Hacker News Reader

Comment by pexabit | Hacker News Reader

Well secure and rather indisputably valid elections are a solved problem, and many countries manage it. Identified electors cast ballots on paper counted under recorded and public observation. (I think a scantron would be fine, too).

It is just that we choose not to do this. A provably convincing election isn’t actually some hard, unsolved problem. (And yes- if you mention zero knowledge proofs in your story of why the election is safe, people will look askance because an observably valid election is a solved problem, and many countries manage it)

View on HN

Can you name a country where an actually observably valid election takes place?

And by this I mean an election where, somehow, an individual would be able to see their individual ballot make it from wherever they cast it, to the counter, and could see how their specific ballot impacted/didn't impact the broader vote, and where (again, somehow) there was proof that no artificial or false votes were cast in the name of citizens who either don't exist or didn't participate.

Even if there was a livestrem of the vote counting, that would mean nothing if we didn't see every step of transportation for every single vote from the ballot box to the counters office.

A truly observably fair election is practically impossible if you mean to have any significant number of voters.

Maybe I missed something in your question, but what we have in France seems pretty close.

Our ballots go into a transparent urn, you need to be registered in a voting office and show an ID paper to vote, and people counting the votes are typically a mix of local state employees and volunteers citizens (and given that most people don't want to spend their Sunday evening counting ballots, it's quite easy to get a place).

Now I guess it moves the trust onto the ID system and the aggregation of local counts into national results.

Same exact process in Italy, except we also use ballot tagging to fight organized crime. For all the problems we have, trusting the results of an election isn't one...

Taiwan and France. Probably most countries: since it is how you would design an election in the obvious way.

> A truly observably fair election is practically impossible if you mean to have any significant number of voters.

Just broadcast the counting live.

> Identified electors cast ballots on paper counted under recorded and public observation.

You mean that the vote is tied to the voter, so everyone can tell X voted for Y? That sounds horrible.

If you mean that paper votes are simply counted under recorded observation (and observation by representatives of all parties) I would point out that didn't help in the US.

Paper ballots weren’t cast and counted under general public observation in the US.

And I mean a ballot stub that is separated at the time it is cast is tied to a voter.

I have no idea what you mean by ballot stub, and no idea if that means that you are eliminating the secret ballot. It sounds like you want everyone to have a receipt tied to their vote, which doesn't even sound helpful.

And I have no idea in what way your system differs from the status quo in the US. Most states use paper receipts and those were recounted. All that stuff about "bamboo fibers" was because of the paper ballots.

> Well secure and rather indisputably valid elections are a solved problem

In some countries people would like to have undisputably valid elections, but can't, so I wouldn't call this a solved problem.

They're saying the mechanism by which you have a provably valid election is solved, not that every country that has a populace that wants that has it.

But I have a feeling you knew that already.

Mechanism - a good one - should solve various problems to have the issue resolved. They're saying they have "technical" mechanism, but if everybody would always follow the law it could be much simpler.

> Identified electors

How do you reliably identify them without an ID card (which, as I understand it, the US doesn't have), or without an election-related "ID card" (which is pretty much the same thing)?

Trying to use SSNs will of course result in economically disadvantaged people having no right to vote, the same goes, more or less, if trying to rely on driver's licenses.

The second paragraph is an assertion. And urban registration drives are heavily funded. Most people who do not vote do not vote because they do not want to vote.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com