Ask Slashdot: Internet Voting? 251
coldfusion asks: "There's been a lot of talk about internet-based voting systems recently, in order to increase voter turnout & make the whole process more convenient. I know that the UK has such a system in the works. What about the US? Is anything like this in planning or discussion? If not, why not? If so, what kind of timetable might be involved? What will be used as security protocols (eg., PGP signing)? And another tangential question: is anything being done to eliminate the "unfairness" of voting in the US (and elsewhere)? Have alternate voting methods (approval, ranking, etc.) been considered by the US government? " Interesting questions. Although I agree that the internet will change the way we do things for the next century and beyond, I don't believe it's ready for voting. ESurely something like this will happen eventually, but not now.
knowledge (Score:2)
-Matt Jankowski
increasing voter turnout sometimes bad (Score:3)
Polluting the votes of those who care with those who don't risk random results, or worse, risks corruption due to the ease which the votes of those who don't care can be bought.
Increasing voter turnout by making it even easier than it is now to vote merely floods the votes of those who care (that is, they care enough to drop by at the voting booth on the way to work) with those who care so little they can't be bothered to do even that.
Internet voting is rather risky (Score:1)
-- Moondog
If it came up... (Score:1)
a government that is currently doing its best to
keep people away from encryption and putting its intelligence agencies plugged in to every wire they can find.
In a more progressive government it would be a very intersting experiment, but here and now it would only give politicians less control over the voting process. We can't even register online right now yet it would be relativly simple to set that up.
This is still Amerika.
no real use yet (Score:1)
char *stupidsig = "this is my dumb sig";
US development (Score:1)
Registration (Score:2)
Netocracy.org (Score:1)
I'm only just starting to lay the site out. Anyone interested in the project can contact me.
T.G.Wysong
tgw@email.com
Positive Identification (Score:1)
Postal voting requires you first send back your unique voter card, receive the unique postal registration form, then you sign it and send it in.
Any on-line method of vote registration must address not only this, but also prevent the same person voting electronically and manually.
Bad Mistake (Score:4)
And what happens if the tabulating systems are running *cough* an operating system that is incapable of handling high load? Or what if that operating system isn't secure, or wide open to well know denial-of-service attacks?
A certainly more effective solution would be a dial-up type solution. (This eliminates most of the problems with internet voting.) Keep a redundant backup system, and enough modems to handle the task, and viola. (Keeping in mind, that this solution only works if the gov't is hell bent on getting voting into an online medium. In my opinion, it works the way it is now, and if it ain't broke, DON'T FIX IT.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Voting system... (Score:4)
When it comes to counting, all the first ("primary") choices are added up. The candidate with the least primary votes is removed from the count and all their votes are given to their voters second preferences. This is repeated until someone has >50% of the vote.
Oh, and voting is compulsory.
Re:increasing voter turnout sometimes bad (Score:1)
>don't.
The problem with solution is that the will of the concentrated minor tends to overwhelm the will of the majority. For isntance those who want to give money to redheads with green pants will care greatly about the issue while the masses, whom the issue affects little, will not care as much. Hence the government slowly turns into a system which benifits organized minority interests and your rights are only protected if you belong to such a group rather than a place fair for all.
Higher Turnout of Inequal Demographics (Score:3)
This would make the situation for poorer minorities even worse than it is already.
Pros and Cons (Score:1)
First, the possibilities for abuse are just plain outstanding. Also, you have to remember that only people that can afford computers have them. This means that poor people and welfare recipients and such still won't get to vote if they weren't going to. If you say "what about internet cafes and such" well if theyre gonna go there just to vote, what was the point in the first place? Anyway, as I was saying, this would prove for a little bias-ness in the votes. My next thought is of privacy. Since there will have to be some sort of verification, that means they will know which way you voted, so say this is some local election and whoever loses feels like breaking your knees, they can. One of my other little opinions is if your lazy enough to use this, you shouldn't be voting anyway. (Unless of course we go back to the people that are stuck at home and such). Also, one last little consideration, you would probably have to provide a LOT of personal information to restrict tampering, so just think of those poor people with trojans on their computers that go and vote while someone is sitting there watching keystrokes...
I could go on and on, but I need sleep...
---------------------------
"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
Re:increasing voter turnout sometimes bad (Score:1)
We already see this with well payed individuals who dislike the welfare system. If we feel enough of our tax dollars are going to somebody else, we'd vote against it.
Re:increasing voter turnout sometimes bad (Score:1)
) subject vote, and those who don't, don't.
I disagree; I'd've voted in the '98 elections if I had been able to find the polling place...[I had just moved.] But I couldn't get a telephone response for directions for the entire week before, after calling both the # on my voters registration card, and the phone book listing for the polling place.
I suppose if I "really care" I'd've made a greater effort, but I have a lot to do in my life, and tracking down directions should not have been as difficult as they made it.
Bad idea even if completly secure (Score:2)
Consider the fact that we need some way to identify citizens. Sure we can register private pgp keys but their is no reason that these keys could not be stolen at the user end (think virus that hacks into individuals computers to steal their key). Any system, no matter what, which requires verification without personal knowledge causes these problems.
These problems are present in conventional voting and as we know stuffing the ballot box is certainly possible, certainly postal ballots can be forged. However, manual voting has a fixed effort associated with stuffing the ballot box. Sure in a tight election maybe someone can stuff 1000 votes but it is an organizational impossibility to stuff 10 million votes without leaving huge obvious trail.
