Bitcoin Forum

Can bitcoin technology be used to end election fraud globally?

no

and how come you imagine it is possible?

Nah, it might make the vote harder to rig.

Definitely.
It is far superior to any existing centralized systems.

Maybe an altcoin, BTC has enough bloating the blockchain already.

I didnt say bitcoin, I said bitcoin tech. Specifically blockchain tech.

Obviously it would need its own blockchain.

Cool idea, but difficult to implement.

It might be more fair than some of the current voting machines.

No shit and its not just about voting machines.

Just look at these violations in FL alone in 2010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida,_2000#Controversial_issues

Definitely, although implemented in a different fashion.
It is perfect to use as a voting mechanism.

Anyone who still believes in voting hasn't fully embraced where the Blockchain is headed.

Care to elaborate?

All governments exist by theft, fraud, murder, and a fiat "we do what we want" mentality.

Plus they do a very small number of things that are considered "services." These services usually amount to registering things, keeping records of things, etc. These services also justify all the theft, fraud, murder, and a fiat "we do what we want" mentality to many people.

Every "service" that governments claim to need a monopoly on can now be done with the blockchain, with far less waste, cheaper, quicker, and more securely and non-arguably with the blockchain.

MWD

I have seen voting work using the blockchain.

Though I have not implemented it in such a way as to be used in a current government type of election.

That is the past.

See my sig.

Yes, absolutely. There are several ways to go about this.

We are working on implementing a voting system directly into the DigiByte wallet. Votes will be broadcast through the block-chain and tallied in the next block for everyone to see. This is how we want to gauge what to work on next for development. True community decisions.

Now if we could figure out out to combine this with a decentralized exchange.... life would be perfect. If anyone would like to work on this we have a few ideas we have been kicking around. We have an idea to use the wallet as a background escrow for a decentralized market. Think we figured out how to do it with BTC/DGB. But how would you do decentralized with FIAT? ... Would be ripe for abuse. But yes, block chain in theory could be used to register votes for a general election.

Best part is anyone could audit the chain and verify the votes were cast as prescribed. Hell the more I think about this it is a great idea. Only problem is how would you keep people from voting multiple times?

The blockchain is a good idea when it comes to voting but heres a question:

Would you like the world to know what you are voting on?
Because for this to happen then obviously instead of a BTC address you would need to have real citizens IDs.

So would it work?

This is a valid point. Is there a way to verify people only vote once without revealing their identity?

It's a noble thought and the tech itself would be pretty much secure HOWEVER just google UK postal vote fraud, namely the head of household of certain cultures voting for a whole family and also registering false tenants for voting which is very common in certain "culturally enriched" parts of Britain.

Actually you can more or less.
Replace the citizen's ID with a member ID.
For this to work then it would have to be regulated.
Do you trust regulations?

I can probably write such an app if I had something to gain from it, but I don't.
I don't trust poly-tics!

hehe Indeed :)

Joseph Stalin told that "No matter who is voting. Matter who is counting the votes"

How do you stop bitcoins being spent multiple times?

That's accurate, from the point of view of the tyrant.

But from the viewpoint of the voter, what are your real choices now? A Democrat baby killer who wants to control everything including the Internet, or a Republican baby killer who wants to control everything including the Internet.

Bitcoin controlled by me and you  ;D

Remember my friend there is a big misconception in the community about decentralized exchanges or mechanisms.  The vehicle can ALWAYS be a decentralized mechanism but the mode of connectivity must ALWAYS be centralized.  The idea is astounding and it will undoubtedly be the future but it must be administered by a central authority.  Nothing will be 100% tamper proof however this model will reduce fraud ALOT!  Each person's ID just as voting works now would be required to vote.  Again this is not where most of the fraud occurs.

The distributed asset ledger of votes would be regarded by all and when real time forensics in instituted fraud would be greatly reduced.  The future is definitely here.

Indeed you are right.
And this is a problem with democracy -democracy means that citizens should have a gov that they desire and they want (most of them).

And it turnover a long time ago into - gov have the power and they are master of puppets - where puppets are people.
It should be other way round.

It pains me that we as "advanced" humans can't even count correctly when voting. The vote systems on this planet fucking suck. And are completely manipulated.

I believe that a blockchain technology voting system could easily work to remove the corruption, and make it so that we humans can actually count.

