
BitCongress – Decentralized Voting Platform - kawera
http://www.bitcongress.org/
======
matthewbauer
How does this prevent someone from voting more than once with different
addresses? The whole bandwagon onto Bitcoin doesn't seem valid in this case.
What can Bitcoin do to make online voting better? No matter what you're going
to need some external way to verify a user. Otherwise your votes are just
going to be a measure of computing power. That's not really useful in this
context.

~~~
buu700
Personally, I think the DMV should issue a private key to everyone in the US.

Aside from making the implementation of a remote/online voting system trivial,
it would rid us of the horribly broken way we've been using social security
numbers.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I agree, though I don't like the idea of them having a copy of my private key;
wouldn't it make more sense for you to give them a copy of your public key
after verifying that you are who you say you are, initially?

~~~
jimktrains2
Could you get a physical token with a random key that is unknown? Some ECC can
make use of random bits as a private key.

~~~
EthanHeilman
Physically Unclonable Functions (PUF) are what you are looking for.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_unclonable_function](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_unclonable_function)

~~~
pavel_lishin
Is there a way to verify that a piece of hardware is a PUF, and doesn't
contain some sort of trojan horse?

------
pavel_lishin
"How BitCongress works: Your Design Here"

[http://i.imgur.com/cgwTawB.png](http://i.imgur.com/cgwTawB.png)

And what's Axiomity? Is that the specific app meant to interact with the
BitCongress protocol? For that matter, what's BitCongress?

I feel like this was submitted to HN prematurely.

~~~
bobajeff
"Legislating, voting & budgeting all in one platform "

Sounds like what kickstarter should be or the key functionality of a working
DAO (Distributed Autonomous Organization).

------
nosuchthing
Hmm.. a vote system which is literally requires votes to be bought and paid
for?

&Why bitcoin specifically when there's dozens of other cryptocoin ledger
systems? Surely not marketing for BTC 'investors'.

also,

Borda Vote Count Method:

    
    
      Potential for tactical manipulation
    
      Tactical voting
    
    
      Like many other voting systems, the Borda count is vulnerable 
      to tactical voting. In particular, it is highly vulnerable 
      to the tactics of compromising and burying. Compromising: 
      voters can benefit by insincerely raising the position of 
      their second choice candidate over their first choice 
      candidate, in order to help the second choice candidate to 
      beat a candidate they like even less. Burying: voters can 
      help a more-preferred candidate by insincerely lowering the 
      position of a less-preferred candidate on their ballot. 
      
    
      An effective tactic is to combine these two strategies. 
      For example, if there are two candidates whom a voter 
      considers to be the most likely to win, the voter can 
      maximise his impact on the contest between these front 
      runners by ranking the candidate whom he likes more in 
      first place, and ranking the candidate whom he likes 
      less in last place. If neither front runner is his 
      sincere first or last choice, the voter is employing 
      both the compromising and burying tactics at once; if 
      many voters employ such strategies, then the result will 
      no longer reflect the sincere preferences of the 
      electorate.
    
    

As for open source voting software/projects, I'd recommend Liquid Feedback:

[http://www.liquidfeedback.org/](http://www.liquidfeedback.org/)

------
jimktrains2
I love the focus on accessibility! (considering I can't even view their
landing page without javascript).

~~~
pavel_lishin
You're not missing much; it's mostly placeholders.

------
masswerk
Obligatory link:

Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI)

~~~
nickpsecurity
That's a really good explanation and fits American attention span. He's
covered most critical stuff within 3 minutes. I'm keeping it. :)

------
rbalicki
Those who are interested in anonymous, secure voting should check out the
Dissent project (write up here: [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/dissent-a-
new-type-of-secur...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/dissent-a-new-type-of-
security-tool-could-markedly-improve-online-anonymity) )

------
evolve2k
Website too slow to load. Gave it a miss. Do you really need a interaction
heavy site just to explain your ideas?

------
bmm6o
Your votes going into a permanent public ledger seems like a bad idea, and the
decentralized part seems not useful. Building this on the block chain seems
like a solution in search of a problem. But surely they've given it some
thought - what am I missing?

~~~
pavel_lishin
Having your representatives' votes be on permanent record seems like a great
idea; having individual citizens' votes on record seems like a terrible idea.

~~~
bmm6o
Sure, but that doesn't require the block chain. You can get that with digital
signatures and a timestamp service.

------
Xorlev
VOTES PLACED: 0

Also, I'm on a fairly recent MBP Retina and that page is really laggy for me.
Chrome 47.0.2526.80

------
pavel_lishin
Will I be able to vote for representatives anonymously?

------
akorchemniy
Interesting idea. Website too confusing.