Voting done by computer allows easy repetition of the same action by one individual without thousands of staffers. What keeps voitng safe is not security measures but the difficulty of voting itself if we take away this difficulty we allow widespread easy cheating attempts.
Re:Internet voting is rather risky (Score:1)
As was shown in practice, bye journalists, the system simply didn't work it was quite easy to actually falsify _large_ number of votes this way.
reference - CBS 60 Minutes, I believe it was Mike Wallace but I'm not sure.
Re:Internet voting is rather risky (Score:1)
matguy
Net. Admin.
Would it ever work? (Score:1)
Re:Bad Mistake (Score:1)
You call less than half of the population voting, ever, to be something that "ain't broke".
While I don't think it will solve anything to have more people voting (can you say "populism" anyone), anyone who does believe in democracy cannot argue that the current system isn't horribly broken.
As far as the problems are concerned, I reffer you to all the hundreds of articles written on this subject. Schneier spends a good chapter on it in Applied Cryptography (or as someone here said "The Bible").
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Re:Bad Mistake (Score:1)
matguy
Net. Admin.
Alternative systems (Score:1)
I've always found the US system to be a bit unusual, and when-ever I've asked some americans about it they get _very_ defensive. It mostly boils down to why votes in some states are effectively worth more than votes in other states.
In New Zealand the Electrol Commission is very careful about defining boundries such that every electrote has the same number of people (within a resonable range), so that the votes are all worth the same. If I was an american and outside of the big 7, I wouldn't bother to vote (for president) as my vote would have almost no meaning.
Whether or not the particullar varient of voting is better or worse (aside from the point above) is probably very subjective. I'm very supportive of the system NZ has recently moved to - MMP (even though the first election resulted in a lot of mess, it'll take a few for people to understand how it works..)
Under MMP, the vote is split between "who represents my electrote" ("Electrote vote") and "who controls the house" ("Party vote"), with the latter vote over the whole country and actually determining the final make-up of the House. If you get 30% of the party vote you get 30% of the house. That's on a nation-wide basis, making _everyone's_ vote equal.
It allows some things that might seem odd but do make a lot of sense - splitting your vote between who you'd prefer to represent you and who you're prefer actually ran the country. In the first MMP election (1993) as much as 75% of the votes cast were split.
It's not without it's pitfalls, but any system is. I guess you just end up picking a set of pitfalls you're willing to live with.
Dave2 (posting as an AC because I can't be bothered digging out my password :) )
Re:increasing voter turnout sometimes bad (Score:1)
A similar issue already happens in washington. Special interests can sway issues to their advantage by concentrating great pressure on a single issue. By hinging a block of voters or money on one small issue they force the senator to vote with them. The majority may oppose the idea but as there vote won't swing on the issue the senator is best served by going with the special interest.
Re:Better countries? (Score:3)
I've come to respect the two-party winner-take-all voting system in the US. When I was younger, I preferred a parliamentary system, but I came to realize that most of them tend to give splinter parties too much leverage (especially the systems in place in Israel and Italy). The workings of our democracy may be ponderous and slow, but the founders thought that was a good thing!
The principle of one-man-one-vote is extremely important to American democratic ideals (although it isn't enshrined in law quite the way people think it is). The electoral college is a bit of a tinker-toy mechanism in between the popular vote and the presidential selection, but it nearly always validates that popular vote (there were a couple of 19th century exceptions) -- and what people forget is that it reinforces the idea that we are a Federal Republic that represents the interests of 50 quasi-independent states. Heaven forfend things should ever require it, but the electoral college provides a means for the states to prevent a fraudulent election.
security voting, and the internet (Score:1)
(conditions to numerous to be listed)
So, what do we do? Force everyone who wants to vote online to get a secure digital signature (which, of course, the NSA, FBI, and CIA would all want backdoors for--bring up questions about whether they could fix elections). You would also have to have a transition period for online voting as an "experiment," i.e. allow the old voting system to remain in place. Of course, you would have to assure that someone who voted online didn't also vote by hand
Also, not everyone in the U.S. has equal access to computers, nor the ability to operate one properly (no comments about 'we need a meritocracy anyway'
I don't see it happening anytime soon, though I can imagine lots of people talking about it.
"Fairness" of voting (Score:2)
The majority of America is stupid. I'm not talking "can't get on the Internet" stupid, I'm talking "can't look both ways before crossing the megahighway" stupid. Changing the way we vote is actually a great idea for those of us enlightened enough to understand it. The Internet is forming one of these such enlightened aristocracies and the ideas that we throw around we assume will be great for everyone. But very few people (relatively) are even on the 'Net, much less understand it enough to be considered "enlightened" and of those few enlightened members, few would truly understand the present problem with "fair" voting and realize how great it would be. The majority of American citizens can't even understand that their Presidential vote doesn't even choose the President, it just provides a general rule for other more enlightened voters to follow.
No, America is too dumb to really understand such complex voting practices, and so, the most fair way for us to vote is the one-off, guy with the first-place majority wins. Why, because a) it makes the citizen's vote that much more important and thus makes voting such an important part of democracy and b) it's so simple that even little kids can understand it (and don't we say that all the time about the Internet?).
Re:Higher Turnout of Inequal Demographics (Score:1)
Bad idea (Score:1)
It Works? (Score:1)
Voting should be for people who care to vote. (Score:4)
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool populist, but I don't believe in the idea that "more people would vote if it were easier".
