Re:What's Blockchain Good For, Anyway? For Now, Not Much
by belltaco on Monday October 28, 2019 @09:27PM
(#21383522)
They'd have to publish the ledger in real time and/or instantly show how those 10 to 20 voters voted, to the voter, for this to be effective. Otherwise whoever is paying or blackmailing that voter can ask the voter to mark their id and hand or transmit it to them immediately. They can later verify that the vote was given to the right choice once the ledger is published and take appropriate action for or against the voter. Voter cannot easily fake their choice, and in the case of blackmail, consequences for bad luck can be bad.
Edit: If you do show all 20 votes, you'd have to have votes for all candidates on them.
Also if someone is trying to manipulate a bunch of votes, they'd run into dupes and know one is lying.
Re:What's Blockchain Good For, Anyway? For Now, Not Much
by aeternum on Tuesday October 29, 2019 @12:14AM
(#21384207)
Right, you would have to include a vote for each candidate in the set returned to the voter and generate the set in near realtime, at least for the first voters in each precinct.
Neither of those however should be difficult with electronic voting systems.
1) Each voter enters the booth and a computer immediately generates a random number, let's call it a transient voter ID. The computer then prints out their number shuffled in with 10-20 other (real) transient voter IDs. User takes the printout and notes the position of their number.
2) Voter makes their selections, and their vote is recorded by the software.
3) At the end of the election, the ledger of all transient voter IDs and the accompanying vote is published.
Voters can confirm that their ID is present in the list, along with the correct candidate choice, and that the final totals were summed correctly. The general public can also spot-check that the appropriate number of votes per precinct are present. Yet since the printout includes 20+ other IDs, no one can prove conclusively who they voted for. The computer could ensure that at least one vote for each candidate is included on the printout.
There's really no need to trust the software since the vote ledger is fully published (also no need for blockchain).