Hacker News

Because Republicans in the US want to create credential based voting, and then selectively make obtaining the credentials more difficult for groups that don't historically vote Republican.

It's essentially a modernized, technical jargon couched version of Jim Crow laws. I don't know why the Swiss are doing it here.

Sure you can, you just need an anonymous voting mechanism that's sufficiently naive. You use the verifiable process to restrict access to that anonymous mechanism.

In Canada, at both federal and provincial levels, you walk up to a desk and identify yourself, are crossed off a list, and handed a paper ballot. You go behind a screen, mark an X on the ballot, fold it up, take it back out to another desk, and put it in the box. It's extraordinarily simple.

> At some point, you have to give someone access to a database and they can change that database.

Well, that kind of fraud is a different issue from someone reading the database and figuring out who someone voted for (you just... don't record identities in the database).

The USA threads the needle by simply not having verifiable voting. And it turns out it works pretty well. Despite countless hours and lawsuits dedicated to finding people who voted more than once, only a handful of cases have actually turned up.

It's not that there are no checks. You have to give your name, and they know if you've voted more than once at that station that day. To vote more than once you'd have to pretend to be somebody else, in person, which means that if you're caught you will go to jail.

We could certainly do better, but thus far all efforts to defeat this non-problem are clearly targeted at making it harder for people to vote rather than any kind of election integrity.

You should care how much maths and encryption you use [0][1], because this is not only possible, but there are multiple approaches.

[0] https://satoss.uni.lu/members/jun/papers/CSR13.pdf

[1] https://fc16.ifca.ai/voting/papers/ABBT16.pdf

You can have e-voting systems that protect ballot secrecy and are verifiable.

You can use homomorphic encryption or mixnets to prove that:

1) all valid votes were counted

2) no invalid votes were added

3) the totals for each candidate is correct

And you can do that without providing proof of who any particular voter voted for. A few such systems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting

https://www.belenios.org/

Authentication to these systems is another issue - there are problems with mailing people credentials (what if they discard them in the trash?).

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ontario-municipal-elections-o...

Estonia (a major adopter of online voting) solves this with the national identity card, which essentially is government issued public/private keys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_identity_card

Lots of cyber risks with the use of online voting though, especially in jurisdictions without standards/certification. I outline many in my thesis which explores the risks to online elections in Ontario, Canada (one of the largest and longest-running users of online voting in the world)

https://uwo.scholaris.ca/items/705a25de-f5df-4f2d-a2c1-a07e9...

Australia has a system where you are anonymous and can prove that you only voted once:

You have to be registered and must vote within your electorate, so your name appears on a certified list for that electorate and each voting location has that list. When you vote, they strike your name from the list.

After the election, the lists from these locations are compared. Anyone who votes twice has their name struck twice, and are investigated for electoral fraud.

Whether people know if you voted or not is immaterial, as voting is mandatory in Australia.

Works pretty well for a paper system.

There's a goverment issued public & private key right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_identity_card

> Until we all have government-issued public keys or something

That's actually pretty common in Europe. The Spanish DNI (national identity card) has a chip these days, which gives you an authenticated key pair for accessing digital services.

In the pilot project for digital voting, that identity is only used to authenticate the user, and then an anonymous key needs generated that can be used to cast the final vote.

What about this? Consider a toy system: everyone gets issued a UUID, everyone can see how every UUID voted, but only you know which one is your vote.

This is of course flawed because a person can be coerced to share their ID. In which case you could have a system in which the vote itself is encrypted and the encryption key is private. Any random encryption key works and will yield a valid vote (actual vote = public vote + private key), so under coercion you can always generate a key that will give the output that you want, but only you know the real one.

> South Africa gets around this by putting ink on your fingernail

This is true, but its used in other countries as well, as it's a simple, effective, low-tech, affordable process.

Most notably in India https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/02/style/india-elections-pur...

but also in many other countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_ink#International_use

> At some point, you have to give someone access to a database and they can change that database.

It's the only problem in existence that can be solved by the blockchain...

South Africa is in a somewhat similar situation of having a gigantic (1-10%, government is too broken to figure out where in that range) illegal immigrant population and poor access to paperwork for many citizens that would make any heavily scrutinized citizenship for registration lean heavily towards disenfranchisement of the poorer segments.

If you are doing paper voting why bother with voting machines at all? What's the benefit?

It is not even about understanding. It is about how easy it is to distrust it.

Contrary to what nerds think, the goal of elections isn't to get bulletproof results by mathematical standards. The goal is to create agreeable consent among those who voted. A good election system is one where even sworn enemies can begrudgingly agree on the result.

A paper ballot system has the advantage that it can be monitored by any group that has members which have mastered the skill of object permanence and don't lie. That is not everybody, but it is much better than any hypothetical digital system

Also e-voting can be hacked (I guess they vote from their computer/smartphone, which can be hacked from the other side of the world). The last place you want to care about phishing, IMO, is voting.