The reforms I do support:
Re:knowledge (Score:1)
:)
Some links (Score:1)
I'm no expert, but there does seem to be some confusion here about what can and can't be done with electronic elections.
Chapter 6.1 of Applied Cryptography (second edition) gives a summary, and shows a lot of different protocols. Several of them meet all the standards one could expect from an election, including the important one that one should not be able to prove how one voted (no selling votes). A little digging in the Counterpane crypto-papers, gave these papers online (I'm sure there are many more).
"Blind multisignature schemes and their relevance to electronic voting"
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/8967
"A Secure and Optimally Efficient Multi-Authority Election Scheme"
http://www.research.ibm.com/security/election.p
"Unconditionally Untraceable and Fault-tolerant Broadcast and Secret Ballot Election"
http://www.semper.org/sirene/publ/PfWa5_92DC1_1
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Re:increasing voter turnout sometimes bad (Score:1)
I don't believe you can easily 'buy' the public's vote, people might accept gifts, go to the debates, etc. without being swayed by the propaganda. Although whenever I watch the US elections (it just seems a big show to me, most of the times), doubts start to cloud my mind
English isn't my maiden language...
Re:increasing voter turnout sometimes bad (Score:1)
This meaning that people with important voting power are not always getting a chance to take part in their "democratic society."
Lets hope an introduction of a voting system (if its going to happen) in the US will give opportunity to such people.
Re:Republic Democracy (Score:1)
Re:increasing voter turnout sometimes bad (Score:1)
Re:Registration (Score:2)
graveyards voting for a candidate (Remember
Chicago?)
However, you've got a good point. People forget
to register, and thus, can't vote on Election
day. The registration is necessary to prove
you're a valid citizen of the nation/state/county/city, but it should be possible to do this as 'securely' as possible
on the voting site.
And right now, there's a lot of apathy for the
government and the democratic method, because of
circular arguments: Voters know that the
elected officials rarely represent their
constituents and don't vote, but one vote
is hardly enough to change those specific officials to a new one. Getting to a place of
voting can be difficult, as it is only on one
day and generally during the normal business
hours, but that's not the entire picture of
low voter turnout. Voting by the internet
would help to some extent, but it will still
be low turn out (I'm expecting less than
20% voter turnout in the 2000 election for
President).
I wonder if a Starship Troopers-like setup might
be necessary, *hypothetically* - only those that
have done a service to their country can vote
and have the rights and priviledges of a
citizen of the country -- every once just pays
their taxes.
Re:Voting should be for people who care to vote. (Score:1)
HOW FRICKEN TRUE!!!!
I get Newsweek and USN&WR, and both magazines had campaign news as early as Jan 1999 -- 22 months before the election.
Yes, the Presidency is important, as well as the primaries for both parties, but YESSH, I'm already sick of the 2000 election, and it's not even 2000 yet!!
My solution: If you are running for office, you may not campaign a month ahead of time, and the campaign budget is fixed for each candidate (cannot add extra funds at the end), and MUCH smaller than it is now (say, $100,000 instead of multi-millions). That way, you have to be more effective of your campaign and resorting to mudslinging would hurt terrible.
Of course there are obvious flaws, but its much better than 2 years of mudslinging. :-P
This isn't going to solve anything. (Score:1)
When's the last time you heard someone use "they" in that way? Americans have gotten used to everything being done for them. This is the real cause for voter apathy. They will take care of it.
Some caring group or individual will think for me, and make sure that I don't poison myself with chemically-flavored candy.
Until this mentality goes away, nothing will fix voter apathy. However, Internet voting will make buying votes a lot easier.
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It would never be approved by the public (Score:1)
1)What if some cracker either found some way to vote several times or broke into the server and changed the results of other people's votes.
2)What if a candidate set something up with a insider that for example set up the security of the web voting and left a back door for a price so the results could be changed.
My takes on it
1)If they handled security correctly they "should" be able to prevent this.
2)I don't think this is any more likely than a candidate setting up some kind of corruption with the counting of the votes in the current system.
Now the question of should it be done or not. I am not going to go into detail on this since there have already been many good points. But I will say that do we really want to make voting so easy that people who don't really know about the candidates policys' and don't care about the results just vote randomly just so that they can say they voted? I think that this would happen in situations where they are pressured to vote by there family or friends even thought they do not have a opinion.
Re:Registration (Score:1)
P.S. Just because there's rural area in N.D., please stop assuming we're all hicks. Thanks!
Voting electronically (Score:1)
IMHO, there are too many people who vote...only people who are properly educated should vote. That way we get rid of the losers who simply either vote for the candidate with the best haircut or vote one way or another because because someone or some organization told them what to think. If you can't think for yourself, you shouldn't be voting. Enough said.
The other problem is the obvious instability and insecurity of the Internet. The Net was *designed* to be an unstable network. (No, I'm not going to explain this concept...if you don't understand, learn something about the history of the Net before flaming me.) Glitches are inevitable. Servers collecting votes that are running *ahem* certain operating systems that are equally unstable and insecure introduce even more problems. Then there's the obvious problem of crackers and the resulting possibility of fraud (ballot stuffing, count fixing, etc.) Add to that the complications involved in makign sure that someone doesn't vote once electronically and once manually (hell even the IRS has problems with that, but thats another story...)
That being said, if the security and instability problems were fixed, and the voting system had a way of ensuring that the thing didn't become a popularity contest, then I'd be all for Internet voting.
Re:Registration (Score:1)
Traditionally low voter turnout favors the incumbent. Right there is an incentive for the PTB to keep turnout low.