Currently
For a US general election you register to vote, show up and they give you a ballet. You fill it out and return it to them. They then "count" it behind closed doors leaving 1/2 million ways to tweak the count.

The machines for the current system exists as a patchwork of proprietary hardware owned and run by companies often from other countries. This system has produced thousands of anomalies every single election.
 (I have 0 faith in the voting system in the US, no confidence, we NEED a change)

A way for it to work.

For a US general election you register to vote, show up, and they give you a random vote token (alt coin of some kind). You then spend/send the token to the candidates wallet you support. You leave. A blockchain explorer then can allow transparent checking in on the votes cast as well as realtime ballot totals. (gasp, non of this wait and wait shit for some tweaked vote).

The blockchain that runs the election is open source, so it can be vetted. Nodes running the blockchain have to be registered, so there shouldn't be a 51% attack as this system is closed to the public.

Tokens(coins) are premined based on the number of registerd voters.

Fucking VOTECOIN, Helping humans count correctly.

an open source , transparent voting system.

a coin for counting votes.
a technology for elections.

A kick in the butt to power hungry, morally dead, barely human politicians.

This system would have sent W Bush back to his shithole ranch to clear away brush.

It pains me that "advanced" humans think they need leaders.

MWD

I think it's sad (and dangerous) that you want to use a completely decentralized and voluntary system to decide how you install centralized aggression-based "leadership."

Look, I'm sorry for swearing but vote machines and system and their hack-ability really irk my girkin.

So Don't be an ass buddy. I'm not trying to fix every problem and build a Utopian society. I'm advocating for an open source, transparent voting system.

LET me put it in an easier to understand format.

The current voting system is fucking rigged!!!
A transparent opens source system such as a blockchain technology might, just might, be a little bit more fair and accurate.

In case anyone wants to research this issue

http://blackboxvoting.org/

If someone makes some kind of votecoin and gets those guys to promote it then you've got yourself a weinner.

= MWD64 should shut up and accept that he needs to be forced to do things and will be thrown into a cage for violating things that a bunch of corrupt idiots scribble on paper because a bunch of other people gave them power.

I'm not being an ass. I'm rejecting the idea of leaders. Democracy is 51% tyrannizing 49%. Democracy is two wolves and a cat voting on what to have for lunch.

If I'd described the idea of the blockchain to you six years ago, and I'd said "We don't need money! We don't need PayPal or credit cards!" you'd probably have called me an ass.

I'm saying that you (and anyone else wanting to "fix democracy" with the blockchain) are "thinking inside the box" with a totally outside-the-box technology. Voting is so last century. Why try to burden new things with old models.

OK, so Bush wasn't "Democratically elected" the second time around. And he was a tyrant. Was Obama Democratically elected? Probably. And that guy kills kids by droning wedding parties. He even killed an American teenager for no good reason at all:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/how-team-obama-justifies-the-killing-of-a-16-year-old-american/264028/ (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/how-team-obama-justifies-the-killing-of-a-16-year-old-american/264028/)

Obama also wants to have total control over the Internet. Bush would have, if he'd really understood what the Internet was.

 Do you think that streamlining the process for putting these psychos in power will change any of this?

The US also has a long history of unseating democratically elected leaders around the world to install their own puppet "leaders." That will NOT stop as long as people are backing the system by trying to "streamline the process." You're only improving the flow of murder, theft, fraud and aggression. The US isn't the only nation to do this. Not by a long shot.

Election fraud? Elected officials, ALL of them, EXIST to do theft and fraud. That's their job description. That is what government is.

Lots of politicians from both the left and the right currently want to outlaw Bitcoin. Do you think that streamlining the process for putting them in power will change that?

Anyway, I "voted" with my voice on this, by making it the topic of my radio show on 20 stations with over 100,000 listeners today:

Using Decentralized Technology To Choose Centralized Leadership Is So SQUARE! — Freedom Feens live radio archive
Show archive: http://freedomfeens.com/ViXQ (http://freedomfeens.com/ViXQ)

Stations we're on:
http://www.freedomfeens.com/radio/ (http://www.freedomfeens.com/radio/)

MWD

I am a coder.

If anyone wants to work with me to start this project and create it together, let me know.

Code a better Namecoin wallet. It will do a lot more good for the world, AND there's somebody offering some coin bounty of like 20 BTC and some NMC or something like that.

