[phippsbrad]

Sorry, but this sounds like just another silicon valley startup, living in their own little bubble, thinking that their special code can "change the world".

Imagine a log of transactions (a blockchain) confirming that Clinton got 1.5 million popular votes. That has ZERO effect on the Electoral College selecting Trump. So why even bring the election up? This guy might as well say that "a blockchain could stop the Patriot Act and the NSA wiretaps". No, it couldnt. Real political change happens through laws, constitutional ammendments, and court decisions. No amount of electronic blockchains will change that fact.

[heliumcraft]

I'm not saying it would affect the electoral college or electing some politician that I do or do not like. Some problems are entirely due to human nature, have been with us for a long time and will likely stay with us for a long time regarless of technology.

However It would certainly be nice to vote online yet anonymously, confident that I can see in a public secure ledger that my voted was counted as a intended and that no cheating or voting manipulation (on the ledger level) took place.

[acdha]

Consider that vision from the perspective of historical voter coercion attacks: how would that not provide the perfect way for an employer, church, union, controlling spouse, etc. to demand to see how you voted?

This is the same problem with Bitcoin privacy advocacy: it's a brittle design and the failure mode is complete, undeniable loss of privacy.

[heliumcraft]

The voting would using a cryptographic system to ensure confidentiality.

The coercion attack is an interesting problem but something that is already illegal but cannot be fully prevented. IMO it outweights the disadvantages of a centralized voting database that can be easily changed by a sys admin.

[acdha]

How would that magic crypto work? Remember, it needs to stop both willful vote selling and coerced checking.

Your second paragraph ignores the fact that the current system of anonymous ballots prevents the problem quite well, as evidenced by fraud rates measured in single-digit-per-billion levels, and paper ballots allow recounts without any use of computers and have the nice effect of making tapering a physically-diverse hard problem requiring a conspiracy involving far more people.

[heliumcraft]

See zk-snarks, zcash, homomorphic encryption, etc..

Let's not make this an accidental strawman.. My second paragraph is referring to electronic and internet voting solutions vs decentralized/blockchain solutions and NOT traditional in person voting with independent observers, etc..

[acdha]

> See zk-snarks, zcash, homomorphic encryption, etc..

Can you specify precisely how those work to prevent this problem? Remember, this is harder than trying to prevent a third-party from identifying users because the system has to survive collusion by the user.

[grogenaut]

Sure but what your are really saying is it'd be awesome if the election results were cryptographically and anonymously verifiable by the voters. Of which the block chain is merely one solution.

How do you get valid voting credentials to nontechnical voters such that they can anonymously vote and verify?

[heliumcraft]

Indeed. I'm not claiming the blockchain is the only solution, but currently it's a pretty good one. I would hope for a centralized solution actually if that would help adoption and prevent voting fraud.

> How do you get valid voting credentials to nontechnical voters such that they can anonymously vote and verify?

That has to do with identity systems (see uPort, onename) and is an interesting & open problem.