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Verifiable Elections Via Cryptography
An anonymous reader writes, "Cryptographer David Chaum and his research team have invented a new voting protocol which allows voters to verify that their vote has been correctly cast and counted. This is enabled using a surprisingly low-tech technique of cryptographic secret sharing. The secret — your marked ballot — is split into two halves using a hole punch" You take half home and can verify later via a Web interface how your particular ballot was counted.
Actualy if we all went and RTFA first, we would see that they have solved the problem. You can't prove how you voted to someone who didn't see the other half of the ballot you voted with.
Good lord! How is it that 70% of people have completely missed the point?
This system DOES NOT allow ANYONE to see WHOM you voted for.
That's right. NO ONE short of the people in charge can see who you voted for. You boss can't make you prove it, nor can your spouse, or whoever else.
All the ballot half you keep records is that you voted A, B, B, A. All you can verify online is that your vote was recorded as A, B, B, A. Because the ballot choices are randomized, no one can tell who A was for your particular ballot. Ahh, but I already hear the tin-foil brigade saying: "But the people in charge can check!!" Really, how? The ID # of your ballot isn't recorded next to your name in the voter rolls, I suppose someone who had access to all the decryption keys could fingerprint each and every ballot, but anyone who can get ahold of any of the paper ballots can do that now. Is it no less secure than any traditional method of voting, and superior in a vast number of ways. As long as a few percent of people check that their votes match what they recorded, elections will be a lot closer to tamper-proof.
How did so many people fail to figure all that out?
My rantings, only longer and with better spelling..