I don't think we've had a fair election since JFK and even then didn't dead people vote.

He was the last moderately "good" one too, and someone (probably in the government) "voted" against it by murdering him.

You can't "fix" government. Government won't let you.

MWD

I like your user name. I've described myself as "The Johnny Appleseed of Namecoin."

This is my project: MeowBit, View censorship-resistant Dot-Bit (Namecoin domains) on ANY Browser. NOT a plug-in: http://meowbit.com/  (http://meowbit.com/)

We also did something this week that's never been done with a blockchain:
http://meowbit.com/meowbit-now-with-update-alerts-over-the-blockchain-a-new-feature-for-all-blockchains/ (http://meowbit.com/meowbit-now-with-update-alerts-over-the-blockchain-a-new-feature-for-all-blockchains/)

MWD

That I agree with fellow slave. This is their system after all. They own every dollar bill. It's theirs you are borrowing it. They own the roads, the land, they get a piece of every transaction under threat of gun (mafia ****cough****). They own the legal system and prisons. They manufacture the bulk of the food. They provide us with their medicine. They feed us their thoughts. And like theater we pretend we get a say and vote in the election theater.

So EVEN if we get a votecoin it still would go up against the fucking electoral collage. WTF?? It's their system.

Now on a more local level where the electoral college can go fuck themselves, vote coin might work.

How about taking it a step further and use the block chain to make a autonomous government.   ;D  The public ledger can be used for direct democracy; all citizens get to vote on legislation!

You should put together a white paper to start the discussion.

I view the votecoin as a short lived blockchain. With registered nodes. 1 genesis block per election. Maybe even a proof of stake. Coins handed out per id in the same manner as the old system

I love it. Please expand on your idea.

You aren't actually serious about this idea or are you? ???
There is almost nothing in common between the blockchain and a government.

Also, expand on your idea please.

lol. I think you'd dig my radio show.


Ron Paul was the last guy since Kennedy who really had a good heart, and the GOP shut him out. The Democrats did the same thing to Dennis Kucinich, who is sort of like the Democrat's Ron Paul. The Democrats also basically made Dennis retire from politics.

Speaking of Croatian-Americans (Kucinich), we interviewed Krist Novoselic from Nirvana on our radio show. The first hour was all about rock 'n' roll, and it was great! The second hour was all him trying to tell us how to "fix democracy" and it got very silly very fast.

That guy is passionate about polishing the brass on the sinking ship of the state. He even wrote a book on fixing democracy and voting. He's also a millionaire. If anyone really is going to try to do this silly crap of "fixing" voting with the blockchain, you should get that guy on your side. He'd probably love it.

Here's the whole interview:
Krist Novoselic Talks About Nirvana, Flipper, And His Ideas On Changing Democracy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJKIul48mK8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJKIul48mK8)

When voting for "the lesser of two evils" (which is part of what got Obama elected), people who love Bitcoin should remember that Obama's second in line, Joe Biden, tried to outlaw encryption in 1991.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Joe_Biden#Internet_privacy_and_file_sharing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Joe_Biden#Internet_privacy_and_file_sharing)

 If he'd succeeded, Bitcoin never would have gotten off the ground. Biden is also pro-SOPA, anti-file sharing, pro-FBI, and anti-freedom. Obama is all too, but hides it better. And Obama WAS the lesser of two evils in that race. Voting for the lesser of two evils (which is all you're going to be offered, even if you eliminate voter machine fraud) is like saying "would you rather get kicked in the balls, or punched in the face? You HAVE to pick one or the other!"

Electronic Voting (http://www.gnu.org/software/free/), where: you want to keep votes secret, but prevent cheating; is a very hard problem. That page quotes none other than Bruce Schneier: "a secure Internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the first secure networked application ever created in the history of computers."

Bitcoin+CoinJoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.msg3982242#msg3982242) gets tantalizingly close. But to be honest, I don't completely understand how Gmaxwell's proposed mitigations would work.

Secure e-voting also has the issue of voter intimidation. If a voter can prove how they voted, somebody can pay or threaten them based on how they vote.

If you are interested direct democracy, there is liquid feedback (http://www.liquidfeedback.org/), but it is still centralized as far as I know.