Increases in voter turnout tend to garner more low-income/low education people than higher caste citizens. Traditionally these persons from the lower end of society vote Democrat. The Republican party has stymied at virtually every opportunity initiatives designed to increase voter turnout.
Until/unless there are fundamental changes in the system we will prolly continue to clunk along with our present voting system here in the US.
Re:Positive Identification (Score:1)
You do have to wonder sometimes, how they prevent massive vote fraud.
US is a Constitutional Republic (Score:2)
The original laws governing who could vote in the U.S. effectively limited voting to a group of "respectable wealthy white males". They wanted to limit who had a say in running the new country to conservative land owners who had a vested interest in establishing a stable government. Knowing who would have a vote may have resulted in some ommisions in the Constitution. For instance, there were few limits on government spending in the Constitution because the group that would be voting was the same group that would be financing the operation of the country and they were a frugal bunch. Had they imagined a future in which anyone-breathing-can-vote they would certainly have limited laws governing taxation and spending since the absence of such laws would allow the majority (poor) to pass laws to take the money of the minority (wealthy).
The limitations on who could vote also tended to also limit the voting to people who were relatively informed on who was running and what their politics were. The character of the voting population has certainly changed over the last 200+ years. Today any uniformed and ignorant person who is of voting age has as much power at the polls as a person who has carefully researched and understands the issues and the candidates.
Voter turnout is currently reduced because of the need to register. The need to visit a polling place also provides a barrier to marginally interested voters. Reducing the barriers and increasing turnout will not improve the election results if the added voters are randomly selecting candidates based on which candidate had the best commercial on television.
The Internet could provide the opportunity to improve the process of selecting a candidate, but not if it simply makes it easier to cast a vote. If voting on the Internet were to be made possible I would hope it also required a competency test prior before voting. A simple test of 10 questions per candidate would be required. Only those who could score an 80% on a test would have their votes count. There would be no time limits on taking the test and you could take the test over again if you failed but each time the test is given it would have new questions.
Before someone starts flaming the message as being unfair please remember everyone as an equal opportunity to learn about all the candidates. The goal of requiring a test is to have well informed voters, it is not to restrict voting. In fact, the ballot test could include links to all the online documentation about each candidate. The only requirement this test would have is that someone would have to make an effort to learn a little about ALL the candidates on the ballot. Doesn't it seem that knowing the candidates is much more important than being of a certain age or having registered in time for the election?
Re:Bad Mistake (Score:1)
If you're going to hijack an already existing system, I doubt NetZero is capible of handling enough people for the entire nation to vote... I doubt even AOL's system (designed to handle more than 13+ million members) could handle such a task. The backups and bandwidth needed would be INSANE. Maybe using something like Canada's CA*Net would work, but not any one ISP's.
Masking Stupid With Nirvana (Score:1)
Government solves our problems by educating our children however they see fit, enforcing savings plans (Social Security), deliver our mail, buy our medications -- they even help us pay for therapy from the trauma of being told "Hey, nice ass" at work!
The problem is that people would rather have government do for them poorly than do for themselves.
Some of us wake up in the morning (or stay up all night) and thing "I can make it big. I have big fucking ideas and I'm going to do something about them!" -- other people wake up in the morning and think "How can I get more? Who is going to help me today? Who is going to tell me what to do and how to think? Who's going to feed me and take care of my self-image?"
Our government, on paper, is pretty damned cool, but is interpreted and carried out ineffectively. Everyone wants to make a law now. If your child rides his bike into the middle of the highway, his mother starts a national campaign and lobbies legislation to make highways safer for stupid kids riding their HotWheels bike into them.
Stupid is a state of mind, and we're brought up to live in that state from the day we're born and lead to believe it's a masked nirvana.
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icq:2057699
seumas.com
"Fairness" of voting: Proportional Representation. (Score:2)
Background: The system of government here consists of one House of Representatives, originally of 99 members, made up by representives of individual constituencies around the country. There is no real President-equivalent: in theory the governor-General (this is a commonwealth country) has to ratify all new laws, but this is mostly a rubber-stamp procedure, by a political appointee.
Previously there were two major parties, and government swung back and forth between them. At one election a major third party succeeded in gathering ~30% of the popular vote, but due to it's distrubution only won a handful of seats (Social Credit).
About 4 years ago, we all voted via a special referendum to switch to a form of Proportional representation known as Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP). This was put in place for the previous election. The system now has 120 MPs (Members of Parliament): half constituency based, and the rest chosen from the "party lists". At election time you vote for your representative, and for the party you want to see in government. The number of seats a party obtains is based on the percentage of the party vote they obtain. If Party A only win 5 seats, but receive 20% of the party vote, they will be given more seats to make up the difference. There is a 5% threshold that says: if no constituencies are won, a party must hit this threshold before any party seats are given.
At the previous election the government only received ~45% of the party vote, and didn't have the muscle to form a government. After a long period (4-6 weeks) they formed an coalition with a third party (a mildly Xenophobic group lead by an ex-party member with a Napoleon complex (just my spin)). They later split with this party and continue to govern from a minority (with co-operation from others on day-to-day issues and some legislation).
The country as a whole feels they've been "held to ransom" by this smaller party, and seem almost ready to chuck the whole MMP thing in. The media have been convinced the government is lurching from crisis to crisis. Some how they've survived the full term.
And now it's almost election time again. No date announced, but there's all sorts of campaigning happening again. It should be soon.
