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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.
You can't have an auditable trail and a secret ballot.
Isn't one of the key features of modern voting the ability not to have your vote connected to you? This is part of the reason why there's so much argument over "card check" voting systems for unionization, because it allows the union or the company to coerce workers into voting one way or the other, since their vote is not anonymous.
One can already vote with a minimum inconvenience by being a permanent absentee. I can't remember the last time I actually went anywhere to vote, and haven't missed a single election in decades. Those who are not voting will, for the most part, carry on not voting with or without bitcoin.
It's not a given that low voter turnout is a problem. We don't need more low-information voters (89% agree that DHMO should be banned) and we don't need to coerce those who do not vote to signal their non-consent to the system.
Blockchain technology could make voting more reliable, but that's a separate issue - don't confuse the two.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It's not worth going out of our way to make voting MORE accessible than it already is. There are multiple polling places in every city of any size across the nation. People who are so uninterested in the process that they can't either go to their local poll or drop an absentee ballot in the mail are VERY likely to have a misinformed, useless opinion.
There are any number of areas regarding voting that I'd rather see time spent on instead of being able to claim "There's an app for that".
I'm sorry, but what idiot has decided that having your vote be a matter of public record is a good idea?
From all of the news stories I've heard over the last year or so, I don't trust Bitcoin at all.
So WTF would I want this tied to voting for?
This sounds like an incredibly stupid idea. Bitcoin seems like it's barely usable as a currency, it has no place trying to prop up democracy.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
There is no way that you can conduct online voting and ensure that the voter is not being intimidated. Offsite voting is a necessary evil for certain people (the handicapped and those who are unavoidably out of town on election day) but it does not need to be expanded to cover everyone. Here in New York we very specifically keep those most likely to intimidate you out of the voting booth, i.e., your employer and union official. The people that can hold a financial gun to your head if you don't vote the way they want. With online voting (or offsite voting on paper, i.e., absentee ballots) there is no way to actually ensure that the voter doesn't have a gun (real or proverbial) aimed at their head when they click 'submit.' For this reason alone I will always oppose it and other measures (vote by mail) that take people out of the polling place.
The summary also makes the assumption that low voter turnout is a big problem. This is an oft-repeated claim but there's zero evidence to suggest that increased participation rates equate to better results. People choose not to vote for many reasons; apathy likely being the biggest one, followed closely by a generalized disgust with the available options. "None of the above" is a perfectly valid option in an election, whether exercised via the write-in for "Mickey Mouse" or by staying home on Election Day.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"creates an auditable trail linking a person and their vote"
Being able to verify how someone voted defeats the whole point. You need ANONYMOUS, but verifiable voting, if that's at all possible. Otherwise, you get into the whole issue of vote buying, intimidation, public shaming, etc.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
In addition to selling your credit card and social security numbers, they can now offer to sell your vote for 10 cents apiece. Just harvest the private keys and it's a race to see which botnet can sign with the stolen key first! Sell them on TOR or I2P, I'm pretty sure Koch and Soros will bid big money to literally buy the election -- you can auction them against each other.
And if you say "we'll put the private key on a dedicated USB stick only for voting" then not only have you killed a lot of the convenience (for instance, you cannot do it from a phone but need a PC that can act as a USB host) but you've just moved the point of pwnage up a little bit to having to steal it right as you vote (or present a bogus voting interface!).
Really what you need is a set of physically separate machines that people can go to and plug their USB drive into a known secure environment. You could even put them in convenient nearby locations like schools and churches ...
let's review the evidence. biggest Bitecon shop rifled and shut down broke a year ago. last week, the next biggest Bitecon shop was hit for something around $5 million in Bitecon. TV hosts wave around a new wallet on the air and it's emptied before the videotape rolls on the story.
and somebody wants to run VOTES over this leaky scam system? almost as bad at the Supreme Court allowing billionnaires to buy all the elections they want.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Very well put. I think there should be an actual "None of the above" choice on the ballot. If the count of that choice reaches a certain high percentage, say 50%, the elections should be considered null and void and new elections with new candidates should be run. This way we may have a chance at actually getting the rascals out of the government. Oh, and on topic, elections MUST be conducted in public place with privacy booths. Online voting as tempting as it may sound in this day and age of not getting off the couch for ANYTHING is a bad idea because of possible coercion and voter manipulation. Public polling place, with private voting booths and paper ballots. Count the ballots publicly. Also, voting should last 3-5 days covering a weekend and off hours to accommodate people working night shifts, etc. There are many improvements we can make to the current voting system, but taking it online is not a good one. Why do people think that anything technological is automatically superior to low-tech alternatives? Paper ballot is still the most reliable way to record votes.
Which is easy to do when the small town is dominated by the local chieftain.
Which is certainly doable by a well-coordinated syndicate of local chieftains with a shared interest in a pro-local-chieftain candidate.
This is why vote anonymity is essential. If a ruler is powerful enough to impose the votes on a whole community, no one would be silly enough to risk their neck by openly testifying against them. This may look hypothetical today, but if you open the possibility for coercion in elections, its only a matter of time that it gets abused on a wide scale.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
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.
Here's the public part of a randomly drawn ID, plus a certificate signed by the election office. With the public part, you can verify that I voted but not for whom. For all you can tell, I voted for Mickey Mouse.
The secret ballot has two purposes. one is it maintains your privacy and that's good for you. The other is it prevents selling your vote and that's good for the public. If I have a bitcoin ballot then I can easily transfer that coin to someone else to vote. thus I can sell my vote and the buyer knows for sure how it will be cast.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
"one of the biggest problems in American democracy: low voter turnout." which is translated in the post to it is too hard to vote so people don't vote. However, this is a misconception. People don't vote because it has no purpose for them. They do not think that they are participating in a process which has any effect on politics. Therefore, the key problem is to ensure that every vote counts in a sense that it has effect on public policies.
Furthermore, the key problem is not only to guarantee that every vote is counted as intended, but also to be able to verify this vote and vote counting by everyone. Every time where a computer is the only thing that counts, the count can be corrupted. To do the same with paper and crosses on papers is much harder and easier to figure out.
And you are wrong. Once inserted into the blockchain, and since it is recored, it will be counted. Short of someone on the inside of the computer coded, secretly inserting miscounts (which become statistical anomalies) it would assure correct and accurate counts.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Then how do you know how it was counted? Whether it was counted isn't the question. But verifying that it was counted as intended was the question. Also, if you don't have to match a vote to a person, then you will move ballot stuffing to chain stuffing, and not change the largest single fraud in voting.
Learn to love Alaska
Actually the problem is that people don't vote for leaders they vote for puppets -boring, lying over-paid scoundrels who are connected to all sorts of nastiness, but out of touch with people. All the public really ever knows about these so-called 'leaders' is what the controlled media tells them.
Politics, like banking, are very important in our culture but are designed to be boring and uninteresting to the masses. This allows them to have more control over the people and less oversight of their actions.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
You count the blockchain votes.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
How do you know today with a paper ballot how it was counted? I can't find my ballot again, and I can't tell how they counted it in the office. "Because paper" doesn't magically fabricate the things you are complaining about here.
Moving to this system, I will be losing nothing and I will be gaining nothing.
Oh, except that my boss has to watch me vote now or I will get fired. That part kind of sucks.
Really guys - complain about the right thing, please.