I remain shocked that voting machines are not open source and publicly auditable.
I'm also surprised the NSA isn't specifically tasked with a regular, detailed, high-resources code review of the codebase.
I'm also surprised the NSA isn't specifically tasked with a regular, detailed, high-resources code review of the codebase.
In their minds; Democracy is a facade used to convince the American People that they have any say or influence on their government.
Actually; a form of "Security Theater".
The problem with the block chain is privacy. Publishing people’s votes can and will have a huge impact on their life. It would also make buying votes much easier.
A block chain solution would have to find a way to ensure that only valid voters can place a vote, ensure that only people that could vote were the only people that placed a vote after the fact, and ensure that none of this can be tied to a real identity. Otherwise, either bad actors could place votes, or a complete voting record for a person is published.
Solve all of the above, and a block chain may be an acceptable way to go, though it would be a waste of energy in my mind compared to a normal database, which could easily be exported with only the vote and signature stating it was a valid and verified vote for a person.
In the end, we have just made something more complicated than a paper ballot, which has been shown to be reasonably secure against foreign and/or national actors attempting to influence an election, except in already corrupt nations, especially those without term limits...
And if hackers can change my vote, that arguably is the same as denying me the right to vote. That could fall within the scope of the Voting Rights Act, and therefore be a Federal matter.