Good luck hacking in-person voting or even "physical" mail voting from the other side of the world.

The ballot voting process is also misunderstood by regular citizens, even nerdy ones. From experience, even by voting officials.

> That being said, I am in favor of in-person voting requiring proof of citizenship

I think this is fine if it also then means that obtaining a qualifying ID is treated as a no-cost and highly-accessible right for all citizens.

This is where such arguments tend to get stuck in the US. If you require proof of citizenship, but also have places where getting to a government office to get such an ID is difficult or expensive, then you are effectively restricting voting access for citizens. A measure to place stricter qualifications on voting access needs to also carefully consider and account for providing access to all citizens.

The US is a geographically very large place with worse public transportation options compared to many other countries, and with that comes differences in economic and accessibility considerations for things like "Just go to your county's office and get a qualifying ID."

I would guess most people don't have a proof of citizenship handy. This would get even worse if the effort to get rid of birthright citizenship succeeds, how would you even prove you are a citizen?

This would be less of a problem if the US had some sort of national ID issued by right, but we don't, and the same people pushing for requiring ID for voting would be against creating one. They hate the idea of a national ID.

My state does all elections by mail now. How would this even work?

All this is on top of the fact that elections are run by the states, not the national government. Would such a law even be constitutional?

I think a lot of what you argue might make sense for American elections where you're voting for an absolutely ridiculous number of things.

I'm not sure how it is in Switzerland, but in Canada I will vote for maybe three candidates in five years. And I don't mean three visits to the polls (though it's usually that), I mean three actual checkbox ticks for people to count. They're paper ballots and the counting is done that night. I think if we were stuck voting for like forty different races every two years it would be a very different story and a lot of what you say would resonate with me more. Except the voter registration stuff.

We're pretty flexible about registration up here and it works. My wife one year showed up with some mail that had her name/address, and me vouching for her. Though I think a lot of the luxuries of democracy are most easily enjoyed with a trusting, cooperative culture that isn't constantly wound up about being cheated by the others.

Please realize that Switzerland holds many votes per year. There is no big voting day where I have to go somewhere. I could go cast my ballot in person, but I can also fill out and send in my ballot in advance. That is entirely routine and part of my day like other paperwork.

The problem with e-voting is that it is much harder to validate. My paper ballot rests at a community building where it will be counted on the day of the vote. I can understand the process from start to finish in physical terms. Throw in a USB stick and anything could happen. It is possible we will never know what went wrong here.

i don’t think that requiring in-person “ID”-proofed voting and removing mail-in ballots (which is the best part of voting in CA) does anything to bring people back to reality…

Even if it were a holiday, people may not be able to travel or take time off from obligations. There’s no obligation to drive 2 hours to vote, to fly back if you work in another country, or to go get a new birth certificate because Real ID doesn’t prove citizenship even though you provide citizenship documents to it when you get one…

I’ve heard of a lot of takes here about what we should do for voting to make it “more secure” but all of this is actually a solution for a problem we just don’t have.

> That being said, I am in favor of in-person voting requiring proof of citizenship

The appropriate time to verify citizenship is the one that already happens: during registration. Poll workers only need to verify who you are and that you're registered.

We should at least start with electronic voting to compare it against real voting. I know there have been more smaller local tests, but they are not comparable.

> voting requiring proof of citizenship

Isn't this just a solution in search of a problem though? Multiple investigations have discovered absolutely minuscule amount of non-citizen voting in US elections. It's something that seems reasonable on its face but lacks any purpose and comes with an ulterior motive that it is part of the made up GOP talking points of a "stolen election" and "illegals voting".

Instead of full e-voting I would love to see an additional scheme to a traditional paper ballot that allows for verification. Something like STAR-Vote or Scantegrity. Even if it’s flawed, it would be nice to run specifically because it doesn’t affect the elections but could produce useful insights. If it fails - nothing particularly bad happens, if it works - cool, we get extra assurances or maybe spot some fraud that we weren’t aware about.

But there seems to be either no political will, or some issues with the practical implementations. There were some municipal experiments here and there, and then just… crickets. Anyone knows what happened to those efforts?

I'd agree in principle with your idea about proof of citizenship, but unfortunately the reality I experienced is I had a valid California driver's license with a Texas address because I had been in the military and California allowed that, but Texas changed their laws to require a Texas ID to vote, and subsequently they also closed 90% of the offices you have to go to to get an ID. Luckily, I knew about this way in advance, but it took 9 months to get an appointment, and when I got there, it required something like four different forms of proof. There were people in there who still lived with their parents who didn't have their own names on any bills bringing their parents in with them to vouch that they actually lived there, getting turned away and told to go fuck themselves. It was extremely transparent and obvious what the state was trying to do, not wanting young people and recent transplants to vote.

