[OT] voting survey

[Jonathan Duncan]

On 24 Mar 2008, at 10:20, Von Fugal wrote:
> <quote name="Levi Pearson" date="Fri, 21 Mar 2008 at 14:53 -0600">
>> I agree with the goal of the above system, but it does have a flaw
>> with respect to another important property of a voting system.  It
>> should be impossible to definitively associate a person with the
>> particular votes they cast after they leave the voting booth.  This
>> prevents coerced voting and vote selling, since it becomes impossible
>> to verify that the votes were cast as the voter claims.
>
> I feel kinda silly, but I've never heard or thought of the vote  
> selling
> side of it. I merely focused on the coercion side, it's impossible for
> others to know what you voted. Indeed, it's also important that you
> cannot verify who you voted for after the fact. Although as you state
> below, it should be possible to verify that it wasn't changed!
>
>> I believe that the above property can be combined with assurance that
>> your vote is tallied without tampering, and I think I've read a paper
>> on a system that provides a method, but I don't recall the details.
>
> Thanks Levi for that thoughtful and informative post.
>

I am lazy.  I want to stay on my couch in my living room with my  
laptop comfortably on my lap.  I want to vote from a web site that I  
can access from anywhere.  That way if I am in Tahiti on election day,  
I can still vote.  That way, if I am in the military, I do not have to  
vote "Absentee".  This is the time of that big Intarweb thing.  Why  
not use it?  Nobody checks my identity when I vote at current polling  
stations.  Voting online could be just as secure or insecure.  Keep  
some polling stations open with a laptop available for people who just  
have not gotten around to buying one of those durnfangled comp u tarz  
and downloading that In Tar Web thing onto it.  Or better yet, just  
tell people to go to the library.  Why purchase more equipment for  
voting.  Most people have the equipment they need already.  Just make  
one fool proof web site, probably cost the same amount of money as all  
those polling machines and manning the polling stations.