[EM] March 29 Newsweek article on verifiable voting

Adam Tarr atarr at purdue.edu
Sun Apr 4 23:13:02 PDT 2004


Dave Ketchum wrote:

> >> How about leaning on IMPORTANT topics:
> >>
> >> How well do these schemes attend to voter secrecy?
> >>      Without secrecy, voters can sell "voting right" to those willing
> >> to pay for such.
> >>      Without assurance that secrecy is being maintained, voters can
> >> PROPERLY fear that, if they dare to vote "wrong", this may be known
> >> and result in punishment.
> >>
> >> Voters NEED the right to inspect those boxes labeled "voting machines"
> >> to verify whether they properly let the voters indicate their desires
> >> and report proper counts at end of election.
> >
> >
> > This dichotomy is directly addressed by David Chaum in "Secret-Ballot
> > Receipts:
> > True Voter-Verifiable Elections"
> > (http://www.voterverifiable.com/article.pdf).  The Article is very
> > accessible and the idea is very well thought out; I recommend everybody
> > who is concerned with these issues take a look at it.
> >
>Seems to be a DISCONNECT.
>
>You seem to believe his pretty printing makes it unnecessary to do the 
>validation I ask for so:

Not at all...

>      1.  NOTHING about my topic in the article.

The receipt you get is for all intents secret, since it cannot be verified 
by anyone else.

The voter can verify that their vote was counted.

This seemed, to me, to address the issues you were concerned with...

>      2.  NOTHING to make me believe the inspection I ask for is not needed!

Indeed, nothing at all.  It just does it a different way than you are implying.

I remember hearing on this list about another scheme that had been 
developed along the lines of the link I provided, but without the annoyance 
of the multi-layered ballot.  Sort of reducing this idea down to the 
principles of encryption that underlie it.

The Sequoia system of a sealed paper receipt, behind glass, is a good one 
as well.




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