Oh, and the Prime Minister (PM) is a woman. All the signs are that next year the PM will still be a woman, because the leader of the opposition as also a woman. Both seem to have public image problems.....
INERNET VOTING would be a VERY BAD THING (Score:1)
problems w/ current voting situation (Score:1)
Does it make a difference. (Score:1)
Regardless of how the voting is done and how many people vote, it will not change the people being voted for.
Anyone running for office wants to be in that office for a reason and is therefore the LAST person you want in that office. How we vote will never change tha fact that voting is simple a choice of the lesser of many evils.
I like the idea of Internet voting myself, I just wish we could vote for anyone at all rather than a select few who want the power.
Mandos D Shadowspawn Esq
Re:Voting should be for people who care to vote. (Score:1)
However, this all goes to the debasement (err) of American society. We tend to look beyond the facts and attach to the glamour of the race. Style over substance. I don't know if anyone listened to Steve Forbes today on Meet The Press - he actually made some sense (but he'll never get elected). He was preaching responsibility (gasp) for our actions. Shouldn't these be ideals that we teach our kids? Again, it seems to have been lost in all of the shuffle.
Technically (so this post can be on topic), there is no real reason why we could not do Internet voting. If we already entrust our credit card numbers to the Internet (and 128-bit encryption), there is no reason why we wouldn't trust our nation's future to the same crypto standards. A very valid point is people care more about their privacy of the CC numbers on the Internet rather than who leads our nation for four more years...
Justin
No Democracy (Score:1)
Much prefer a few set of simple rules that we all abide by, and then anything else we do is up to us. Hmmm, sounds kind of like the Internet itself.
Forget voting.. (Score:1)
Y'all do trust me, doncha?
Internet voting should not happen! (Score:2)
It is simply this: When I vote using the current methods, I vote in a small, private booth, and my privacy is mandated and ensured. If I were to vote over the internet, no matter how secure the connection, someone could look over my shoulder.
This is one of the most grave possible sources of election fraud.
If someone can watch your vote, they can bribe you and be assured that you will actually vote in the agreed way. They can threaten you, and rough you up if you don't vote in the demanded way.
Absentee ballots suffer from the same insecurity, but fortunately they are usually a trivial fraction of the total ballots cast. Personally, I believe that absentee ballots should either be cast securely from ballot booths in other states, or with several trusted and qualified witnesses swearing that the vote was private. The security hole probably doesn't matter much for absentee ballots, since there are so few, but I think it would be huge in internet voting.
I think this issue alone is enough to rule out internet voting.
John Karcz
Re:Netocracy.org (Score:1)
--
Re:Republic Democracy (Score:1)
Premise: fairness can only be adjudicated when all the facts are known.
Premise: the facts of the worth of any candidates up for election will never be known until after their terms.
Conclusion: no election can ever be fair.
fraud (Score:1)
In a paper count system, you have multiple people at ever level counting ballots.
In an internet or other network based system, where does the accountability come from? You can't through average citizens into the counting process and expect them to understand it. But in a traditional system it's easier to understand when someone is stuffing ballots or lying about the count.
So what, is every returning officer going to be some geek, and people will have to trust that it is accurate and not tampered with? No thanks.
Voter turnout (Score:1)
I must say, "Voter turnout" is one of those areas where everybody assumes that more is better, but is it really? The fact is, countries that have high turnouts in elections tend to be countries with pretty lame democracies or a history of oppression.
Instead of assuming that a big voter turnout creates good democracy, maybe we need to realize that good, stable democracy creates an environment in which people can afford not to vote.
Internet Voting? - US System (Score:2)
is my task in life at the moment. The security aspects are a challenge but very doable even at this stage. We have already done trials with several counties in the state of Washington and have more elections coming up soon. These are only trials at this stage, to do an actual vote from a generic remote Internet machine will still require changes to election law.
Many questions are raised about the security. It is important to first make a distinction between the security of the voting system and the security of the Internet site that is hosting it. Our voting system uses cryptography at the client machine to encrypt a voters choices. The encrypted choices are then sent to our server (the ballot box) where they are stored for tabulation. In our system, which is called a "universally verifiable" system, *anyone* can see that a voters ballot sits in the ballot box (along with the encrypted ballot), but *no* one can see that voter's choices. We never decrypt the ballots, they are tabulated in an encrypted fashion. I'll leave that for the cryptologists to explain. But the election system is secure in its own right with the cryptography that is in place. So even if our site was hacked during an election, the data is not at risk to modifications. The real issues are then voter authentication and denial of service attacks on the site itself. Denial of service attacks are the primary worries and an area that we are putting a lot of effort into.
Watch for more information through this upcoming political season, this is a very hot topic right now.
[Shameless plug: We have a position open now for an Information System Security Officer if you are looking for a challenging Internet security position!]
Re:Wouldn't this be dangerous? (Score:2)
You could use encryption to do it (using it like a digital signature, giving the government your public key) but the problem with that is, people can make many signatures.
You could solve that problem by tying a key to something unique about a person, say a Social Security number (which has the advantage that each number is unique and that each person can only be assigned one). Each number could only have one key associated with it. But privacy advocates would just hate that one, besides which you still have people who can manage to get multiple numbers.
It's a problem. The only way you could ever eliminate voter fraud is to eliminate voting altogether (which is counterproductive), so you're going to have to live with the fact that a few will always slip through the cracks. But, is there any real way to minimize the fraud? Not without strong encryption, which the government would never allow.
