Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea

I am not familiar with Debian's practices, but electronic voting can't work for a nation because: - centralization (there must be a central, corruptible place where the voters are authenticated or the votes are counted) - software is untrustable: [link] The USA has had a Diebold voting scandal. Other countries are using a paper-based voting process which can be supervised by third parties. [link] Relevant watching: Tom Scott: Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea ▶ this video One possible solution could be ZCash ( [link] ) but it has had its own problems ( [link] ).

in “Debian decides to allow secret votes” · View on HN

Obligatory Tom Scott videos: Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile | [link] Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea | ▶ this video

in “It’s not still the early days of blockchain” · View on HN

Relevant to HN's interests: a compelling, layperson-accessible argument against electronic voting: ▶ this video

in “YouTubers have to declare ads. Why doesn't anyone else? [video]” · View on HN

Electronic voting is a terrible idea. Attacks on paper & pen ballot systems are much, much harder to scale. Here's Tom Scott with a great explanation of the basics. ▶ this video

in “USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System” · View on HN

Many bank transactions can be reversed, and the ones that can't can be covered by insurance or self-insurance. You can't practically speaking reverse a tainted election. Anyway, I'll let Tom Scott take it: ▶ this video

in “Detailed audit of Voatz' voting app confirms security flaws” · View on HN

Electronic processes are way to easy to rig one way or the other.: Tom Scott: Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea ▶ this video Sure, there are ways to cheat with paper votes too. But counting paper ballots should always be open to watch for voters interested in observing the process. And voting should be done in secret, disallowing photos, to make it hard to "prove" the vote to possible buyers.

in “Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections” · View on HN

> By looking at the receipts printed by the ballot machines. Let's the clear, you're not really "recounting" the ballots at that point. If the machine is compromised - and we're discussing a situation in which we know CCTV was removed and people were then shot - you have no real idea if the receipt corresponds to the voter's original intent. Or, indeed, if all the receipts from all the voters make it as far as the recount (?) > Ballot machines print either a final tally at the end of the day, or print every single vote and automatically drop it into a physical ballot, depending on the threat model of the country in question. How is reprinting the final automated tally supposed to represent a "recount" of the original automated tally? > Either way the you have partial or total recount. You really don't. Bits of paper and Mark I eyeballs all the way. As Tom Scott puts it, "The key point is not is that paper voting is perfect - it isn't - but attacks against it don't scale well"[0]. [0] Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea: ▶ this video

in “The drama in trying to convert election PDFs to Spreadsheets” · View on HN

Tom Scott once made the very good point in one of is videos[1] that it's not just enough for a system to be truly, cryptographically secure. The public must also be able to understand and trust the chain that keeps the system safe. By this measure, perhaps the best RNG is still Bev from the local RSL hand-cranking her bingo cage. [1] ▶ this video

in “Man hacked random-number generator to rig lotteries, investigators say (2016)” · View on HN

Yeah, electronic voting is essentially like having a person in the voting booth that you have to tell your vote and trust that they will tally it correctly. [1] It doesn't matter whether voting machines are actually secure, they probably mostly are right now, but whether a layperson can have faith in the system. Paper voting is very secure if you involve people from opposing parties in the process and attacks are not very scalable. Most people can think of and understand mitigations for certain kinds of attacks. And if paper voting is too expensive for your country, you have bigger issues. [2] [1] ▶ this video [2] That said, I don't see how secure electronic voting can possibly be cheaper than paper voting. For voting machines to be secure, you have to manufacture them in a very audited manner, with little to no foreign sourcing of parts, you can't leave the machines unattended for long periods of time (aka, reusing them between elections is probably a no-go) and you have to build them in manner that is secure against voters tampering with them in their private booth.

in “UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’” · View on HN

I'm against doing electronic voting and tracking [0]. Others have commented on the tracking/anonymous issues, so I'll leave that. Make the whole system as hard as possible to manipulate by involving a lot of people who distrust the person they're working with. There is a tiny chance your personal vote will get lost in all the paper handling, but you can be assured that the system is a lot harder to manipulate simply because of the sheer number of people involved. [0] ▶ this video

in “Ethereum Isn't Fun Anymore” · View on HN

I think you're missing a few things: Votes should never be identifiable and the count should be verifiable. First of all: using somewhat public things like SSN, "numbers in your street address" and a credit card number is a terrible idea. All of those have been leaked and are present on things you present to identify yourself or pay. Also requiring a credit card or home to vote would almost certainly be unconstitutional. Getting a "receipt" is also problematic: You should never be able to prove you voted A over B or vice versa since that opens up ways to intimidate people to vote one way and coerce them to prove it. I'm not saying it's impossible but there are so many problems with electronic voting that I don't even know where to start. At least with physical ballots we can manually recount if we need. And that's before we even start talking about how current systems are basically swiss cheese for hacks, just look at the voting village for the last couple of defcons. Related (and amusing) links: [link] ▶ this video [link]

in “Let's put e-voting where it belongs: on the trash-heap of bad ideas (2016)” · View on HN

It's not about it being compulsory, but the system being unverifiable end-to-end and any criticism of that being laughed at. If you put it into business terms, would you trust an employee or vendor who told you that everything was alright, did not allow you to perform checks and audits and mocked both your and external partners concerns [0] about it? I don't think so. If the government is indeed for the people and not vice versa, then this is not acceptable. [0] ▶ this video Tom Scott's video about e-voting. Funniest rebuttal I saw on Estonian social media was that we are secure, since he is talking about e-voting, but we have i-voting. So I guess once we will call it c-voting, it will be even better...?

in “Estonian Electronic Identity Card: Security Flaws in Key Management” · View on HN

This was 2014. You might think with newer technologies this isn't a problem anymore. He also made "Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea" last month: ▶ this video

in “Iowa Caucus App Error” · View on HN

It's electronic voting. "Votes in transit" (Scott 2019): Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea: ▶ this video It's also a standard incrementalism tatic.

in “A Link to the Shadow Inc. App That Blew Up the Iowa Caucus” · View on HN