[RL_Quine]

> How will identification work?

That's the whole problem, and always unsolved (because it's hard). You need to be able to ensure that votes are made by real people, that votes aren't duplicated, and that votes are included in a count. Some of this is easy, some of this is near impossible. None of this is solved by a blockchain, which is at its core simply a remarkably inefficient, if decentralized, timestamping system. When a "blockchain" is presented as a solution, ask why the trustworthiness of timestamping was holding back a particular technology before now.

[babyloneleven]

Also, if you rely on a third party to do identification for you, you simply don't need a blockchain.

Blockchain is heavily constrained by the vital requirement of not trusting any third party whatsoever. If you relax this, you can build much simpler systems that are equally secure regarding non-repudiation and other properties but doesn't need proof of work.

[toomuchtodo]

Blockchain has one genuine purpose: value transactions where you can't rely on societal legal framework, nor do counterparties trust each other. "Silk Road".

[orblivion]

ZCash (from what I can understand of it) seems like it could be the basis to use. Suppose everyone sets up a wallet and they get paid one ZVoteCoin at voter registration. Then they go home and do a shielded transaction (you didn't even mention anonymity) to their favored candidate. Their wallet should tell them that the transaction went through.

[RL_Quine]

Your solution doesn't provide a solution to the core problem.

How do you identify that voters have a vote, and people that shouldn't have a vote didn't vote.

[orblivion]

> How do you identify that voters have a vote

The voters can see that their own transaction went through. Administrators (and everyone else) can count total votes cast at the end of the elections by the balances of the candidates' wallets. That's at least as good as paper ballots in this specific respect.

> and people that shouldn't have a vote didn't vote.

The voter's wallet can be tied to the voter's registration. Again, at least as good as what we have now, in this specific respect.

I think I've just made a more elaborated restatement of what I already said. Could you identify a specific hole in my system? You could point to voting software _in general_ being a bad idea, and that's fair enough. But it doesn't sound like that's what you were saying.

[acdha]

> The voters can see that their own transaction went through.

How do you prevent vote selling and coercion?

[dumbmatter]

At least it'd be no worse than we have now with voting my mail.

[misterdoubt]

Concerns about vote selling and coercion are already gone. It's practically impossible to actually prevent people from filming their votes as they are cast, and livestreaming my vote to you is just as good as having you sit in my doorway for it.

[the_snooze]

The beauty of paper ballots is you can spoil them and get a new blank sheet. Sure, livestream yourself filling out your ballot. That doesn't mean you actually cast that ballot. The poll workers will tell you to put your camera away when you're outside the booth on the way to the ballot box.

[acdha]

I don't know where you live but all of the polling places around me are very clear about not allowing photography. Similarly, someone who has pressure to vote a different way has the option of taking that picture to show to their boss and then getting a new ballot after voiding the old one.

[orblivion]

Yeah I can't solve that part :-P Is this what people mean by "the identification problem"? I must have misunderstood.

[hanniabu]

I don't believe they'll be able to prove they voted for a candidate without giving away their keys.

[acdha]

If your boss, union leader, controlling spouse, etc. tells you to vote a certain way, they would gain the ability to demand that you give them your identifier if it's public or, if not, login and show them the final vote status. This is very hard to detect and anyone proposing a blockchain needs to learn why election systems are designed the way they are first since this is not a hypothetical problem.

[orblivion]

They could sell or rent the keys though.

[lallysingh]

Use the registration system we have now, where you give each voter a token (literally, even if you want - a qr code on a paper card) to vote?

I don't know why arguing that blockchain doesn't magically solve all your problems means that it can't be used to solve any of them.

[Donzo]

We can even still have voting at registered polling places with judges.

But, instead of throwing our votes into a magic black box, how about we put them on a blockchain and receive a way to audit our own votes?

[vngzs]

This appears reasonable. Votes are anonymous. Every person gets one vote. The software basically always works.

I would scrap the whole "mobile ID" thing, however. You should fill out a voter registration card to get a unique private key that is imported into your wallet.

[avmich]

I'm afraid there are too many ways this may not work, but I'd be more interested in figuring if there are other similarly fundamental problems to online voting.

[RL_Quine]

https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec08/tech/full_papers/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting

You might want to look at some of the issues solved by Helios. Its showing its age at this point but the fundamental design goals are the same as if it were designed today.