On 3/5/22 17:52, Russ Allbery wrote:
Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> writes:And then, early 2022 is not the time for rushed changes like this, which is also why I explicitly want to see "keep the status quo" on the ballot, and not only as "NOTA", but as a real option.We've been talking about secret votes for about nine months now, so I'm not sure "rushed" is the word that you're looking for. Concretely, it's leaving me unclear what would make the change feel not rushed to you. I understand if you are opposed to secret voting in general, but this feels like a different objection than general opposition to the idea. Could you be a bit clearer about what would make a proposal not rushed (whether or not you would then support it)? Are you specifically asking that we agree on the full details of implementation before passing a GR allowing for it? Or something else?
Hi Russ,Thanks for raising the topic. It's a way more difficult one than many may think, so let's dive into it.
When considering a voting system, there are a few important things to consider [1]:
1- vote-privacy: the fact that a particular voter voted in a particular way is not revealed to anyone. 2- Receipt-freeness: a voter does not gain any information (a receipt) which can be used to prove to a coercer that she voted in a certain way. 3- Coercion-resistance: a voter cannot cooperate with a coercer to prove to him that she voted in a certain way. 4- Individual verifiability: a voter can check that her own ballot is included in the election's bulletin board. 5- Universal verifiability: anyone can check that the election outcome corresponds to the ballots published on the bulletin board. 6- Eligibility verifiability: anyone can check that each vote in the election outcome was cast by a registered voter and there is at most one vote per voter.
If I understand well the problem, we can't have all of the above. That's technically not possible, with the current state of knowledge on earth. I haven't read enough on the topic, but I believe that's the case. If anyone has read more and would like to explain, please do...
The current proposal, if I understand well, is that we would like to enforce 1- and 3-. I'm somewhat ok with it, but I very much value 4-, 5- and 6- above 1-, 2- and 3-.
I am unsure about what Holger has in mind, but for me, yes, I do want to know about the full details of implementation to make sure we have 4-, 5- and 6-, which we currently have with a fully public voting system. Just voting on "I want my vote to be secret" without having any information about the other properties is IMO completely silly and looses the point.
Cheers, Thomas Goirand (zigo) [1] Taken from http://www.lsv.fr/Projects/anr-avote/RAPPORTS/deliv1-2.pdf