In the wake of President Trump\u2019s ludicrous lies about illegal votes in November\u2019s election \u2014 immediately after the lies about the size of the audience for his inauguration \u2014 it\u2019s tempting to just point and laugh at his apparent insecurity and fears of illegitimacy. He does, though, inadvertently raise a point worth considering: how can we strengthen the integrity of our voting systems?
After all, the sitting president is eager to call those systems into question after he wins ; this makes it seem likely that he \u2014 and the party he represents \u2014 will sooner or later begin to reject the result of elections they lose. Can technology help us to ensure that elections, and their results, continue to be free and fair? (Modulo suppression of voters who simply aren\u2019t allowed to register\/vote, of course; there\u2019s not much technology can do about that.)
The answer is, briefly, \u201cyes.\u201d In fact quite a lot of research has gone into end-to-end auditable voting systems , i.e. ones that can, through the magic of cryptography and\/or one-way functions, be audited without endangering the sanctity of the ballot box. I encourage you to read through some of the linked options.
A feature common to most auditable voting systems is the \u201creceipt.\u201d The idea is: after voting, voters receive a paper receipt with some kind of serial number. All serial numbers and votes are then posted online, so that voters who keep their receipts can ensure that their vote was tallied correctly. Other kinds of fraud \u2014 stuffing ballot boxes, etc. \u2014 will, at least in theory, be statistically detectable because they will skew the ratio of voters-who-keep-receipts to votes.
Alas, most such systems require complex or confusing behavior on the part of the voter, in order to ensure that no one can possibly prove to a third party who they voted for. (That would encourage coercion, bribery, etc.) So I\u2019d like to draw your attention to an extremely simple solution \u2014 so simple that it is barely more than an appendix to a 2007 paper by cryptography legend Ron Rivest with Warren Smith.
This system is brilliantly elegant. It proposes that every voter gets the option to claim someone else\u2019s vote receipt, selected randomly, for later verification. Voters confirm their receipts before they leave; receipts include both a serial number and the details of the vote; and, subsequently, anyone who took a receipt can verify that it was correctly counted against the public vote registry, which tabulates serial numbers and votes. This ensures votes are counted, and can help guard statistically against vote-stuffing.
It\u2019s not a panacea, obviously. In particular, it can\u2019t solve the problem of eligible voters who are forbidden from voting in the first place for false, trumped-up reasons. But it is extremely simple and easy to implement \u2014 and anything which makes the voting process more transparent and verifiable, and safeguards democracy, seems very welcome in these turbulent times. Voting is the lifeblood of democracy; let\u2019s make sure it\u2019s never tainted.<\/p>\n

© Source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/Techcrunch\/~3\/FqT_fn-uq8Y\/<\/a>
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.<\/span><\/p>\n