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A comment on DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System. Parent comment

Re:DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System by zepolen on Thursday March 14, 2019 @07:14PM (#19394851)
This is how it actually works:

1. Mobster goes in to vote but doesn't put it in the box - he takes the blank ballot paper outside with him.

2. He fills the vote on the ballot and gives it to the coerced voter 1. He expects a blank ballot back, or else. He has his goons watching the voter throw the real ballot in the box, or else.

3. Using the new blank ballot he goes to coerced voter 2, and the cycle continues.

Of course this is hard to scale.

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Re:DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System by jacques_chester on Thursday March 14, 2019 @07:24PM (#19394930)
This scheme is prevented by having scrutineers appointed by multiple candidates. Australia does this and it works well.
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Re:DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System by zepolen on Thursday March 14, 2019 @07:36PM (#19395006)
How would they stop that?
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Re:DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System by jacques_chester on Thursday March 14, 2019 @07:43PM (#19395058)
By having dozens of people watching everything except the actual marking of the ballot. Scrutineers are highly motivated: they want to catch the other candidate cheating.

I've been a scrutineer in a polling room. I could watch and challenge anything except the marking of a ballot. And I did. So did other scrutineers. The odds of the mobster keeping a rotating scheme without detection approach zero with great rapidity, especially since staying in the ballot after casting your vote is not permitted.

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Re:DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System by snowwrestler on Thursday March 14, 2019 @10:38PM (#19395961)
Yup. In the U.S. they are generally called poll watchers.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/10/29/politics/poll-watchers-moni...

Also, a voter who is being intimidated by a mobster could just walk up to a poll worker or police officer and report it.

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Re:DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System by zepolen on Thursday March 14, 2019 @10:29PM (#19395917)
He wouldn't stay in the ballot - he'd pocket the slip and take it outside...
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Re:DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System by jacques_chester on Thursday March 14, 2019 @11:03PM (#19396077)
Returning to my point, which is that he'd need to do this without anyone noticing.

A bit difficult since there are officials watching you put the ballot into the box. Or, gee, that's weird, failing to put the ballot into the box.

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Re:DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System by zepolen on Monday March 18, 2019 @05:12AM (#19419628)
Couldn't they put a random piece of paper in the ballot box?

What happens if a white piece of paper is found? Do all the votes in the box get cancelled?

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