Direct Democracy would lead to very quick economic collapse. If people could suggest any bill, and vote on any bill, people who don't want to work would vote successfully to tax people who work 100% of their income. Everyone would quit their job. And the only jobs left would be cops to enforce the taxation. And if no one HAD to work, the only people willing to be cops would be ultra-violent goons who work as cops because they get a kick out of hurtting people. (Hmmmm....I think a lot of them already do that. But not ALL of them.)

Ever seen the movie Idiocracy? Yup. It would be a lot like that. Though it's headed that way anyway under the current system. But Idiocracy takes place 500 years from now, which seems about right. Direct Democracy would get us there in 20 years.

^ This person gets it.
+9.

There could be merit to this idea, BUT a major stumbling block is who is going to do the mining? Miners need to be paid for their hardware and electricity bills, so the coin needs to have value. Where will it get the value from. Speculation? If not then the voting coin needs to become a mainstream coin.

Unless you expect people to charitably mine a coin that isn't worth anything in the name of democracy. Or maybe the government could do all the mining.  ::)

Bitcoin already is the best system of voting in existence.

Voting with money is natural, organic, and harmoniously aligned with "the free market". Voting with money IS THE INVISIBLE HAND!!!


Why would you want to ever allow me to have a say in your affairs in any other way?!?! Or at least in any way other than at the most local level??

Every money you spend is a vote. It is your most important vote.

Political voting is fraudulent, harmful, and always involves coercion by the majority.

Fuck that!


That being said sure I can imagine a blockchain based voting system. However I don't imagine it to be used in the political realm.
Rather I see it as  way to maintain a ledger of shareholder votes for use within a corporation. The key here being voluntary voting rather than coercion based voting.

^ This.

Bitcoin (and all the other little kittens of the blockchain) will "vote" the government out of existence by reducing and then eliminating the "need" for it.

Regardless, it will be a process, not an event.  I even predict that at least one of the two major candidates in the 2016 presidential US elections will accept Bitcoin for campaign donations.

That is SO square!


MWD

^ this = "who will streamline the invisible chains that hold us back?"

No.


I started to reply here about using the blockchain for useful, non-government "voting" type things. But split it off, here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=518753 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=518753)

What I'm talking about is a possible replacement for the current voting machines. There is no need for a coin to have value. There is no speculation. Who cares about energy costs any more then the cost to light the rooms that you do the voting in. If votecoin technology was used in the poll booth the blockchain would be a short lived entity. You get 1 coin which equals one vote. You spend it in the wallet of the person you wish to succeed. The voting can be scalable to multiple precincts all of which connect to known registered nodes. Anyone can see the number of votes per precinct in real time and it can still be done anonymously; or atleast as anonymous as voting with a ballet. I just don't buy it that you can't do this less anonymous then the current system.

Also I see no real difference between running a votecoin as a proof of stake with premine or proof of work.

This has got me thinking. What if the US constitution + bill of rights was written/created like blockchain technology? What would it look like?

The US constitution is supposed to be a contract. As we are all learning the blockchain can be leveraged as a contract. So if the US constitution was setup like a blockchain protocol then wouldn't new laws have to automatically follow the rules outlined by the protocol?

I'm not too positive that the US gov is all that broken. There is an excellent framework as outlined by Ron Paul however those rules rarely get followed and politicians make bogus laws that contradict the original contract, IE the US constitution. If people just followed the original protocol rules the US wouldn't be such a damn bully on the world stage. Same with banking. We DONT need new rules to outlaw wallstreet greed, just enforce the rules we have.

Every driver already follows an autonomous program known as the traffic light. And where as yes that system is centralized, mostly everyone still does what the light (a traffic protocol)says.

What systems can be autonomous?
DMV?
Mail?
Social Security?


How much administration can be autonomous? Really alot of our problems are because we can't hold our leaders accountable.

Isn't much of government just allocating and spending funds? The Blockchain can make this transparent. All of the fraud and theft and waste that occurs from corrupt politicians who get to hide their budgets is out in the open with transparency.

I don't agree with this.

First off we already have a politcial class that votes for whatever the hell the corporations tell them to vote for. This has lead to a situation where the people are not represented. Congress is Supposed to be a representation of the people but its not even close by a long shot. Laws already are unbalanced. Blockchain technology could better represent the people then congress.

