who can give a guarantee that nobody tampers with the results or creates a database with citizens voting information?"
an open zero-knowledge protocol and checkable afterwards.
The only issue is that voting implies that you are who you claim to be! Technically is seems difficult to break the link between identification and vote... especially if you want it to be checkable afterwards.
May I use your sig please?
"Who can give a guarantee that nobody tampers with the results or creates a database with citizens voting information?"
Given that this can already be done now with existing paper-based voting (certainly in the UK and the US anyway), I don't see that it is any different.
I guess the best solution is to maintain the option for Internet or in-person voting, that way people can chose which way to vote as they please.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
I wish more people would even put that much thought in to who the voted for, along with even voting.
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Simply put there is no way to protect from direct voter tampering. Whats to keep an abusive husband from forcing his wife to vote his way. Whats to stop Unions from setting up there own Internet connected voting places where they can stand over peoples shoulders. Or what if someone decides to vote from work and thier conservative boss walks up behind them and notices they are voting Democrat. Nope, bad idea.
"You don't need a weatherman/ To know which way the wind blows" -Bob Dylan: Subterranean Homesick Blues
I've never quite understood why people will only use technological solutions which can achieve a logical limit, eg. a system where it is impossible to work out how you voted, etc. , when you don't have that in the current low-tech solutions.
With a paper ballot it isn't too hard to check the ballots for your fingerprints, get the person who gives you your ballot to mark them beforehand. Or do many other things to make sure you don't have zero knowledge. If someone really wanted to they could find out how you voted.
Online voting protocols are interesting from an academic perspective, but useless in practice. No such protocol, however clever, can get around the forced vote problem. Only by physically seperating people in a controlled environment can we be sure that everyone is completely free to vote exactly as they please (and that they can't even sell their vote, since they can't prove how they voted). Trying to achieve this online is obviously intractable.
Democratic voting, as a concept, is intimately tied to the nature of the meat space: one person, one presence, one identity, one vote. The very beauty of cyberspace is that these properties do not hold, so the two ideas are fundamentally mismatched. Let's keep democracy where it belongs.
Personally, I would like to see this here in the UK as well. It has already been suggested here that voting by SMS might be on the cards for UK citizens, to encourage the 18-25's to be less apathetic. I can't see that being workable though, because it would involve the phone networks who can't necessarily be trusted.
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Who can guarantee that doesn't happen with regular voting? When it all comes down you are trusting the people who count the votes, and the people who collect the votes, that nothing shady is happening from when you vote to when it's counted.
They had four points of authentication and if you want two more points have them authenticate both their MAC address and IP. Sure, both can be forged but to have all 6 points of data line up in a database would take a determined person.
The real concern I have with Internet voting is that to the general public, the security concerns it raises makes having identifier chips on electronic devices seem like a good idea. The answer lies in education. So long as you accept the fact that NO security is absolute then you can move into the grey areas of increased security.
It take more faith to believe in evolution than it takes to believe in God
If Internet voting is ever implemented I will just stop voting. Because not only will it be too damn easy to fix the election. But afterwards the party in power can come after its enemies. Some times the old fashion way is better. Give me a booth and a #2 pencil thank you very much
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Of course you can force someone to vote some particular way. "Vote Klopper or we'll kill your child". First of all this could be a very real threat and most people would rather lose their vote than risk anything, and secondly, with todays tech checking up on that vote wouldn't be too hard. (Think small camera, tampered voting cards (radioactive marking?), etc, etc.).
Anyone proclaiming the current systems to be tamper-proof, are of course in a state of sin.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Simply put there is no way to protect from direct voter tampering.
As many people have already pointed out - There is "no way to protect from direct voter tampering" using traditional systems. I would accept the argument that any new system should be at least as secure as whatever system it is replacing/supplementing. However, to not implement a system until it is 100% gauranteed is foolish at best, especially when the result is more participation in the voting process, which is good for everyone (except perhaps the groups that depend on low-turnout.)
Whats to keep an abusive husband from forcing his wife to vote his way.
Nothing. Other than the laws designed to protect wives from abusive husbands in general. i.e. What's to protect her from being beat up nomatter how she votes?
Whats to stop Unions from setting up there own Internet connected voting places where they can stand over peoples shoulders.
Nothing. What's to stop unions from sending a couple of goons to stand outside the polls and remind you about the union stance and imply they might be checking your results?
Or what if someone decides to vote from work and thier conservative boss walks up behind them and notices they are voting Democrat.
This is just dumb. If you don't want to have a political argument at work, don't vote from the office. What's to stop your boss from checking the net logs and seeing that you regularly log into pro-abortion sites (or whatever)?
Nope, bad idea.
As far as I'm concerned, you gave no real reason why this is a "bad idea" - nothing unique to this implementation.
One real concern that I would have if this was implemented on a large scale, would be a proliferation of black-market votes. Certainly people sell their votes now, but as voting becomes easier, entering into the vote market also becomes more convinient. Whether or not this should be illegal is a completely different issue though.
This will potentially lose the concept of the secret ballot. There is no way to show that the voters were not coerced into voting the way that they did. It's quite easy to have someone look over their shoulder and tell them which way to vote.
