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Comment by sambroner | Hacker News Reader

I had thought that this was a great opportunity for blockchain, if identity could be solved reliably. That being said, identity is already being solved through IDs, voting stations, home-delivered ballots, etc.

The audit-ability and reproduce-ability would be great features, while cost and latency wouldn't be huge problems for voting.

There were even a few start ups in the space (e.g. Votem), but none seem to have made the jump to doing real elections. Votem did a few smaller voting experiments like a vote for the Rock & Roll hall of fame, but never made its way to state elections.

I hope that DARPA can not only inspire innovation, but also help startups break into the difficult game of government contracting.

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You can't have an anonymous system that simultaneously allows meaningful verification: if there is no way to tie me to my vote in the system, then there is no way for me to prove that my vote was misrepresented to anyone but myself. Even if there were, there is no way for me to prove that my claim about my vote is correct. Even if many people come out claiming that their votes are mis-represented, there is no way to know whether that is a sign of errors/tampering with the system, or a concerted campaign to try to put the election in doubt.

Any system which foregoes physical proof of voting as a base for the count, relying instead on after-the-fact verification, is open to this problem. A complex system, whether software or even mechanical, can never match this level of confidence.

There are crypto schemes that can solve those problems. Some work with paper ballots as well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreeBallot

Also

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_...

> I had thought that this was a great opportunity for blockchain, if identity could be solved reliably.

If identity could be solved reliably, you wouldn't need a blockchain.

You would, because without blockchain, you can still lie about what was done by (or with) that identity, and when.

I wonder if biometry (e.g. a fingerprint) could be reliably used as the private key (and thus the identity on the blockchain). That is, without a 3rd party / external system.

For trust, the network (as any blockchain network) would have to be properly decentralized, and (good or at least benevolent) people would have to be incentivized to run the network. I.e. there would be a monetary value (a coin, or a token), which would have its own pros and cons as seen by various parties.

(Mentioning fingerprints, I cannot but reference the movie Southland Tales, which in my view was the most prophetic movie ever made.)

There used to be a problem with vote buying / coercion. If you can prove you voted one way or another, you can sell your vote, or your employer can fire you for voting the wrong way (for example).

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