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Blockchain-Based Elections Would Be a Disaster For Democracy (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: If you talk to experts on election security (I studied with several of them in graduate school) they'll tell you that we're nowhere close to being ready for online voting. "Mobile voting is a horrific idea," said election security expert Joe Hall when I asked him about a West Virginia experiment with blockchain-based mobile voting back in August. But on Tuesday, The New York Times published an opinion piece claiming the opposite. "Building a workable, scalable, and inclusive online voting system is now possible, thanks to blockchain technologies," writes Alex Tapscott, whom the Times describes as co-founder of the Blockchain Research Institute. Tapscott is wrong -- and dangerously so. Online voting would be a huge threat to the integrity of our elections -- and to public faith in election outcomes.
Tapscott focuses on the idea that blockchain technology would allow people to vote anonymously while still being able to verify that their vote was included in the final total. Even assuming this is mathematically possible -- and I think it probably is -- this idea ignores the many, many ways that foreign governments could compromise an online vote without breaking the core cryptographic algorithms. For example, foreign governments could hack into the computer systems that governments use to generate and distribute cryptographic credentials to voters. They could bribe election officials to supply them with copies of voters' credentials. They could hack into the PCs or smartphones voters use to cast their votes. They could send voters phishing emails to trick them into revealing their voting credentials -- or simply trick them into thinking they've cast a vote when they haven't.
Tapscott focuses on the idea that blockchain technology would allow people to vote anonymously while still being able to verify that their vote was included in the final total. Even assuming this is mathematically possible -- and I think it probably is -- this idea ignores the many, many ways that foreign governments could compromise an online vote without breaking the core cryptographic algorithms. For example, foreign governments could hack into the computer systems that governments use to generate and distribute cryptographic credentials to voters. They could bribe election officials to supply them with copies of voters' credentials. They could hack into the PCs or smartphones voters use to cast their votes. They could send voters phishing emails to trick them into revealing their voting credentials -- or simply trick them into thinking they've cast a vote when they haven't.
will be implemented in blockchain and decided by AI voters!
I like how "blockchain technology" now means everything. Certainly everything related to cryptography. Sure, you could do something like have everyone cryptographically sign their vote and then you could have it anonymously verifiable. What does that have to do with a block chain?
right here
Can we just have vote by mail in all 50 states already? It's 2018. I shouldn't have to go to the polls. If somebody's trying to force you to the polls it's because they don't want you to vote.
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I suppose it's barely possible that my vote isn't being counted, but I would be VERY surprised if that were the case, other than trivial clerical errors. The problems we need to solve are things like "People are not database records", and "People don't listen" and "People who listen screw up all the time" and "Infrastructure is selected by committees of people, and people are terrible at their jobs". Basically we're way past the point where mere technical issues dominate the problem space, the big problems are social and political issues which aren't reasonable to blockchain your way out of.
Also, believe me, if you take someone who suspects that the system is rigged against them, introducing a digital voter ID and an explanation involving crypto math is NOT going to make them comfortable. I would have thought that would be self-evident from a few minutes paying attention to Facebook.
The point is not that voting by blockchain could be hacked or rigged. The point is that with pretty much any system that relies on computers to tally the votes, the results can not be independently verified end-to-end by laymen. Everyone can understand how voting by paper ballot works, how the ballots are counted, and how the count is verified, and that means everyone can participate in safeguarding or verifying an accurate count. That is where "public faith in elections" comes from.
Besides: rigging a paper based election is possible but the number of people you need to involve scales linearly with the amount of votes you want to falsify, increasing chances of being caught. That's not the same for computer based voting; fraud is much easier to hide, and easier to carry out on a massive scale.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
You would think that if there was more than a minuscule amount of voter/voting fraud happening, people would be slinging proof from the rooftops. The lack of proof leads credence to the fact that is not a large factor for anything, which means our current processes, while not that great are still reliable.
Postal voting seems much better to me in some cases. For instance, I had about 90 questions on my ballot (2 very long and double sided pages). If I wasn't able to remember or write down all the things I wanted, that would be near impossible to remember for something so crucial while filling it out. Having the mail in form in front of me so I can deliberate and look up information seems like a much better way to do this, no?