Even beyond base digital sercurity concerns is the fact that internet voting occurrs from non-monitored locations. So what's to stop Candidate X's staffers from driving a couple of vans through the ghetto or a senior citizen's retirement community, load 'em up, bring 'em to a computer and say "If you let us watch you cast your vote for Candidate X, we'll give you $50".
Even with webcams,etc.,etc., there is NO way to ensure that internet voting is not coerced voting.
Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
Tampering aside, what's wrong with a database with voting information?
In some countries voting is compulsory (under the penalty of a fine, I suppose) and thus they keep a book on whether a person has voted or not. As far as the candidate who you vote for goes, I have no problem with telling that to people.
I could understand the paranoia if we were living in a dictatorship, but in a healthy democracy like we have in western democracies it shouldn't really matter if someone knows who we vote for.
Voting is a privelege in the US, and should not be a convenience.
Voting is a right. Period.
All citizens should be given equal access to vote. Currently city-dwellers have a much shorter trip to "Mecca" than those in rural areas. Internet voting, coupled with phone voting, and snail mail voting helps to balance the inequities in access. Not to mention, there are those who are physically disabled and may find it more than just "inconvenient" to go to a poll.
The purpose of a vote is not to challange the citizenry, or setup some kind of obstacle course were they "win" the right to vote, but to provide them with the oppurtunity to express their opinion. We should not loose sight of that end.
There are some people who sacrificed their lives so you could do all of the above.
This is exactly the reason we should enable as many people to vote as we can. That right was/has been/is being fought for and earned for everyone not just those who "take it seriously" and want to navigate some jungle so that the process coincides with their mental heroic fantasies.
>>Whats to keep an abusive husband from forcing his wife to vote his way.
>Nothing. Other than the laws designed to protect wives from abusive husbands in general. i.e. What's to protect her from being beat up nomatter how she votes?
>>Whats to stop Unions from setting up there own Internet connected voting places where they can stand over peoples shoulders.
>Nothing. What's to stop unions from sending a couple of goons to stand outside the polls and remind you about the union stance and imply they might be checking your results?
Lying. In both of these cases you can vote for Alice and tell the husband/union you picked Bob. The original poster makes the point that anyone can observe your vote with Internet voting.
Even if a system could be invented that guarantees security, integrity and privacy, the "proof" that it could be trusted would be beyond the man in the street.
Everyone (well nearly everyone) can see and understand Xs, bit's of paper, security vans and vote counting.
Try explaining non-repudiation, PKI infrastructure and certification to one of your maiden aunts.
Will she be more or less convinced that the next President really won?
If people don't understand it they won't trust it. And if they don't trust it they won't use it.
VoterApathy*=2;
I think security is less of an issue than turnout, considering quite a few people still don't have web access and are still quite computer illiterate even if you provide it for them, which will be a feat unto itself. Sorry, but security aside, America is nowhere close to being ready for this.
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Voting a privilege? I thought it was a right. Constitutional right. And like any right it should be made as easy and convenient to exercise as possible once granted. Otherwise its a paper right like the right to vote in the southern states of the USA a while ago. The more you distance a right, the less it means. Making it harder to vote doesn't make the voting mean 'more' or be worth 'more' in the same way that 'good' 'honest' farm work is more 'honorable', 'worth more' or 'better' than sitting behind a desk and coding.
The current 'representative' model of democracy that most countries have, reflects the difficulty of organising an efficient democratic system. Instead of citizens directly deciding on laws and policies, which would be impractical with paper ballots and poll stations in most countries, these countries have people vote for somebody who they believe will be able to do decide laws and policies. They vote because they trust the candidate or at least trust him more than the other guy.
Switzerland is an exception with very democratic politics (mostly because the basic democratic deciding unit is very local level) and I think internet voting will make it even more so. The easier it is for a citizen to make their voice heard, the more the citizen will be able to say and decide on. This means that the role of professional politicians will decline. I don't have the time to sit in parliament and listen to debates and make deals and campaign and cast paper ballots and solicit financing but I do have the time to click yes/no on a tax rise/cut. And if I have the opportunity to do so, it means less horseplay opportunities for a professional politician and less justification for their existence. And I have more time to consider the issues than to spend freezing my feet off.
If you give people the facts and give them the tools to act upon them and create laws and policies, you give them democracy. Democracy is not freezing your feet off in the snow to put a cross on a piece of paper for somebody who will spend the next half of his term asking for you to freeze your feet off again.
In Soviet Russia the privilege votes you.
Voting is a privelege in the US, and should not be a convenience
Maybe in the US voting is considered a privilege. In my country, voting is considered a right, even a necessity to legitimize the democratic system. Low participation rates are considered a Bad Thing so if internet voting raises participation, this would be good.
Regards, Wizord.
if you vote from home, a politician could be standing right behind you while you enter in your 2048 bit pasword with a $50 bill and defeat the integrity of the electoral process.
I don't see that really as a problem in itself. After all, the person liked the candidate better because it got them $50. All voluntary.
It's no different from the current state of affairs, where some politician promises a tax cut, the net effect is the same, "Vote for me and I will give you $50". We saw that in Virginia with Gilmore and "No car tax!"... of course that translated into "Reduced car tax that is about to get put back to Full Car Tax!".
The root of the problem is not the potential to bribe voters, it's that voters are willing to sell out for such small amounts. I think there is little that can be done about that, it's an almost fundamental flaw in democracy.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.