I suppose you will decide who is educated (Score:1)
Government is supposed to serve ALL the citizens, not just those with IQ > 130 or who happen to have a certain ethnic background. Oh, did I say that? I guess I did. Yes, I am comparing your suggestion that only educated people should be allowed to vote to other reasons used in the past to deny the vote. For example, race and sex.
If the citizenry is stupid enough to elect someone based on his haircut, so be it. It's their bed, and they'll have to sleep in it.
And I suppose you would like to create a commission that would decide voter eligibility. Oh, I'm sure there's *no* way that could be abused.
Re:No Democracy (Score:1)
Young ppl voting bloc (Score:2)
I predict that if Internet voting becomes a reality, you will see a dramatic increase in the "young" vote. Politicians will finally have to confront issues that affect young ppl (like fixing social security). One could say that the "older" voters would also increase; for instance, put computers in retirement community centers and retirement homes. However, they already get vans to transport older ppl to the voting centers.
Some other thoughts: I wonder which company will get the contract to put together the voting system? I bet you will see ppl trying to sell their voting private key on eBay. Finally, I would really get paranoid if someone found _NSAKEY in the voting program.;-)
Re:knowledge (Score:1)
All because of the "liberals" ?? (Score:1)
What kind of nonsensical thinking is this? "Enterprising liberals"? Is that anything like the "scheming Jews" that Hilter and his pals used to complain about? Is all this imaginary vote fraud your excuse to round up all the "liberals" and send them to the gas chambers? I can just see it now -- "Die Liberals sind unser Unglueck!"
When liberals win elections, it's because the liberal American electorate votes them in. Face it, buddy, many of your fellow citizens are liberals, and in some districts, they are in the majority. You may not like that, but it's too bad. New Yorkers can elect whoever they darned well please, they don't have to check with you first. If they want Hillary, then they will vote for her. If they don't want her, then they will vote for Giuliani or someone else. It's that simple. (I personally don't like Hillary, but I think she has a right to run, like anyone else.)
Vote fraud is committed by both parties. You are living in a fantasyland. The Right wing is far more full of Cheetoe-munching, propaganda-swallowing morons than the Left. Just listen to the mindless drivel that comes from the mouths of Right wing leaders.
"Enterprising liberals fish them out." That sentence just kills me. What a troll.
A key problem with online voting (Score:1)
Guaranteed voter anonymity is required to prevent effective reprisal or bribery for votes cast. It must be impossible for me either to coerce you ("vote for Bob or I'll fire you/arrest you/break your legs") or to bribe you ("vote for Bob and I'll give you $50"). Today, I could try either of these approaches to fix the outcome of an election, but there would be no point in doing so because J. Random Voter could just say "I'll vote for Bob, please don't hurt me (and thanks for the bribe!)" and then go vote his conscience anyway. I'd have no way to prove that he did otherwise.
The requirement of anonymity forbids assigning public/private keys to each voter to sign her vote -- if the signature is nonrepudiable, you would have a provable record of who voted for whom. One could argue that the Elections Commission could prevent improper release of voter/vote pairs by imposing heavy legal penalties on the violators, but this argument should be just as distasteful to
Today, our election systems are heavily weighted in favor of voter anonymity, with relatively weak protection against multiple voting. This compromise made sense in late-19th-century America, when corporate robber barons frequently tried to coerce/cajole their employees into voting for pro-big-business candidates. It makes just as much sense today, for the same reasons.
The easy options for online voting today either move the current system online -- which makes multiple voting very much easier -- or guarantee no multiple votes through digital signatures -- which suffers from the aforementioned vote-tying problem. I believe there are known cryptographic solutions to the online voting dilemma, but they are too computationally expensive to deploy for more than a handful of voters.
Re:Alternative systems (Score:1)
A lot of Americans, including myself, think this is a good thing. Proportional representation systems that encourage small parties have caused a lot of trouble in other countries. I'm quite happy to repress our more radical elements (right or left) with election rules. Who wants a system that helped contribute to WWII in Europe? (At least that's what they teach us in history classes, and I buy it.)
Re:Bad idea even if completly secure (Score:2)
Re:Republic Democracy (Score:2)
Oh, the naivete... (Score:1)
Re:Voting should be for people who care to vote. (Score:1)
Re:Voting should be for people who care to vote. (Score:2)
Re:Bad idea even if completly secure (Score:1)
Re:US is a Constitutional Republic (Score:1)
And what to "test" them on? On the "issues"? So and so is for this, so and so is against that? That is really too objective. Right now in America, we basically vote for or against Democrats or Republicans. There's very little difference between them in their own party, aside from their own personality traits (which is not to say personality traits are not important), and you would have a tough time creating a test that would be anything other than how to define a Republican and how to define a Democrat. Especially if it's only 80%.
There are really a infinite number of candidates. Not all of them get on the ballot, but you can write them in. And even all of them that get on the ballot are too much for people to be bothered with. Do I care about how the Party for Legalizing Marijuana candidate for city council feels about Indian Casino Gambling? Not really. Do I need to know to make a relatively informed choice? No, not really.
Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, voting isn't really about the issues anymore. Put a Democrat or a Republican in there and see how much your life really changes. Even put a former pro-wrestler in there and see how much it changes. No matter who you vote for, it will probably be all the same bull, and some good stuff. Let people vote for personality, I don't think it's a big deal. Frank Zappa for president!
Is this sarcasm? (Score:2)
Do you really think like this? Putting oneself on a plane above other people is the first step to fascist tyranny. And it's really creepy when combined with the doublespeek of using words like "enlightened" and "democracy".
