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

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.

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:Interesting, but...

[Mr2001]

Not sure I'm reading you properly, but this system allows you to verify your vote was COUNTED, nothing more. You can't show or prove to anyone HOW you voted, just that you did and that your vote is in the tally AS CAST.

Er, unless I'm missing something, it's still possible to prove to someone how you voted. You just need to take a picture of your ballot, showing that the code "JX" is in the bubble next to "John Smith" -- this is pretty easy if you're voting absentee, or if you aren't frisked and metal-detected on your way into the voting booth. When the local thug comes around to verify your vote, you show him the picture and your ballot ID, and then he goes online to make sure that your ballot ID and your "JX" vote are in the system.