Second, why would I vote for a law that goes against my own values or self interests. I would never vote for a law to kill 50% of children under age 10 because I was fearful of them using too much food. With direct democracy couldn't someone propose such an insane law? People already do propose lots of laws that some don't agree with. Pot is now legal, why because people wanted it. Crack is still illegal, why because thats how people want it. If most people work why the hell would they vote to fuck themselves by %100 taxation. I don't buy it.

Third in our system of using money most people HAVE to work. They need money so they work. Nobody is going to quit their jobs until you give us free land, houses, food, clothes, energy, etc. No need for jobs when you have a star trek replicator. But wait they did still have jobs, they worked on the enterprise.

The 3D printer is the beta of the 1.0 Star Trek replicator. And plenty of politicians, left and right, want to regulate 3D printers because Cody Wilson did a hilarious bit of political theater with one.

He's brilliant, his gun is junk, you could make a better single-shot .380 weapon in your garage right now using things you probably already have in your house. But ALL politicians are so damn scared of change, and scared of the slaves having a tiny bit of power and anonymity, that most of them were scared shittless by the 3D printer.


Not in my state. Because cops have too much fun and make too much money kicking in doors for it still. Pot won't be legal until 2016 when the Democrats realize it will get them elected, that the demographic has reached that majority. And they'll look cool and hip for doing it, and everyone will forget that Obama LAUGHED at a kid at a town hall meeting who asked when Obama was going to honor his campaign promise to decriminalize. Obama said "Oh, I don't think we'll be doing THAT."

All politicians want you and dead or in a cage. They'll do it so slowly you don't notice. And that includes the fact that when they "legalize" pot nationwide, they'll tax and regulate it so much that it will cost more than it does now places it's still illegal. That's already happening in Colorado and Washington.

MWD

I like the rumors of the drug printer. That would be a hoot.  http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jul/21/chemputer-that-prints-out-drugs

Although growing your own food can be thought of as decentralized food production. And growing your own ganja could be considered making your own medicine.

Decentralize everything..

People get arrested for that all the time. And for feeding homeless people. Politicians are to blame. The government is to blame. No more "fair" method of voting will fix that.

To be clear: I'm not saying I like voter fraud. I'm saying that trying to fix voting is still believing in an immoral, murderous system. And a majority still believing in it is what keeps it going. It's the "man behind the curtain" in Wizard of Oz, if the man behind the curtain was backed by goons with guns.

MWD

Will every soldier have a Bitcoin wallet?

I hear what you are saying. The matrix kinda summed up this thought process well. Most people do not want to awaken from the system. Most do not want to pull back the curtain to reveal the wizard, it would explode their head.

I like everyone else was born into this system of slavery. The money, the roads, the laws, the bullets, the politicians, the mcdonalds were already here when I became conscious. But what we the people need to realize is this is our system, not theirs. They built it and have the guns, but we have the numbers.

If we don't like something we change it. Walking into a store and buying a nugget is awesome. Or if you are in Oregon, growing a 14ft tall cannabis plant in your yard is awesome. Do you think the political elite wanted that?  

It has to happen from voting.  We cannot dismantle society because a group of people have corrupted it. We simply need to throw those fuckers to the curb. And I agree, I hate the choice between the lesser of two evils. That is no choice. But a real leader. That is something that would be grand.

Whats that have to do with the price of potatoes?

Convince me that this is for the good of mankind then you have a developer by your side.
If you can't convince me then don't bother contacting me.

I branched off onto a tangent here about making congress obsolete.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=518886.msg5738385#msg5738385

You might want to look into the bitcoin protocol and some of the tutorials about double spending, why we need a block chain and why we have proof of work, and also the statistics about the energy used by the network (I worked it out to be 3 nuke power stations for BTC alone ... a tad bit more than a light bulb).

If there is a premine PoS, or the goverment appointed polling stations doing the mining, then there is an easy 51% attack possible to rig the results of the election. No one would trust it, and so the original idea to have a voting system you can trust is flawed.

If the mining is done anonymously by citizens then they need a reward. Running a basic rig is like running a fridge - doesn't use much power at any time but when you get billed for the electricity at the end of the quarter you may be in for a shock. Also the graphics cards etc. To get the hashing power you need to avoid 51% you need serious miners who will in turn want serious ROI to point their rig away from DOGE or LTC and towards your VOTECOIN. So they need to get paid somehow.

--> A better option may be to reuse the existing and well mined BTC network with transaction fees costs that come from the government and thus ultimately the voter. Then the government fund the technology but cannot manipulate it and it may cost less than the existing voting system requiring lots of manual counting.

