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How Bitcoin Could Be Key To Online Voting
blottsie (3618811) writes If implemented correctly, the proliferation of online voting could solve one of the biggest problems in American democracy: low voter turnout. The 2014 midterms, for example, boasted the lowest voter turnout in 72 years. Making it easier to vote by moving the action from a polling station to your pocket could only increase turnout, especially in the primaries. Making online voting work is infinitely harder than it initially seems. However, in the past few years, there's been a renewed effort to solve the conundrum of online voting using a most unexpected tool: Bitcoin. The key idea is this: The main job in online voting is ensuring that the election system records someone’s vote the way they intended. Running votes over the blockchain, which is public, creates an auditable trail linking a person and their vote. Bitcoin-enabled voters don’t have to place their trust in Florida ballot counters trying to discern the difference a hanging chad and a dimpled chad—nor in black box online voting systems from private companies where what’s happening inside is a mystery. The proof is right there on the blockchain.
We don't need more low-information voters (89% agree that DHMO should be banned)
Well yeah. If you breathe it you'll DIE! Only a Teabagger would be against Government regulation of a chemical that's so dangerous as to cause DEATH when inhaled. Why do you hate the children? How much did Big DHMO pay you for this astroturfing?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You can't have an auditable trail and a secret ballot.
I've been preaching this on Slashdot for years... electronic systems that let people track their own votes can be used by others to track those votes. Already there are entire industries around trying to figure out how people vote and manipulating the electorate, so it is a very real concern. But maybe it is time to ditch the secret ballot... at least for some things. Look at Open Town Meetings as an example. It is one of the most democratic and empowering form of governments in practice and it exists without a secret ballot for most matters. Only for elections of individuals to particular offices or for setting salaries do they usually do a secret ballot. But for general changes to the bylaws or voting on the overall budget the voting is quite open and anyone with a pen could record your vote.
We could move to more participatory government where ballot questions could be voted on electronically and we could record who votes for what as a matter of public record. Perhaps we retain the option of in-person secrecy. But secrecy leaves all sorts of room for ballot fraud if undemocratic forces get control of the election systems. In many places that seems to be the entire point of ballot secrecy... to make it impossible for the public to know if the election was stolen. So, perhaps the cost of ballot secrecy simply does not outweigh the benefits of people being accountable for their votes.
Bingo!
The assumption that low voter turnout is a bad thing always puzzles me, as it seems to suggest that it is better to have a larger number of uninformed people voting... rather than a smaller # of people who can at least be bothered to get up off their arse and do something.
The actual experience shows that the lower the turnout, the more likely the electorate is to do something stupid.
Voter shows ID to election worker. Worker checks a box. Voter reaches into a giant lottery box full of generated IDs and uses that ID to vote. Later the voter can inspect the blockchain, find his ID and verify that his vote went to the right candidates.
I'm not saying it's a better system but I think there are ways to keep voter anonymity while also allowing the public to audit the result.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
As your employer, I'd like to see your randomly drawn ID, you know, to verify that you really voted during the two hours you were off.
That's the rub, if you create any system where a voter can verify their ballot, you create a system where someone else can also verify that same ballot.
While it's true that low-interest voters tend to be low-information voters, there is also the problem that highly-interested voters are often highly misinformed voters. You have fundamentalist preachers frightening their congregations to vote in favor of bans on same-sex marriage by telling them horror stories about gay couples adopting babies to molest; or dogmatic political organizations telling their members to vote against a candidate because she's going to take their handguns and hunting rifles away, when all she said was that she'd look into restricting sales of assault weapons. Voters who haven't been mainlining bullshit propaganda crafted to "mobilize the base" can actually have a better grasp of the truth.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
one is it maintains your privacy and that's good for you
This is asserted without historical proof. The open ballot worked fine in the US for 100 years. It's John Hancock, not Anonymous. It only changed when the country was in a civil war. In a stable country, open voting is better.
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