Re:Bad Mistake (Score:1)
>believe in democracy cannot argue that the current system isn't horribly broken.
Well, it depends on what you consider democracy. The US is technically a republic, which means that most of people affect the government in other ways besides voting on every little issue that comes up. IMHO, what we have works pretty well--major changes won't happen unless there's some emergency, which is a Good Thing. That is, unless you'd rather have more rules cluttering up your life and the dominant faction being able to do what they want.
No, it isn't, either (Score:3)
This is claptrap.
Can you name any famous dictators from history? Did any of them happen to come to power with the support of the lower classes (the majority), and with the intention of putting down the aristocracy? Hmmm, let's see now.... maybe we can make a list of them:
The people who wrote the constitution wanted to avoid direct election of the chief executive because they knew that the worst tyrants generally do enjoy the support of the lower classes. You can't be a tyrannical oppressor without enjoying support from somebody, and preferably from a good number of people.
The purpose of the electoral college was not to "maintain their grip on the lower class". It's purpose was to be a final, last-ditch check on the potential rise of a dictator. This is why the electoral college is composed of people who do not otherwise hold office under the US (no Senators, Congressmen or Governers, etc.) and it's also why the electors have to meet in their respective states. It's a lot harder to bully them if they are all spread out. The US has never been threatened by the rise of a dictator, the electoral college has never overturned the outcome of any election, ever.
Can you name any American elections in which the outcome of electoral college elections did not match the actual election results? How many times did this happen? In the instances where it happened, can you explain why it happened? Can you name any facts which support your idea that the electoral college has prevented the rise of any candidates, against the will of the lower classes? Can you offer any facts at all?
If the purpose of the electoral college was to maintain a grip on the lower classes, then why did the electoral college elect Abraham Lincoln? Surely he was one man they would have wanted to get rid of. Right? So what's your explanation?
Re:Masking Stupid With Nirvana (Score:1)
>law now. If your child rides his bike into the middle of the highway, his mother starts a national campaign and lobbies
>legislation to make highways safer for stupid kids riding their HotWheels bike into them.
If our government is done in the wrong way, then if it was done in the "right way", we'd probably have a lot more damnned useless laws than we do now. The system is made to filter out nearly all of the laws proposed, and if something like that is passes, it's because people apparently want it (who doesn't want their kid safe, eh? it's because people aren't as well informed about the consequences of the regulation, or just don't care). Just be glad it's not easy to make major changes, or the Internet'd more than likely be regulated now.
Re:knowledge (Score:1)
You've got to be kidding. Most of those "informed" people will be voting using software running under Mircosoft Windows. Yep, I'm sure we all want to entrust the future to a bunch of dim-witted script kiddies who think voting over the internet is a good idea. Wonder what kind of new "features" Microsoft will embed it's software in anticipation of internet voting. Hey maybe Melissa's kids will do your voting *FOR* you....
major problems with Internet/remote voting (Score:1)
I see three major problems with Internet-based voting:
Occasional accusations of vote fraud notwithstanding, nearly all countries with widespread Internet access also have a high amount of integrity in their elections. I think the process of having the vast majority of voters physically appear before appointed observers, then cast their votes in booths guaranteed to be private and isolated from all influence, then submitting the ballot anonymously into an isolated counting system, is still how elections should be done. Voting without physical oversight, whether it's electronically or any other way, seems like a very bad idea to me, unless it's in a country where physically appearing at the polls is dangerous.
And one last rant, for people who think all this should be completely overlooked for the sake of speed: Millions of people have gotten maimed and killed so you could go play golf and perform your supposedly important work, instead of rotting in a jail cell with a gun at your head and some sort of disease that makes you bleed through all the holes in your body for 50 years straight. If you're busy helping third world countries or tending to medical patients on election day, I'm sure you can get an absentee ballot. Otherwise, see if you can pull yourself away from your oh-so-vital duties for 20 minutes every year or two. Or, better yet, don't.
Re:Masking Stupid With Nirvana (Score:1)
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Re:No Democracy (Score:1)
Re:US is a Constitutional Republic (Score:1)
As to your other point, who would make up the test? What would be on the test? If you restricted it to information that could be found easily on the candidate's web page, I could go with that. Although then we'd have to consider what to do if they didn't have a web page? Government subsidies anyone?
Although personally, I think that each person has an equal right to vote, no matter what (okay, if they're over 18...). It's one of those things about being "created equal"...
Alternative Democracy (Score:1)
The greatest nourishment is food for thought - Me 1999
Pathetic In Moderation (Score:1)
Maybe this is an unusual example of the pitfalls of online-voting?
Sorry to make this second post, but I put a good deal of time into backing up my statements, providing links to my sources and illustrating my points in that post and to have it ticked-down to 'flamebait' is insulting.
I'm no Jon Katz [blockstackers.com], Alan Cox [blockstackers.com], or Rob Malda [blockstackers.com], but I have a damned good record [slashdot.org] of comments being marked-up since moderation began and if I have to worry that some trigger-happy-kid with five moderation points to squander is going to paint my post with white-out without cause, then I may think two or three times before bothering to participate in discussions here.
Save your moderation points for me too, first post and what does this have to do with Unix posts and real flamebait/trolls.
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seumas.com
Re:Is this sarcasm? (Score:2)
Paper and punchcard voting needs to be fixed (Score:1)
Many people here are skeptical about the security of an over-the-internet voting scheme. Funny, because the problems strike me as real, but fixible. And the current voting systems are currently subject to abuse, and badly in need of some sort of fix.