So what you are saying is that if i have 100 polling sites running this software; These sites are all running the same proof of stake coin software; All nodes are know and registered and only known and registered nodes  can connect, effectively making this a private network, someone can still hack me with a 51% attack? I also wont have some kind of record of the attack?

If I am running this software for 1 day only at my 100 polling stations, and people arrive and I give them a votecoin to spend on my network, I don't care about the value of the coins as the instance is for only that 1 day. Proof of stake seems like it would solve your power issues.

What happens when someone hacks into MtGox and steals all the votes. lol

Oh right I didn't realise it was a private network.

In that case all you need is a server running PHP and a MySQL database. No need for blockchains or any crypto technology.

The PHP could be open sourced so people can verify that it is not doing anything untoward.

Any votecoin trader worth his salt knows not to put votecoins into MTGox.  :P

So a server running PHP and a MySQL database is more secure then a blockchain? Ie: blockchain is easier to hack?

Making the software open source does not help. You need some way to prove that the vote counting server does the right thing.

For voting you don't need a Proof-of-work, Proof-of-stake, or a block-chain.

• Every voter centrally registers with their private key.
• Every candidate publishes their public key.
• Some kind of blind signatures are done, signing votes over to candidates.
• Every voter (or possibly just every political party/interested parties) verifies that the resulting transaction appears to be valid.

Step 3 is the ??? part.

Yes there was a voting project that tried to do this cannot recall its name now though

"Every voter (or possibly just every political party/interested parties) verifies that the resulting transaction appears to be valid."
Thats why I thought you had to use a blockchain because of the double spend issue. Or the ease at which a block explorer can verify info.

"Some kind of blind signatures are done, signing votes over to candidates."
please elaborate

With Bitcoin, every (full) node on the network verifies that all of the transactions it sees are valid (ie: follow certain rules). Vote verifiers would check that the number of voters appears to be correct; that the number of votes is correct, and that all the signatures are valid. Since only one (or group of transactions) are needed on voting day, the block-chain concept does not apply.

See post in the CoinJoin thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.msg3982242#msg3982242) I linked to earlier. I don't understand how blind signatures would work with shared outputs, but gmaxwell thinks it is possible. It appears his mitigations involve keeping everybody's output separate. For voting, you would also need some way to prevent the vote server from recording everybody's vote before blinding is complete.

You can't hack a blockchain, but you can hack MtGox.

If people like this concept and want to help beta test it, send me a PM. I will be opening up Beta testing on using the blockchain for voting in about a week.

I already have the voting working, I just want people to go through the process to find any bugs in the interface so I can open up a professional, useful site in about a month (have been working on the site for the past year, working on the concept for much longer).

I will be using the test chain as opposed to the blockchain for beta testing (though it currently works using the blockchain, I need to add some code for the test blockchain).

This can be used ofcourse which will require a new program to go on & can be used to stop fraud somewhere but believe me
Government won't let you do this, otherwise how corruption will go on?

No, absolutely not.

In any form of voting, and individual cannot have ANY means of proving which way they voted. Why? Because allowing voters to prove how they voted opens the market to vote-selling.

Voting must be done in such a way that: I, as an individual, cannot prove to any other party how I voted. It doesn't matter if the system is pseudo-anonymous like Bitcoin -- I can still show someone my private keys / sign a message / whatever.

There is also no way, mathematically, to 1) verify that each individual is authorized to vote and votes only once, while 2) not allowing that individual to prove which way they voted. You need to trust a third party for that.

Will never happen.

Political scientists will analyze the voter base and ultimately determine that this would benefit 1 party over the other.  The other party would then kick and scream and block it in every way possible.

Then apparently we're all fucked. Cause in the current system, votes get flipped, lost, changed, etc. 

I was kinda hoping that at our point in human civilization we have learned how to make voting work. Man I feel like humans are dumb animals who can blow shit up but not count worth a damn.

If we build it they will come. It's really hard to ask for change when there are no other options. Let such a system prove its mettle before using in a presidental election. There are lots and lots of other elections. Hell another country might even benefit from this.

Sounds inspirational. Can't wait.

From your coinjoin link-
"since the voters don't share their votes with each other, it is possible to mis-allocate votes without detection (as long as you are not too greedy)."
"This works because non-communicating participants can only ever check that their own outputs look correct. One way to mitigate this is to phase out address reuse: which has not yet happened in practice."

