
Moscow may use Ethereum based voting blockchain system in upcoming election - bjflanne
https://tomluongo.me/2018/02/21/moscow-begins-crypto-elections-testing-thumbs-nose-at-u-s/
======
apo
I'm generally pessimistic about the desirability and utility of block chain
voting systems.

Spend any amount of time around Bitcoin beginners and the one of the recurring
themes will be lost private keys.

And "lost" includes countless thefts through network-based attacks aided and
abetted by people conditioned for years to take computer security lightly.

If voting identities are controlled by private keys, then voters will lose
their voting rights left and right.

Worse, just because an election is "on a block chain" doesn't mean that voter
fraud isn't being committed. For example, buying and selling cryptographic
voter identities could become a very lucrative industry.

~~~
vlovich123
In addition to all that, pretty sure Ethereum isn't anonymous. Since the
public keys are presumably registered with the government can not only tell
who you voted for, stuffing the ballot box becomes trivially easy by just
registering a bunch of fake public keys for which you control the private
keys. Maybe some of these problems could be solved by generating the key at
the ballot box & just throwing away the private key, but then I fail to see
what addition a blockchain provides as you still need to verify the public
keys are valid first.

~~~
prepend
The keys aren’t known to an individual. They are used as a way for citizens to
confirm that their vote was counted.

An example- go to the poll. Cast a vote and get a print out with a private
key.

Go home and check the blockchain to make sure your vote is recorded. If your
vote is missing, report somewhere official with your sheet of paper.

There’s lots of variations, but anonymity is only given up if your vote is
missing. Then you just vote again. Smart contracts make sure your original
lost vote can’t be applied.

The US needs something like this because currently our digital voting leave no
record and there’s no way for an individual to confirm their vote was counted
accurately.

~~~
tom_mellior
> Cast a vote and get a print out with a private key. Go home and check the
> blockchain to make sure your vote is recorded.

Apart from the problem that this enables vote buying or coercion, it also:

(a) is a good use for a public database, but putting that public database on
the blockchain is just a useless complication of things; and

(b) only addresses part of the problem: yes, any voter's vote is counted; but
is everything that's counted an actual person's unique vote? That is, this
doesn't protect against ballot stuffing by multiple voting or by simply faking
database entries.

Overall, not a terribly good approach, and even if it were, no need to
"blockchain" it.

~~~
prepend
a) it’s really inefficient, but necessary to make sure every vote is counted.
It’s not a database per se, just a record.

b) I don’t think vote stuffing is solved by blockchain as that requires more
work at polling site, audit of voting software, etc. but that’s an existing
problem that is a higher risk by citizens not knowing if their vote is
counted. A blockchain voting solution doesn’t solve all problems, just some of
them.

There are likely better approaches. I was just responding to the question of
how this could help and why useful since someone upstream was worried about
anonymity.

~~~
tom_mellior
> it’s really inefficient, but necessary to make sure every vote is counted.
> It’s not a database per se, just a record.

I don't see why it would be necessary to have a blockchain. It would work just
as well for the election authority to publish the official database of all
votes and everybody ensuring that their vote is in that database.

> There are likely better approaches. I was just responding to the question of
> how this could help and why useful since someone upstream was worried about
> anonymity.

Right. The approach with a personal verification key is a good one.

~~~
prepend
What if I don’t trust the election authority? Having a public ledger as each
vote is recorded is really powerful (or a smart contract for all votes to be
countable whenever polls close).

It would also reduce the ability to pad with votes after the fact. Would help
for analysis of any abnormalities (eg, five times population voting, stuff
like that).

I think it becomes more useful the less trustworthy the government (eg,
Russia).

------
sparky_
> I can almost hear the screams of terror from the Democratic party in the
> U.S. as I type those words. They know they’ll never win a national or state-
> wide election again without ballot stuffing, voter bussing and illegal
> immigrants voting multiple times.

It's hard to take such a blog seriously when they cannot refrain from even the
most captious of emotional remarks.

~~~
vr46
Came here to post exactly this. What the hell? Post suddenly makes a right
turn into Lunatic Alley.

~~~
uniformlyrandom
Suddenly?

------
fncypants
_Using an existing program called Active Citizen, the city of Moscow has been
allowing residents to cast votes for measures ranging from the name of their
new metro train to the color of the seats in a new sports arena._

Why is this even on the front page? This is not _Russia... moving towards a
transparent, functioning democratic system._

~~~
avmich
Yeah, the whole article reads as if from another planet :) . Disregarding
known problems of electronic voting, which aren't mentioned here - what Russia
he's talking about? What fair elections could be on federal level or in Moscow
these days?..

------
hitekker
This is not a vote of confidence for Ethereum.

------
joejerryronnie
Is voting even a thing in Russia? I thought it was "place your x next to Putin
or one of his friends if you don't want to find yourself in a Siberian Gulag".

~~~
vbezhenar
Yes, voting is a thing in Russia. No, you won't find yourself in Siberian
Gulag (what is it?). Just because most of Russia citizens chose Putin doesn't
mean that there's something wrong with voting. He's considered by most people
as best president of Russia since Stalin, so it shouldn't be a surprise that
Russian people like him (and, of course, enemy governments trying to paint him
black, because he's not bowing before them anymore).

IT crowd, of course, won't agree. Well, too bad, because minority does not
dictate to majority in democracy. Before US elections it was hard to find
anyone who would be pro-Trump, everyone was liberal. It gave the impression
that Clinton should have 99% of votes. Well, it didn't work that way, it
turned out that there are a lot of citizens who voted for Trump, even if they
didn't post a lot on hacker news. It's the same with Putin. Older people vote
for him. Government and state workers vote for him. Businessmen vote and
support him. Of course few loud liberals will shout everywhere about unfair
elections, but it doesn't mean that they are really unfair. Putin's support is
enormous in Russia, like it or not. You may call it brainwash or whatever, it
won't help. There's no other leader who worth a vote.

Sorry, I hate political posts, but such naiveté makes me cry. No, there are no
Gulags in Russia, if you really think this way, your brain was washed by
western propaganda even more than average Russian's brain.

~~~
olegious
You're being downvoted because most people that don't know Russia's post USSR
history blindly follow the propaganda without questioning why many blue collar
Russians would actually be pro-Putin.

~~~
mantas
Or because people see Stalin as Hitler' buddy. Even in ironic way, Putin is
nowhere near close to Stalin.