Not too long ago there was a vote on public funding of a sports stadium in San Francisco, where there was clearly an attempt made at rigging the result. There is no question about whether the election was dirty, the only question is *how* dirty it was, i.e. were the dirty votes enough to swing the (evidentally quite close) election. There was funny stuff like election watchers reading people's ballots, boxes of returns that took hours to get from the polls to the counting site, "special" poling sites opened in neighborhoods likely to be in favor of the stadium and so on. Someone was even caught voting twice... the DA (known to be pro-stadium) declined to prosecute.
Our current electoral systems are badly in need of improvement. New technology might provide a partial solution.
Re:Registration (Score:2)
"Why would i want a republican in office? they don't even want me to *vote*"
Personally, I vote libertarian on the off chance that we might get a few in office, 'cause that would cause quite a ruckus and make a lot of party liners very angry.
Re:No, it isn't, either (Score:2)
Re:Intelegent comments.. (Score:2)
As much as i dispise journalists for the slime-sucking worms so many of them are, I would not be the least bit opposed to the idea of appointing state funded journalists to cover each and every thing a single representative does. What does a communications major cost these days, $35k/yr? In the grand scheme of things, a little muckrake is pretty easy to come by.
Unfortunately, you'd need to pass a law to get away with that, and the people who pass laws aren't about to open themselves up to public scrutiny. they're "above" that.
Re:Direct Democracy (Score:2)
An example of the failure of direct democracy can be seen in the California initiative process. A few years ago, there were five different insurance reform inititives on the same ballot, each of which was incompatible with the other, and most of them won. Therefore, the majority of the voters were so stupid that they voted for incompatible measures.
The last person I want to vote... (Score:2)
Now here we go catering to the lazy voter again. "We're so sorry that it's inconvenient for you to take one half-hour out of every year to go and vote, so we'll make it easy for you. Just vote on the internet."
Re:Voting should be for people who care to vote. (Score:2)
change in the Constitution requiring 2/3 majority vote in the House and Senate and ratified by 3/4 of the states... yeah right. Besides that, the Relgious Right (tm) would never allow Sunday to go... The Jewish community would raise a stink about Saturday. Perhaps we could move it to Monday and declare it a federal holiday? (Those who choose to go on vacation... well, you get what you get when those are your priorities.)
"standardized voting hours for Presidential elections (e.g. 8am EST to 8pm PST, *everywhere*)"
I'm not sure what the advantages of this are. You'd be running from 8am EST to 12am EST... 15 hours is almost two shifts.
"a reformed primary/caucus schedule that rotates them so that all states get an equal chance to be a bellwether"
Seems that nothing stops the states from doing this already, save the fact that they don't seem to care. The whole system seems to have fallen by the wayside in the past few elections anyway... Was George Bush and Al Gore a big surprise to anyone? Bill Clinton and Bob Dole?
"*voluntary* voting registration at the DMV (i.e. make it easy, but not automatic)"
This is how the system is implemented in Indiana. The forms are available at the DMV. They ask you if you want one. If you do, take it with you, if you don't... you don't. The system is fine with me, since most people know where to go to register now.
"voting-day registration"
Nice as it sounds, if you didn't think about the election until that morning, you probably are not too terribly informed. I don't want people randomly selecting candidates.
And another thing I'm truly against... The Democrat and Republican 'handles'. You pick all of your party with one fell swoop. That shows a type of ignorance I can't stand. If you vote all one way or the other, that's quite all right, but you should know the name of the person you're electing to that office.
-Derek
Internet Polls (Score:2)
Re:No, it isn't, either (Score:2)
There are several examples. In 1824, John Quincy Adams finished a distant second to Andrew Jackson, but splinter candidates siphoned off enough electoral college votes to deny jackson the majority and give the decision to the House of Representatives, which anointed Adams. (Adams's presidency was and is regarded universally as a failure.)
In 1876, the Democrat Samuel Tilden won both a popular vote and an apparent electoral vote victory, but the Republicans managed to bring the vote counts in two states into dispute, keeping them from naming an electoral slate. After several months of debate, the Republicans cut a deal with Southern Democrats giving the Republicans the White House in exchange for an end to Reconstruction.
And again in 1888, Grover Cleveland won the popular vote by a narrow margin but lost in the electoral college.
The AC makes some eloquent arguments for the electoral college system, but as history shows, the system can break down from time to time. And at this stage of our history, any president elected in one of those failures would certainly suffer a crippling loss of legitimacy.
knowledge (Score:2)
Re:Bad idea even if completly secure (Score:2)
Re:Voting should be for people who care to vote. (Score:2)
Now, technology allows us to make voting even more accessible for those who might not have usually voted. Hypothetically, this person, even though they don't feel strongly enough about an issue to go to the pains of voting, may be much more informed about an issue (remember: informed, educated votes are what we want, not strength of opinion) than someone who'll vote b/c they're bored.
By saying "The people who should be elligble to vote are the people who are willing to register, reschedule appointments, and travel to their local voting booths" is similiar to saying that people elligble to vote should be able to read and interpret the constitution. (I'm citing the infamous "reading tests" used to deter black people from voting until the Civil Rights Movement).
My point here being that we shouldn't have any standards at all for voting (besides citizenship, or course). So, I say use technology to make voting as easy as possible. People still need to take the final step themselves to actually caste the vote, so it is possible to still abstain.