[OT] voting survey

[Kimball Larsen]

- Kimball
http://www.kimballlarsen.com

On Mar 24, 2008, at 11:21 AM, Jonathan Duncan wrote:

>
> 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.


Heh.  You said "fool-proof website".


-- Kimball