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Comment by NobleSir | Hacker News Reader

>I doubt the layperson can understand how that technology works, and that is required for the voting to be democratic: Every voter has to be able to verify that there was no fraud. Not only mathematicians.

This is probably a good point, however this math is at most slightly more unusual than the math behind, e.g. https (which I guess 50 years ago public key cryptography wasn't even invented) and average people are starting to learn to trust that.

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It's not about trusting the math, it's about understanding it. And not just the math, but also the protocols that use the math (the math may be secure after all, but the protocol not, c.f. the multiple vulnerabilities in SSL in recent times).

I mean- I am likely never going to understand the science that goes into fixing a tumor- I just haven't trained to be a doctor, nor plan to go that route at any time in my life. However, you can surely bet that I trust a doctor to take one out of me (without understanding it) if I have one - and this is the right thing for me to do.

And of course, the fact that occasionally some implementations of SSL have been found insecure is in no way an argument to not use it (at least until something more secure is available).

The analogy to the doctor makes no sense there is not even any competition going on in it. What if for some strange reason there was two doctors operating on you and they were competing to be the first to find and remove the tumor for millions of dollars. Would you trust them to have your best interest always in mind and not try to interfere with each other?

Not sure I'm understanding your rebuttal - in your example are the doctors the politicians, or the providers of the voting system? If the two doctors are the politicians, then I think you are misunderstanding my point, and probably the objection raised that I was referring to. If your doctors are the people running the voting blockchain, then that's the whole purpose of having the chain - that it's mathematically verifiable by "anyone." This would be like if all the doctors in the world have a chance to oversee the operation and make sure it goes down smoothly.

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