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from the massively-multiplayer-online-real-power-game dept.
Computer scientist David Jefferson at Lawrence Livermore National Labs has some critical things to say about the concept of voting online:
Contrary to popular belief, the fundamental security risks and privacy problems of Internet voting are too great to allow it to be used for public elections, and those problems will not be resolved any time soon, according to David Jefferson, who has studied the issue for more than 15 years.
Jefferson, a computer scientist in the Lawrence Livermore’s Center for Applied Scientific Computing, discussed his findings in a recent Computation Seminar Series presentation, entitled “Intractable Security Risks of Internet Voting.” His study of Internet voting issues is independent of his Lawrence Livermore research work.
Nonetheless, he reminded the audience that “election security is a part of national security,” noting that this is a primary reason he is so passionate about this issue. “I am both a technical expert on this subject and an activist,” Jefferson emphasized in his introductory remarks. “Election security is an aspect of national security and must be treated as such.”
https://www.llnl.gov/news/security-risks-and-privacy-issues-are-too-great-moving-ballot-box-internet
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheLink on Friday March 13 2015, @06:55PM
0) Convincing enough of the losers that they have lost.
If a voting system can't meet that requirement it's a waste of time and resources and could make things even worse.
So while there are fancy crypto techniques that can be used to implement a secure online voting system, these systems are unlikely to satisfy that requirement.
In contrast this requirement can be satisfied by a simple paper ballot box system where voters and observers can see the votes go in, not go anywhere and get counted one by one in front of their preferred side's representatives/electoral monitors/observers. Some magician could tamper with the votes, but you'd need magicians in enough polling stations.