Maryland Town Tests New Cryptographic Voting System

ceswiedler writes "In Tuesday's election voters in Takoma Park, MD used a new cryptographic voting system designed by David Chaum with researchers from several universities including MIT and the University of Maryland. Voters use a special ink to mark their ballots, which reveals three-digit codes which they can later check against a website to verify their vote was tallied. Additionally, anyone can download election data from a Subversion repository and verify the overall accuracy of the results without seeing the actual choices of any individual voter."

Comments

Interesting, but...

[allknowingfrog]

This is an interesting idea, but I wonder what additional cost and labor is involved? I know the Florida ballot count debacle wasn't all that long ago, but are we that concerned about votes not being counted?

Re:Interesting, but...

[noundi]

but are we that concerned about votes not being counted?

I was about to write a long reply about how democracy depends on the fact that bla bla bla... and how you cannot trust people, especially what in politics and bla bla bla... but you asked a simple question so I'll give you a simple answer:
 
  Yes.

Re:Interesting, but...

[NoYob]

but are we that concerned about votes not being counted?

I was about to write a long reply about how democracy depends on the fact that bla bla bla... and how you cannot trust people, especially what in politics and bla bla bla... but you asked a simple question so I'll give you a simple answer: Yes.

To most people it's only "Yes" if the election doesn't go their way.

Re:Interesting, but...

[TheLink]

Why are you all so worried about voter intimidation?

Countries where voter intimidation is a significant problem are normally so screwed that you'd be glad you're actually getting paid to vote however they want, rather than them just announcing the results (before the elections even ;) ). And if you can't report them to the cops or election officials and still live unharmed, they and their cop friends could escort you to the voting booth and force you to vote the way they want on whatever fancy system there is. So what's the big deal?

The big problem with insecure electronic voting systems is that millions of votes could get tampered with, without a trace. The other big problem is even if there isn't tampering how do you convince the loser and enough of his supporters that he lost fair and square?

At least with this system the losing team can prove to themselves that yes their votes were counted and too bad they really lost, try again next time.

With some crypto voting systems though, the voters could forget or "forget" how they voted and so they may think their votes were tampered with. I don't know whether this could happen with this particular voting system.

Very interesting stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

All that really matters after reading TFA:

Chaum says he hasn’t decided on a cost yet for jurisdictions who will license it after the initial adopter but says he can easily sell it for half the cost of current optical-scan voting systems, which run about $6,000 apiece.

Very good stuff. I would just avoid using the word "subversion" when talking about it. You know, because of its double meaning

Chaum's system is very cool

[swillden]

It does what many people would have said is impossible: It allows voters to verify that their votes were cast and counted correctly, but does not provide them with any way to prove to anyone who they voted for. An audit trail, without opening the door to coercion. This is a major improvement over traditional voting technologies.

Re:Chaum's system is very cool

[bill_mcgonigle]

Arrows Theorem.

thanks for the pointer. If the Wikipedia article is correct, the big problem seems to be his requirement that any sub-set of elections should turn out the same as the whole election if considered separately. I'm not sure that's a sensible expectation in a real election.

The Real question...

[gd2shoe]

Ok, so this system proves that your vote reached the tally server, but how does it prove that your vote is actually in the total?

I'm serious. Just because your vote wasn't lost, doesn't mean it was counted. This helps guard against grievous mistakes, not against wholesale fraud.

Web Logs?

[icebike]

Quoting TFA

"When polls close, voters can go to the election office website, type in their ballot serial number and see a rendition of a ballot, showing the three-digit codes for their votes. This way voters can be assured that their ballot was included in the final tally."

One would hope there are no web logs kept, because simply checking your ballot would reveal your identity, and someone is sure to wrangle a subpoena for that.

Re:Web Logs?

[arose]

And if they have access to the actual ballots, who you voted for. A non-transparent system with a way to match voters with their votes that has been "verified to be secure by the brightest minds at MIT". Every dictators wet dream.

Re:Web Logs?

[icebike]

That is not at all what it says.

The info displayed on line does not indicate a candidate by name.

But the whole system wouldn't work at all if there was not a linkage between your three letters and the Candidate's name SOMEWHERE.

That SOMEWHERE happens to be in the hands of the SAME people who would have the web logs showing IP address of the person looking up ballot number 2879193274.

Great on paper - but in real life?

[fremen]

This system assumes three things:

• Everyone participates - voters have to validate their vote afterward to make sure it's still correct.
• Everyone is perfect - people who incorrectly cast their vote will always suspect fraud, calling the entire election into question.
• Everyone is sane - individual voters do not lie about about their vote to game the system, cast doubt on the election, etc.

Re:Great on paper - but in real life?

[CannonballHead]

With perfect, sane, always-participating people, who needs a government? ;)

Re:Great on paper - but in real life?

[swillden]

This system assumes three things:

• Everyone participates - voters have to validate their vote afterward to make sure it's still correct.

Per TFA, only about 5% of participants have to validate their vote afterward to assure the election's integrity to within normal margins. Also, exit polls in the Maryland town showed that about 30% of voters copied down their validation info. If a third of them bother to go online to check their ballots, that will be double the required participation.

Everyone is perfect - people who incorrectly cast their vote will always suspect fraud, calling the entire election into question.

Individuals will always have suspicions, but unless there is a widespread pattern of "errors", rational voters will be able to have greater confidence than they do in any other system. Unlike any other system, this one actually provide a way where lost or altered ballots have a chance of being discovered.

Everyone is sane - individual voters do not lie about about their vote to game the system, cast doubt on the election, etc.

Again, isolated cases will occur, but that happens regardless. In the absence of significant numbers of reports from generally honest and reliable people, then we'll have more confidence in the accuracy of the vote than any other system can provide.

Basically, your objections boil down to "Nothing is perfect". Well, duh. But it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be better. And it is.

Re:Question?

[icebike]

The objection to receipts is that receipts that show voting choices can be used for Vote buying.

If we stick to codes, vote buying is not so easy.
You'd need a crib sheet as well.

But all you know is that your vote entered this machine, not that it was tallied by Deep Thought at election central.

 

creepy

[goga_russian]

so they are saying that my forum captcha and craigslist copy and paste is more secure then the vote verification thing?

first the machines, then the system

[Onymous Coward]

Hear hear!

I believe FPTP is killing our political system by making it a constantly devolving lesser-of-two-evils non-choice.

Getting a well-working computerized voting system is a first step to implementing something more sensible than First Past The Post.

1. implement computerized voting
2. switch to a Condorcet or preference voting system from FPTP, thus truly enfranchising the electorate
3. ...
4. Profit?