Online Voting Should Be Verifiable -- But It's a Hard Problem

An anonymous reader writes with a link to a pithy overview at The Conversation of recent uses of (and nagging difficulties with) online voting and asks Regular 'internet voting too risky' arguments don't take some approaches into account like verifiability of votes by voters, observers, and international media. Could we have end-to-end verifiable online voting systems in the future? What are the difficulties? Where is it being done already? From the linked article (which provides at least some answers to those questions), one interesting idea:Another challenge to designing verifiability in online voting is the possibility of malware infection of voters' computers. By some estimates between 30%-40% of all home computers are infected. It’s quite possible that determined attackers could produce and distribute malware specifically designed to thwart or alter the outcome of a national election – for example undetectably changing the way a user votes and then covering its tracks by faking how the vote appears to have been cast to the voter. Whatever verifability mechanisms there are could also be thwarted by the malware.

One way to try to prevent this kind of attack is to make voters use several computers during the voting process. Although this is hardly convenient, the idea is to make it more difficult for an attacker to launch a co-ordinated attack across several computers at once.

Comments

Re:You cannot know *WHO* is voting

[Shakrai]

End the antiquated requirement for anonymous ballots
Coercing or discriminating against someone for their vote needs to become a serious crime

I like how you point out the most important reason for the anonymous ballot while simultaneously calling for its end. Hint: It's already a crime to try and coerce someone's vote. It's also a very difficult crime to prove, which is why it's simpler to just say, "Your boss can't go into the booth with you." than "Tell is if your boss is trying to intimidate you."

If Democracy is worth anything it's worth an hour of your fucking time once a year to go a polling place. Online voting is a solution looking for a problem. Absentee ballots are a necessary evil for people (the handicapped and those unavoidably out of town) who legitimately can't make it to the polling place. They do not need to be and should not be the new normal.