I guess let me ask a question. How anonymous is the current voting system. Don't the ballots have a bar code on them. Don't the polling admins known what day and approx what time you voted. They check my id when I arrive and hand me an "anonymous ballot". How about absentee, they mail you a ballot, no tracking there?

It would be great to verify that my vote got counted in the right place and also great to get real time updates on who is winning. I also get your point about miss-allocating votes without detection, thats how dead people vote right?

My understanding is that the exit poll is used as a way to verify the accuracy of voting precincts and flush out anomalies. At least it was the statistical standard till Karl Rove declared it inaccurate because his boy W was stealing 2 elections.

So my question is coinjoin even needed? And if blockchain technology is not relevant to this discussion, though to me it still seems like it can do everything we need it to, then what would the best system be.

I envision using a blcokchain or whatever + polling workers. The polling workers check that the number of voters appears to be correct; that the number of votes is correct, and that all the signatures are valid. I can then check after that my vote is valid, though if it isn't linked to me then I can't prove that to anyone but myself and sell that info. Add an exit poll for extra verification.

So to sum up why would a hybrid of blockchain + poll workers doing nearly exactly what they already do not work.

In the 2012 election protocols to quarantine the release of data were put in place.[4]

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

Sure it will not. This is crazy to even think it will :)

regards!

You are looking at it all wrong if you are thinking that the blockchain can be used to make the current government voting structure better.

That is like saying that you want to use Bitcoin to make the dollar better. That is not the goal, we are looking to replace government money, not improve it.

Thus, the same needs to be done for voting. We can have a better voting system and replace current government structures and have the first ever fully voluntary government (if you think your current government is voluntary, try not paying taxes and see where that gets you).

It will take time to grow that large but Bitcoin has made that possible.

Canada uses the KISS system:

• paper ballots/pencils
• Sealed ballot boxes
• Manual counting

We get the election results within about 6 hours, barring judicial recounts.

Granted, Canada uses a relatively simple First Past the Post voting system.


In Canada, the serial number is torn from the ballot before going into the ballot box. While it may be possible to figure out the order of votes, actually trying to do so is illegal. Because two people count the ballots, trying anything funny would get noticed.

I can agree with you as what you saying make sense!

Cheers!

Ok, finaly this argument is evolving. You are saying that btc is a replacement to the dollar not a compliment to the dollar. And like wise we don't need a compliment to the vote system , ie votecoin, but a system to replace the current voting system.

I thought the blockchain was a consesus system. Why is the blockchain the wrong technology? And what IS the right technology for the job?

Never say never. It is possible, but not likely.

No, I agree that the blockchain is the right technology. It is the most secure way of voting, the amount of computing power using it as a currency makes it about the most secure way to vote in the world.

But the way votes in current government structures are used is ancient (literally). You vote for some people to go represent you and they go on to use that as justification to use a military and police to "morally" steal money from people to "do what you ask of them".

What Bitcoin and the blockchain can do is cut the government middleman. You want a problem solved?
1. You and others who agree that it is a problem pledge some bitcoins toward the problem.
2. People propose solutions to the problem, along with the cost.
3. You and others vote with your pledged bitcoins via the blockchain. If the cost is covered, the proposer gets the bitcoins. Otherwise the money stays with you and the others.
4. The problem is solved, people are not forced to pay for your problem, you get what you want to pay for.

The comment on a fully voluntary gov was a really good one. This is a very deep concept. But If I can sum up what you are saying.

Voting with the blockchain will work. However by merely replacing the current voting system it does nothing to help us as the fundamental flaw isn't in how the votes are counted but how the elected officials act. With bitcoin you are your own bank and if you entrust your coins to a third party you really don't have any control over them. The current government structure is similar to a mt gox situation. Instead of taking direct control over our actions we let other people by proxy make those decisions for us. And unfortunately due to the human condition, like mt gox, those leaders inevitable fail us in some way shape or form and rip us off/ kill/ torture/ in-prison/ etc.

Sounds about right.

If you would like to help in beta testing let me know.

I recalled that project that slipped my memory it was the Agora Voting and if I recall correctly it was used in a Spanish election one time as well
http://bitcoinmagazine.com/9562/agora-voting-proposes-bitcoin-based-voting-system/