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Blockchains Are Not Safe For Voting, Concludes NAP Report (nytimes.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the ensuring-the-integrity-of-elections dept.

The National Academies Press has released a 156-page report, called "Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy," concluding that blockchains are not safe for the U.S. election system. "While the notion of using a blockchain as an immutable ballot box may seem promising, blockchain technology does little to solve the fundamental security issues of elections, and indeed, blockchains introduce additional security vulnerabilities," the report states. "In particular, if malware on a voter's device alters a vote before it ever reaches a blockchain, the immutability of the blockchain fails to provide the desired integrity, and the voter may never know of the alteration."

The report goes on to say that "Blockchains do not provide the anonymity often ascribed to them." It continues: "In the particular context of elections, voters need to be authorized as eligible to vote and as not having cast more than one ballot in the particular election. Blockchains do not offer means for providing the necessary authorization. [...] If a blockchain is used, then cast ballots must be encrypted or otherwise anonymized to prevent coercion and vote-selling." The New York Times summarizes the findings: The cautiously worded report calls for conducting all federal, state and local elections on paper ballots by 2020. Its other top recommendation would require nationwide use of a specific form of routine postelection audit to ensure votes have been accurately counted. The panel did not offer a price tag for its recommended overhaul. New York University's Brennan Center has estimated that replacing aging voting machines over the next few years could cost well over $1 billion. The 156-page report [...] bemoans a rickety system compromised by insecure voting equipment and software whose vulnerabilities were exposed more than a decade ago and which are too often managed by officials with little training in cybersecurity.

Among its specific recommendations was a mainstay of election reformers: All elections should use human-readable paper ballots by 2020. Such systems are intended to assure voters that their vote was recorded accurately. They also create a lasting record of "voter intent" that can be used for reliable recounts, which may not be possible in systems that record votes electronically. [...] The panel also calls for all states to adopt a type of post-election audit that employs statistical analysis of ballots prior to results certification. Such "risk-limiting" audits are designed to uncover miscounts and vote tampering. Currently only three states mandate them.

6 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. All security = an implementation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    To say blockchain is inherently unsafe is like saying software is inherently unsafe, or anything else. Everything has pros and cons, but you evaluate the final implementation as secure or insecure. There are challenges in any medium.

    1. Re:All security = an implementation. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To say blockchain is inherently unsafe is like saying software is inherently unsafe

      Oh, you are so close to a breakthrough.

      When it comes to voting, blockchain, like software, IS inherently unsafe. If the main goal for voting security is maintaining the people's confidence in an election, the only system that will meet that standard is a system where people are actually keeping an eye on one another. And I mean physically watching one another. And that's the system we had in place before the advent of voting machines and election software. You had a room full of election judges from both sides, and they sat side-by-side checking in voters as they approached the voting booth and physically watched them put the ballot in the box. When the votes were counted, there was a whole bunch of people from both parties standing around keeping a close eye. When the ballots were sent for storage, one person from each party rode in the truck to drop them off after sealing the container - together - and signing off.

      It was trust, but verify. Was it possible to jigger with an election like that? Of course. But you had a list of names of people you could hold accountable at every step in the process. Electronic voting will never, ever be trusted. That is the effect of transparency.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re:All security = an implementation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      " If the main goal for voting security is maintaining the people's confidence in an election " - Well I don't agree with that starting point definition. I think security = security, not theater of.

      Then you're bad at security. Security is theater.

      There is no impregnable system. Security can only increase the difficulty of entering a system, it cannot stop a determined opponent. Is a CCTV system going to stop someone from breaking into your store? No, but it will make the person think twice about it, because they are likely to be recorded, found, and caught. Is the TSA likely to stop all bad guys from getting on planes? No, but it alters how much they must prepare to get on board the plane so hopefully they'll trigger a signal and get caught before they get on, or try a different route. Does voting security stop fraud from happening? Of course not, but it creates it makes it difficult enough to tamper with to turn away most bad actors, and ensures the voters have confidence in the system.

      Security ultimately changes the decision set of every actor involved toward a common good.

      And quite frankly, blockchain does not equal security. It makes an unalterable database, but it does not secure the machine, the UI, and given tech's publicly poor history of securing people's information, it absolutely does not provide confidence of capability to the general public.

  2. Oh the irony by the_skywise · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All elections should use human-readable paper ballots by 2020. Such systems are intended to assure voters that their vote was recorded accurately. They also create a lasting record of "voter intent" that can be used for reliable recounts,

    Now I agree with this and am happy to move back to paper ballots - But the entire reason we moved away from paper ballots was because of the 2000 elections where Florida used punch cards and political officers kept trying to argue over "partial punches", "dimpled chads" and "dangling chads" where they tried to reassess what the voter's INTENT was.
    And, of course, let's not forget magical disappearing and appearing boxes of ballots.
    Any system can be hacked but the electronic one is harder to track hacking than the good ol' traditional methods with paper ballots.

  3. Key statement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They key statement in the finding that most technology solutions fail to solve is this:

    "Such systems are intended to *assure* voters that their vote was recorded accurately."

    In the end, paper ballots may seem inefficient from a processing perspective, but that inefficiency becomes inherently difficult to tamper with and builds in systems for checks and recounts. The argument here is that blockchain is vulnerable before the data is stored in the blockchain, at the UI and the machine level, and blockchain then will hard-code the malicious event.

    But the key phrase here is "assure voters that their vote was recorded accurately". In the end, an inefficient system being difficult to tamper with makes voters feel more secure, meaning there is less likely a challenge to the system. If the voting public believes the system can be tampered with at a large scale level, then challenges and recounts and legal battles will happen with every election, and undermines the process where this is a simple majority winner. Instead regardless of their margin of victory every winner is subject to suspicion by the public. Maintaining public confidence in the accuracy of the system is far more important than the actual accuracy of the system.

  4. Paper ballots are by far the most secure solution by Seven+Spirals · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Gimme a break. Use paper. Computers will be better tools for tabulating and processing the votes after they are cast, but it's tough to beat paper for a recount. Even paper has it's flaws, but the hand waving crypto-bullshit is pathetic "Oh but this counter signature will detect if the previous initialization vector was properly zeroed inside of the S-Box" *rolls eyes*. KISS baby. Things don't get more secure by making them more complex and I can't think of any way to make something more complex than to introduce computers. Computers are great at some things, ideal for some tasks: not for voting. They suck at that.