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Comment by madeofpalk | Hacker News Reader

Please, no one mention blockchain.

I'm super bearish on blockchain, but this is one place I'd like to see it.

The machine gives me a paper record of my vote to keep. Meanwhile, it appends my vote to the blockchain. I go home and use information from my paper printout to verify my vote is indeed counted and on the blockchain. If my vote isn't on the blockchain, I have a paper record of it that can be used to append it, should the machine "fail."

The problem with individually verifiable votes is that of vote buying. Consider two scenarios, one where votes can be individually verified, and one where they cannot.

A) Person stands outside of polling station in swing state/district, offers $5 for a verified vote. Walk in, get your receipt/blockchain entry/doodad, show it to the vote buyer outside, get $5. Not at all a good situation, because it enables votes to be bought.

B) Person stands outside of polling station in swing state/district, offers $5 for a vote. Walk in, vote for whoever you want, then walk out and pocket the $5. Because the vote cannot be verified, they have no proof one way or the other.

Better to have an adversarial system, where any votes coming out of the ballot box are observed by representatives of all candidates. Each candidate has an incentive to ensure that the others do not tamper with the vote.

Vote-buying is already criminalized under 18 U.S.C. § 597 [0]. Several states have similar laws [1].

Scenario A could still happen, but seeing as it's explicitly illegal, the likelihood of it causing widespread voter fraud is unlikely.

[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597

[1] http://www.lrc.ky.gov/Statutes/statute.aspx?id=27347

More insidious than vote buying is voter coercion and blackmail. This has been a major problem in the past in places without secret ballots.

Interesting, and thank you for explaining how a blockchain would actually be used! But while there's value in allowing you to prove to yourself that your specific vote was counted, any such scheme also breaks the secrecy of your ballot and opens you to being forced to prove it for someone else.

I agree. this is one of the few instances where the blockchain makes sense.

Block chain was used to great effect in the attempted Catalan independence referendum [1]

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/mendel/status/914602521989193728

You joke but there's actually a nice application here.

Consider a voting scheme where each voter is given a unique key in some fashion, probably with the same ID requirements as voting today. It's then used to place a single vote on the blockchain.

This system could have these nice properties:

* Verifiable number of votes and correct counting

* Each voter could verify that their own vote was counted correctly and they can see what they voted for using independently developed tools

* More eco friendly

* Cheaper

Yes it's not perfect, most people will still just trust an electronic box, but there is an interesting application here.

Edit: Several comments on privacy. Yes voter anonymity is crucial and it might be possible here as well.

How do you prevent someone’s boss from saying “vote for my guy or you’re fired!”? Or someone revealing the keys and de-anonymizing everyone who voted for the loser?

In cryptocurrencies Monero and to some extent ZCash tries to make transactions anonymous but still verifiable for the owner. Global supply is also verifiable. Maybe there's a way to anonymize the voting scheme in some way as well.

Research in this area is still very new. Look up ZNARKs for example.

That’s not relevant to this problem: if your boss, union, the person who just bought your vote, etc. is in a position to check they can just ask you to show them.

A traditional ballot is immune to this as long as it’s not broadly possible to have someone follow you into the booth.

> transactions anonymous but still verifiable for the owner.

The problem is that "owner" here means "whoever holds the private key". If I can verify that my individual vote was cast correctly, then somebody looking over my shoulder can verify how I voted as well.

Or we can use paper, which already works and doesn't require auditing, expert development or flawless bug free code being written the first time.

How would you keep voter secrecy in such a system?

Use a mixer.

No vote secrecy means votes will be sold and/or coerced.

Still no better than a paper vote.

haha that was actually my first thought.

The whole cryptocurrency stuff seems pretty shady but there are select applications where blockchain is ideally suited & this seems like one of them.

i.e. All those independent election monitors can set up their own node etc

Stop thinking like an engineer.

The most important feature of elections is that everyone in society can take part of the process, understand the process, and (locally) verify that the elections are fair.

Technology just introduces black boxes that citizens are somehow expected to trust, because something something cryptography something blockchain.

No, that's not good enough.

>Technology just introduces black boxes that citizens are somehow expected to trust

oh please. People trust the lock sign on HTTPS all day without understanding it. (or mastercard or the bridge they drive over or well anything).

Avoiding superior technological solutions just because the man on the street doesn't understand them is a bad approach. If society did that we'd still be in the 1800s.

> oh please. People trust the lock sign on HTTPS all day without understanding it

Yes, and the internet is an absolute cesspool when it comes to security. Do we really want to hold up the internet as a shining success that we should be applying to probably the most important institution we have?

And people are quite OK to trust these. In these cases there is a central authority from which trust can be established. Voting is the opposite. During voting the central authority is being changed by the man on the street. He therefore needs to understand how it works otherwise how is he in control?

People don't trust the lock sign on HTTPS. They don't know what it means. That's OK for some website, things work anyway.

If an election goes against you and you don't clearly understand and trust the voting mechanism, you're not going to vote next time because why bother? It's all rigged anyway.

The understanding is an important part of voting, not in general use of technology and the parent did mention this:

> The most important feature of elections

The needs of a voting system are challenging - you need to identify voters so people don't vote multiple times (and aren't deceased Illinois residents...) yet you need to assure people that their vote is anonymous, so there aren't repercussions for voting for unpopular candidates/initiatives.

Blockchain helps with the first, but does not with the latter.

> i.e. All those independent election monitors can set up their own node etc

Do you trust the OS? The silicon? The PCB layout? The firmware? What about the firmware in all those other components? Could you verify all that if you are concerned that something is weird?

Pencil and paper are trivial to verify for every layman (with basic literacy), computers are not.

That possibility of verification is kind of a big deal when it comes to deciding in huge groups, and the block chain (or any modern tech so far) doesn't improve anything about it.

People were freaking out over possible Russian influence in the last election - wait until they find out the voting machine company had the equipment made in China.

Currently, a conversation about voting machines with the government / a politician is likely to go something like this:

You: "I support electronic voting machines that uses <some foolproof blockchain system>."

Politician: "You will be happy to hear that I too support electronic voting and you will be happy to hear we will be buying some electronic voting machines that run proprietary software on Windows XP with Norton Anti-Virus! Thanks for your support!"

You: "That's not what I..."

Politician: "Thanks again!" <Ends discussion.>

I'm not confidence our current education level and political environment can navigate the subtle distinction between "verifiable blockchain system" and "proprietary software on Windows XP".

Or maybe they do use a fool proof system for several years. Everyone gets accustomed to trusting the trustworthy algorithm. Then they change things, they say "here's a new proprietary algorithm, it will save taxes and protect children". 99% of the population doesn't understand what's different, so they continue to support the new proprietary algorithm, because "the voting machines still look the same". The few who know better are ignored.

Or maybe worse: flaws are discovered in the system and they don't change in response. That's the slow moving ship of government IT.

> ideally suited & this seems like one of them

How so? What are the actual mechanics of how a blockchain would be used in this situation?

What is a "transaction" here -- what information would be stored? What would a node represent (and why does that data need to be part of a chain)? Who are the peers/clients -- how would the data be added to the chain?

Most importantly, what does the added complexity get us, over boxes of paper ballots?

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