61
votes
Is automated and digitized ballot processing inherently more dangerous than manual pencil and paper?
Great answers already about supply-chain attacks, complexity, transparency. I'll give an answer in a different direction: accountability and auditability (basically; how easy is it to do a from-the-...
- 59.3k
58
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
The theory
This could be implemented in several ways, by applying the principle of idempotency.
You want a system that only produces a result (binary 1) if all the inputs are active, that is, it tells ...
- 15.9k
38
votes
Accepted
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
This sounds like a classic case for cryptographically secure Multi-Party Computation.
The functionality to be realised using SMPC would be an AND tree-reduction which requires N-1 AND gates and has a ...
- 9,820
26
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
A very low-tech method: give each voter a card with a hole punched in one end, offset from the center. Make a container that holds the cards, and has a hole punched through it that lines up with where ...
- 261
15
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
There's a cat in a box with a vial of poison gas. The vial is rigged to a button (marked "No") that will release the gas. Right next to that button, there's also a dummy button that makes an ...
- 287
15
votes
Accepted
Is automated and digitized ballot processing inherently more dangerous than manual pencil and paper?
Most answers seem to focus on why automatic systems aren't used or aren't considered a good idea. I'll try to address the core question of what makes them inherently less/more secure.
The central ...
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14
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
This is actually a tough problem! So here's my paper-and-pencil solution, trying to keep it as simple as possible.
Every person gets 3 slips of paper. They secretly write down a different 2-digit ...
- 892
13
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
Required utensils: Pen and paper.
As a group, pick a big prime p.
Everybody picks a secret pair of numbers ai, bi with aibi ≡ 1(mod p). For example, pick ai randomly in the range 1…p − 1 and find bi ...
- 1,158
13
votes
Is automated and digitized ballot processing inherently more dangerous than manual pencil and paper?
The point here is trust and control.
If you can trust the digitized voting system, the risk of fraud and errors is much weaker than in a manual procedure. But... if you can trust...
In a manual ...
- 26.9k
10
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
Can't comment because I am newbie.
To add/comment @reeds and @securityOranges answers:
This seems like it could be easily done with switches as semi low tech option.
Make circuit such as:
Battery to ...
- 109
10
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
This is a really cool and interesting question. I really like this.
So, I think we should start by breaking down what you're trying to do in the most abstract, information theory-y way possible. Here'...
- 941
9
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
This improves securityOrange's thoughts, but in a more reliable form without waiting.
Chemical solution using a pH indicator
Let's look at different pH indicators, halochromic chemical compounds i.e. ...
- 19.4k
8
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
With household items:
Everyone prepares a glass of water, distilled would be best. If you want to vote no, dissolve any amount of salt in your glass. Everyone must stir their glass to prevent ...
- 181
8
votes
Is automated and digitized ballot processing inherently more dangerous than manual pencil and paper?
tl;dr– Voting requires a mix of privacy and publicity.
Simple solutions fail to provide both, while robust solutions would likely confuse voters.
I'd split possible electronic voting systems into ...
- 1,451
7
votes
Is automated and digitized ballot processing inherently more dangerous than manual pencil and paper?
Whether it is digitally automated or manually operated by hand, supply chain attack works in both cases regardless of the voting method used. Therefore, some level of trust has to be established with ...
- 6,971
6
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
Use layers of encryption, where each family member has a key to only one of the layers.
Step 1: Encryption
At the beginning of a vote, have one member of the family encrypt a simple message that says ...
- 217
6
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
Trying to keep this as low-tech as possible.
Everyone is given two small pellets, a steel BB and a plastic airsoft pellet (equal size but different composition).
Inside the voting booth are two slots,...
- 1,131
5
votes
Identifying a Cheater in Public Voting Campaign
My question is, is there anyway to lookup the owner of an IP address?
Yes, search for Reverse IP Lookup and you will find a couple free services with varying amount of information. It won't be that ...
- 55.5k
4
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
I think this problem can be solved in the following simple low-tech way. Give each voter two rocks, a heavy rock which stands for yes and a light rock which stands for no. Voting is done by putting ...
- 140
4
votes
Is automated and digitized ballot processing inherently more dangerous than manual pencil and paper?
Digital ballot processing is inherently worse because of the complexity and lack of the transparency compared to the good old paper and pencil approach. If paper is replaced with a fully digital ...
- 19.4k
4
votes
How can a "cosmic radiation bitflip" possibly change the election results?
Yes, it's physically possible to change anything at all by a high-energy particle hitting a computer chip in a certain way. It's not previsible, cannot be done on purpose, you cannot guarantee what ...
- 55.5k
3
votes
Online Political Voting System
This system allows people to sell their votes.
Take the envelope and show it to the vote buyer, who now knows the voter's three numbers.
Vote.
The vote buyer can now check how you voted by ...
- 131
3
votes
Accepted
Possible setup for a direct democracy voting system to prevent fraud
It sounds like you may be asking about in person or online voting, so I will provide some info in both areas.
General
I would read the research from past conferences such as USNIX EVT/WOTE. DefCon ...
- 9,821
3
votes
Possible setup for a direct democracy voting system to prevent fraud
In a perfect way you can't. There is always a group of people that could conspire to rig the system. It isn't feasible to allow every member of the public the opportunity to manually vet and observe ...
- 11k
3
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
What you're asking is a system that outputs V = v(1) AND v(2) AND ... AND v(n) where v(i) is the binary vote of the same person. By DeMorgan Law, V = NOT W where W = w(1) OR w(2) OR ... OR w(n) and w(...
- 249
3
votes
How could I make the results of a yes/no vote inaccessible unless it's unanimous in the affirmative, without a trusted third party?
Get some plywood, some small felt (or other soft, non-noisy) balls that are indistinguishable from one another, and some wood screws. Build a box with two holes in the front, one marked "Leave&...
- 270
3
votes
Is automated and digitized ballot processing inherently more dangerous than manual pencil and paper?
Other jurisdictions have different systems and here in England it would be all-but impossible to interfere with the counting of paper ballots, because it's so simple.
Tellers are invited from various ...
- 142
3
votes
Is automated and digitized ballot processing inherently more dangerous than manual pencil and paper?
A very important aspect of the elections (and the democracy as a whole) is that the general public (or electorate) should be able to understand the whole process.
You don't need them to be actually ...
- 3,608
2
votes
Identifying a Cheater in Public Voting Campaign
That's the big problem with anonymous online voting. You can not ensure that each vote was cast by a different person.
When you have no other form of user authentication (like personalized accounts ...
- 49.6k
2
votes
Accepted
Anonymity of ballots when voting with BYCRYPT hashes
You shouldn't make public your users' hashed passwords, even if they were hashed using a strong algorithm like bcrypt. An attacker could easily download them and bruteforce them, and recover some of ...
- 14.7k
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