[kwlug-disc] Say No To Electronic Voting ...

[Doug Moen]

The problem with Belarus is not the use of paper votes. The problem is the constitutional order, where power is vested not in the citizens, but in a strong-man president who is elected at infrequent intervals. This is a holdover from the era of kings, and it is a recipe for corruption, as has been seen repeatedly all over the world.

Once again, I urge you to consider the Swiss constitutional order.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/x6hpkYyzMG6Bf8T3W/swiss-political-system-more-than-you-ever-wanted-to-know-i

Switzerland does not have a strong-man president. Instead, it has a governing council of 7 people, nominated by different parties. The President role rotates between different council members, who each serve one year terms. The President's role is not a powerful one.

A conventional argument I've heard in favour of a strong-man president is that only a strong-man can quickly take the necessary decisions needed in a crisis. The reality is that Switzerland acted significantly more quickly than Canada or the United States in bringing in lock-down rules to deal with the pandemic, and they are now better off as a result.

Doug Moen.

On Thu, Aug 20, 2020, at 6:10 AM, Chris Frey wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 08, 2020 at 08:47:51AM -0400, Mikalai Birukou via kwlug-disc wrote:
> > Verification in election means that voter can verify that vote is correctly
> > recorded. Voting system becomes an oracle that answers some question, and
> > depending, on the answer you can tell that vote is correctly recorded.
> > 
> > Let's combine human coercion setting with oracle:
> > 
> > 1) Coercer has access to voter's voting material, ids, keys, etc.
> > 
> > 2) Coercer uses voting material together with expected, coerced vote values
> > to form a request to an oracle.
> > 
> > 3) Coercer checks oracle's reply. Reply indicates if voter put expected
> > vote, or not. Thus, coercer checks if victim did "the right thing", closing
> > coercion loop of information, i.e. verification by an attacker.
> 
> I suspect you're right.  When I boil down the requirements list for this
> hypothetical voting system, I get:
> 
> Requirements:
>  1) government gets to determine if a person is eligible to vote
>  2) all votes verifiable by all citizens, in order to:
>     a) make sure your own vote was counted and correct
>     b) make sure everyone else's vote was counted and correct
>     c) make sure no votes were added to the results from invalid sources
>     d) make sure no votes were counted twice
>     e) make sure that spoiled ballot votes are properly counted
>  3) no one can trace a given voting choice back to the voter, only the fact
>     that he voted
>  4) no one can trace a voter to his voting choice, only the fact that he voted
>  5) no voting done online, since coercion could happen in real time during
>     the voting process at home or at work or anywhere with internet access
> 
> Verdict: Self-contradictory, impossible, and useless. Stick with paper ballots.
> 
> Of course, "impossible" these days is often just a matter of time. :-)
> 
> - Chris
> 
> 
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