The problem with mail-in voting is that it's possible to coerce people to vote a certain way. I'm not even talking about broad conspiracies to alter the vote en masse. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if many spouses said they were voting one way, for the sake of marital harmony, but in fact voted another.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
There's a fundamental problem with online voting... and it would be a huge problem, even IF you could absolutely guarantee 100% security: it's a serious threat to secret ballots. Right now, in most places, if an ultra-frail person shows up to vote who needs assistance, they election officials will provide a poll worker to help them, but WON'T allow a family member or anyone else to accompany them, for that precise reason.
Right now, a husband and wife can easily cancel out each other's votes. If online voting is allowed, there's little to stop the spouse with more power in the relation ship (or who's less ambivalent about voting) from voting on the other's behalf after getting the spouse to log in.
There are other opportunities for coercion... say, an employer (or union, or any other group) who decides to "encourage voting" via the internet "right now" (in at least semi-public view, with at least some social pressure to vote the "right" way). Think: a politically-active church that, instead of marching its congregation off to early voting at a polling place nearby, passes around tablets after the second collection while encouraging people to vote the "right" way in front of their friends, neighbors, and family members.
Let's not forget the possibility of rounding up a bunch of poor people and offering to pay them $20 apiece if they come "vote online" and cast verified ballots for the "right" candidates.
THIS is why voting needs to occur in private, but in a public location where individual voters CAN'T be coerced by anyone.
The right to a secret, coercion-free ballot is absolutely fundamental. It's at least equal in importance with security, and is arguably part of "integrity". It's a fundamental problem with internet voting that simply CAN'T be solved.
Obviously, it's also a potential problem with absentee ballots sent by mail... the difference is, absentee ballots are an edge case, generally used by a relatively small number of voters. Yeah, there are some elections now held by mail only... but they're for local races that few people care about anyway. The more powerful the office, the greater the stakes.
"A political party sending in 10000 extra postal votes under names that should not be voting any more?"
If someone is not at the address they are registered, the ballot will be returned. People are required to sign their name on the outside of the envelope the ballot is mailed in and it is matched to the signature on the voting roll. If there is a question, it can be challenged. Once the signature is verified, the ballot is removed from the envelope it was mailed in while still in its own inside privacy envelope so the vote can't be read. These are all put with other ballots and are counted on the day of the election so that it is impossible to connect a particular ballot to the person who cast it.
they already do that. It's not as easy to lie to your spouse as you think. And I am way, way more concerned with this kind of coercion.
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I've been programming computer for 40 years and I'll be hard pressed to follow what happens inside a "black box" voting machine, so imagine someone with no computer knowledge!
The sole purpose of voting is to convince the losers they lost a fair election, so the winner's can govern with a mandate.
to be convincing There are only three things about any voting system that are important
1. the secret ballot
2. THat everyone can see how it works and and thus see how it's secured
3. That there's a way to recount that is traceable to the voters own hand written ballot.
Anything else is dross. Crytposystems, proof your vote was counted, etc, all nice but not important if you lose any of the above 3.
All these online voting systems utterly destroy the secret ballot and the also harm the other two.
Sheer stupidity.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I don't think this happens in America, but in some countries people sell their vote, for money, food, jobs or to show "respect". As a result they elect mafious politicians who not only are grossly incompetent, but also deliberately keep their electors in a state of need, in which they will be easily led to sell their vote again and again.
With the secret ballot, those politicians need various tricks to have their "clients" prove that they voted whom they had to vote. If they could instead have them vote by phone, comfortably in front of them or of one of their "representatives", their racket would be much easier, and this would further degrade the quality of the government.
You're missing the point. If you can vote at home with your PC or phone, anyone can ask to look over your shoulder while you do it. Or they can bribe or threaten you to let them look. A secret ballot is just that -- entirely secret. Nobody is allowed in the voting booth with you. You cannot prove how you voted, even if you want to. Perhaps by "blockchain voting" they mean you still go to a polling station to cast your vote in secret, but it's all fully verifiable because blockchain. Actually, cryptographers have already come up with systems where you can check your vote was counted without being able to prove what it was (taking home some kind of paper receipt). But I think of all the problems faced by democracy this isn't the most pressing. Those who want to stuff the ballots would just ignore the result of the cryptographic verification, after all, it's too complex for anyone without a PhD to understand (or they could just introduce their own fake 'experts'). (This is also why postal voting is flawed, in my view -- for people who can't attend on election day, they should be able to visit a special polling station a week or two in advance, but not to just mail in a vote which anybody could have "supervised". There have certainly been cases of fraud with postal votes, too.)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
The only problem blockchain 'solves' in voting is not enough public funding going to private companies that sell 'solutions' to less than tech savvy county voting boards.