<story><title>Debian decides to allow secret votes</title><url>https://lwn.net/Articles/889444/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>charcircuit</author><text>Electronic voting systems using zero knowledge proofs are superior to paper votes because it&amp;#x27;s possible to check for yourself that your vote was actually counted and not ignored.&lt;p&gt;Paper voting is extremely expensive to scale compared to a website that lets you vote. Everyone could get a notification on their phone when they are asked to vote on something as opposed to having to fill out paper and send it somewhere to be counted.</text></item><item><author>danuker</author><text>I am not familiar with Debian&amp;#x27;s practices, but electronic voting can&amp;#x27;t work for a nation because:&lt;p&gt;- centralization (there must be a central, corruptible place where the voters are authenticated or the votes are counted)&lt;p&gt;- software is untrustable: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.win.tue.nl&amp;#x2F;%7Eaeb&amp;#x2F;linux&amp;#x2F;hh&amp;#x2F;thompson&amp;#x2F;trust.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.win.tue.nl&amp;#x2F;%7Eaeb&amp;#x2F;linux&amp;#x2F;hh&amp;#x2F;thompson&amp;#x2F;trust.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The USA has had a Diebold voting scandal. Other countries are using a paper-based voting process which can be supervised by third parties.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Premier_Election_Solutions#Security_and_concealment_issues&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Premier_Election_Solutions#Sec...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Relevant watching: Tom Scott: Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;One possible solution could be ZCash ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eprint.iacr.org&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;585.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eprint.iacr.org&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;585.pdf&lt;/a&gt; ) but it has had its own problems ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.coindesk.com&amp;#x2F;zcash-team-reveals-it-fixed-a-catastrophic-coin-counterfeiting-bug&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.coindesk.com&amp;#x2F;zcash-team-reveals-it-fixed-a-catas...&lt;/a&gt; ).</text></item><item><author>the_lonely_road</author><text>Apparently by a single vote and the legitimacy of the vote is in question due to some technicality I didn&amp;#x27;t care to reread until I understood. What I don&amp;#x27;t understand is why the project is NOT already secret voting? Do not most free democratic countries practice &amp;#x27;secret ballot&amp;#x27; voting specifically because not doing so caused all kinds of problems like voter intimidation? I googled the first three that came to mind (france uk, usa) and they all seem to do so.&lt;p&gt;Anyone associated with the Debian project have any insight on why voting is not secret and&amp;#x2F;or any other large os projects doing the same that could chime in?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>grumbel</author><text>&amp;gt; it&amp;#x27;s possible to check for yourself that your vote was actually counted and not ignored.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s a bug, not a feature. The point of not doing that with paper voting is that it makes selling your vote difficult, as nobody else can verify what you voted for. You on the other side know that you put the ballot in the box and can stay around to see if the votes in the box get accurately counted.&lt;p&gt;With electronic voting you lose that. You either have to blindly trust the system or by allowing vote verification make it easy for others to sell the votes.</text></comment>
<story><title>Debian decides to allow secret votes</title><url>https://lwn.net/Articles/889444/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>charcircuit</author><text>Electronic voting systems using zero knowledge proofs are superior to paper votes because it&amp;#x27;s possible to check for yourself that your vote was actually counted and not ignored.&lt;p&gt;Paper voting is extremely expensive to scale compared to a website that lets you vote. Everyone could get a notification on their phone when they are asked to vote on something as opposed to having to fill out paper and send it somewhere to be counted.</text></item><item><author>danuker</author><text>I am not familiar with Debian&amp;#x27;s practices, but electronic voting can&amp;#x27;t work for a nation because:&lt;p&gt;- centralization (there must be a central, corruptible place where the voters are authenticated or the votes are counted)&lt;p&gt;- software is untrustable: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.win.tue.nl&amp;#x2F;%7Eaeb&amp;#x2F;linux&amp;#x2F;hh&amp;#x2F;thompson&amp;#x2F;trust.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.win.tue.nl&amp;#x2F;%7Eaeb&amp;#x2F;linux&amp;#x2F;hh&amp;#x2F;thompson&amp;#x2F;trust.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The USA has had a Diebold voting scandal. Other countries are using a paper-based voting process which can be supervised by third parties.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Premier_Election_Solutions#Security_and_concealment_issues&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Premier_Election_Solutions#Sec...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Relevant watching: Tom Scott: Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;One possible solution could be ZCash ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eprint.iacr.org&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;585.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eprint.iacr.org&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;585.pdf&lt;/a&gt; ) but it has had its own problems ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.coindesk.com&amp;#x2F;zcash-team-reveals-it-fixed-a-catastrophic-coin-counterfeiting-bug&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.coindesk.com&amp;#x2F;zcash-team-reveals-it-fixed-a-catas...&lt;/a&gt; ).</text></item><item><author>the_lonely_road</author><text>Apparently by a single vote and the legitimacy of the vote is in question due to some technicality I didn&amp;#x27;t care to reread until I understood. What I don&amp;#x27;t understand is why the project is NOT already secret voting? Do not most free democratic countries practice &amp;#x27;secret ballot&amp;#x27; voting specifically because not doing so caused all kinds of problems like voter intimidation? I googled the first three that came to mind (france uk, usa) and they all seem to do so.&lt;p&gt;Anyone associated with the Debian project have any insight on why voting is not secret and&amp;#x2F;or any other large os projects doing the same that could chime in?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>qsort</author><text>Paper voting ensures privacy and voter verification, something even the best electronic solutions can&amp;#x27;t properly handle. No thanks, I can actually show up and vote once every few years.</text></comment>