[EM] 3ballot - revolutionary new protocol for secure secret ballot elections

[Juho]

On Oct 11, 2006, at 2:58 , David Cary wrote:

> --- Dave Ketchum <davek at clarityconnect.com> wrote:
>
>> ps, As to privacy, I read of video-camera phones.  Their usage has
>> to be tricky - can they verify a voter's actual vote as such
> without
>> voting machine operation being set up compatible with such?
>>
>> ps, quoting:  "I doubt there is a voting system in existence that
>> is immune from enough vote verification to support vote buying or
>> coercion" The lever machines I have been voting on all my life are
>> immune, for they keep NONE of the records of interest.
>
> If a voter wants to document how she voted, I was thinking in terms
> of her taking a short video showing herself, the relevant details of
> her marked ballot, and her casting that ballot as her vote.  Such
> documentation can certainly be falsified or made to be deceptive.
> But as long as for most people such countermeasures cost more in
> time, effort, and expertise than they are worth, such documentation
> is probably sufficient for a vote buying scheme. It could work
> regardless of whether she was casting her ballot with pen and paper,
> an electronic touch screen machine, or a mechanical voting machine.
>
> I suppose a voting mechanism could be divised that would resist video
> documentation, but I doubt it would be sufficiently usable for most
> people.
>
> -- Dave Cary

I just wrote some comments also to Dave Ketchum on the risks of video  
but I'll try to summarise them here (and add something too).

Defences against video camera recording (and associated vote buying  
and coercion)
- Formally ban video cameras and cameras and any recording
     - This at least helps coerced voters to say that they were not  
allowed to record the voting event
     - This also makes it ok for other people to remind their fellow  
citizens if they try to break the rule
- The voting machines could be put in open space where one can see  
what the voter does but not how she votes
- One could use electronic equipment that reveals any working  
electronic devices
     - Maybe one should leave also cellular phones etc. to the voting  
officials when voting
     - Walking through a metal detector could be implemented

Maybe this level of control is already paranoic, but let's first  
study all the extreme ways to implement the security and then decide  
what is really needed. :-)

Juho Laatu

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com