What would constitute a "proof of citizenship"? Would a passport be enough, for example?

>> requiring proof of citizenship

Go and try to figure out how to do this from scratch. Imagine your house burned down and you need to start with "nothing".

If your parents are still alive you can use them to bootstrap the process of getting those vital documents (or if you're married that can be another semi viable path).

Pitty if you don't have those resources. Furthermore it might get complicated for any partner who adopts their other partners last name (were talking about getting the documents, before you can get some sort of verified ID).

The reality is we don't have a lot of instances of "voter fraud" committed by people who aren't citizens (see: https://www.facebook.com/Louisianasos/posts/secretary-of-sta... as an example) . And the amount of voter fraud we do have is very small (and ironically committed by citizens see https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-widespread-is-electio... for some examples).

> I am in favor of in-person voting

Again, the size and dispersion of the American population makes this odious. Dense urban areas will face lines (they already do) and many of them (Chicago) have moved to early voting because spreading things out over many days is just more effective. Meanwhile places like Montana (where population density is in people per square mile) make travel to a location burdensome.

I get why you feel the way you do, but the data, the reality of America, makes what you desire unnecessary and impractical. Feelings are a terrible reason to erect this barrier when it makes little sense to do so.

Voter registration already requires proof of citizenship. What is the point of requiring that high bar of proof on the day of voting as well?

I used to be really angry that we still vote with paper and red pencil. The Netherlands is ultra digital after all!

But then they showed how easy it is to hack and we live in a world with evil countries like the US, China and Russia who want to destroy our way of life.

Voter ID is often touted as an important part of election security, but when you look at the threat model of elections it just doesn't do much. Think about how you would try to cheat at an election. The common methods are things like ballot stuffing, throwing out votes, discouraging people from voting, etc. Examples include spreading disinformation about what day voting is happening, seizing ballot boxes and replacing them with forged ballots that favor your candidate, or calling in bomb threats to polling places. These are not prevented by voter ID requirements.

The only thing voter ID prevents is voter impersonation. It prevents you from finding someone else's name and polling place, going there, pretending to be that person, and submitting a vote on their behalf. But that threat doesn't really scale. Even if you assume no one at the polling places notice you coming to vote over and over under different names, a single person could probably only do this a few dozen times on election day. To scale that you would need more people; and every person you add to the scheme increases the odds of someone slipping up or getting caught. But the real issue is if any of the people you are impersonating try to vote! While election officials don't record what people voted for, they do record who voted, and the ballot counting process will automatically note that people voted multiple times. So you would have to figure out some way to gather a database of a large number of people you know aren't going to vote, and get a bunch of people to turn up at a bunch of polling places under those names. It's just not practical to do, when elections are decided by thousands or tens of thousands of votes.

> how difficult it supposedly is to have an ID (which is weird when you look at how other countries run elections)

The devil is in the details. I don't trust that the groups drafting Voter ID legislation are doing so in good faith. For example, North Dakota passed a voter ID law years ago. It stated that you needed a valid state-issued ID that included a street address. Sounds fine, right? The problem is that most homes on Native American reservations don't actually have street addresses. Tribal members use P.O. boxes for mail, and that P.O. box is on their driver's licenses. This was brought up when the law was proposed, but it passed anyway. The Spirit Lake Nation and the Standing Rock Sioux tribes had to sue in federal court. They were eventually successful, but it took years, and in the meantime the 2018 midterms were held with many Native Americans literally unable to vote.

See https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/806083852/north-dakota-and-na...

> That being said for the United States, I am in favor of in-person voting requiring proof of citizenship

Why?

> I know there's a lot of discussion points around "efficiency" or "cost" or "accessibility" or how difficult it supposedly is to have an ID (which is weird when you look at how other countries run elections)

How do other countries run elections to overcome their racially motivated systemic voter suppression?

> and there are certainly things to discuss there

This is a laughable understatement.

> but by and large I think the continued digitalization and alienation of Americans is a much worse problem that can be addressed with more in-person activities and participation in society.

I think this is naive. You are attempting to force an outcome without understanding the cause. Systemic racially motivated voter suppression is an undeniable reality in American politics. Voter ID is a clear example of exactly that. It is used to disenfranchise minority voters. This is clear established fact.

There is zero evidence of any voter fraud happening that would be eliminated by additional voter ID.

This is a serious topic that requires you educate yourself on reality. I suggest you take your advice above and touch reality, you are overly digitalized if you think voter ID has any merit at all.

Switzerland has been very careful/ conservative about rolling out e-voting. The same cannot be said of other jurisdictions (like Ontario's municipal elections) where adoption is very rapid and without coordination/support/standards from the provincial or federal governments.

Had to truncate the title since too long for HN (often the case for the Register)

Brazil's e-voting does not allow voters to vote online from home on a personal computer (like in Switzerland). It has very different requirements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_Brazil

And they probably started with small-scale pilots, too.