Microsoft demos end-to-end voting verification system ElectionGuard, code will be on GitHub

The Register ^ | Jul 18, 2019 | Tim Anderson

[dayglored]

> ...an election uncertifyable due to a blue screen of death.

No, no, that’s the beauty of it being Open Source.

Microsoft’s BSOD is Proprietary. It only can appear in Windows.... :-)

[dayglored]

> Forget all this, go back to paper ballots, and end all political commentary and coverage of the elections the week up to the elections and election night.

What a radical idea.

You sound like a troublemaker. :-)

[cincinnati65]

Trust........Microsoft.........

LOL!

[cincinnati65]

And you single-handedly solve a nationwide problem for a grand total of what? $500,000? Too simple for government to consider.

[Farcesensitive]

Bad idea.

BAD IDEA!

We need to go to all paper ballots counted by hand in front of many witnesses.

We might even need to go to non-secret ballots like a caucus.

He who casts the vote determines nothing, he who counts the vote determines everything.

[TheNext]

Venezuela used an ElectionGuard type software,
to install a voter fraud Socialist government,
that transformed a wealthy people into impoverished peasants.

ElectionGuard poverty coming soon ...

[TheNext]

BALLOT PICTURES

Mandatory Ballot Pictures let the people verify the count.

Where is the Republican Judge demanding it?
Slam that gavel in the name of Ballot Pictures.

[_longranger81]

All distraction. The only significant vote tampering will be neighborhood “organizer/activist/agitator/manipulators” who go around “harvesting” absentee ballots, which means they fill them in themselves; this happened LEGALLY in several areas in 2018, and will happen in the MILLIONS in 2020; will very likely swing the election the wrong way. We are under massive attack from the Stalinist Old Guard, make NO MISTAKE.

[Musket]

I ain’t no Expert, not by a long shot, but as I understand it, if it ain’t “Block Chain” it can’t be trusted.

[Lisbon1940]

I don’t know if you caught that it will be end to end. That’s what I’m worried about.

[minnesota_bound]

Electronic vote, paper ballot, purple ink, no mail in ballot save for military members.

[zeugma]

Electronic elections are much harder to do than most people think. Those who even bother to give it a moment's thought figure, "I use an ATM every day, how hard can this be?" The problem with that comparison, is that in a retail transaction, you have a full audit trail. You know who bought what from whom, and how much the transaction costs. All three things are documented and autditable. With voting, you have to validate the voter. (Can this person vote?) Then you have to document the transaction (the vote), in such a way that you can't tie a vote to a specific candidate to a specific voter. (if you care about the concept of a 'secret ballot' - there are issues with fraud i.e., vote buying, when you do not have secrecy of the ballot). While doing this, you need to have an auditable transaction.

If you don't care about secret ballots, it's easy. If you do, it is much more difficult to do. If you're interested in the nitty-gritty of this, do a google for "Bruce Schneier electronic voting". He's written several essays on all of this that goes into detail of the 'whys' of exactly how difficult this is to do correctly. Yeah, if you read other stuff of his, you'll see that he's a leftist (generally), but he is directly on point for this issue. I read his monthly newsletter because I respect him regardless of his politics after having read "Applied Cryptography" many years ago.

[zeugma]

ALRIGHT! We’ll be the only country on earth that will have an election uncertifyable due to a blue screen of death.

LOL. The BSOD will be the least of our worries.

[zeugma]

We might even need to go to non-secret ballots like a caucus.

The biggest problem with doing away with secret ballots is that it makes fraud verifiable. Let's say Mallory pays Alice $20 to vote for socialist candidate A. With a secret ballot, Alice can go into the voting booth, and cast a ballot for Constitutionalist Candidate B, step out of the voting booth and collect her $20, with Mallory being none the wiser.

[Farcesensitive]

I don’t know what the solution is but with secret ballots fraud can take place by adding or removing ballots from the count and nobody will ever know.

I think it might be easier to catch vote buying than secret ballot fraud.

[bgill]

I’m trying but not succeeding. Just because it shows on your end your vote went to X doesn’t mean it did on the other end.

[Sgt_Schultze]

This guy is from Russia.
This guy's company is Google.
Google intended to affect the 2016 and the 2018 elections.
Google is making plans to affect the 2020 election
Direct evidence that Russia IS meddling in US elections.
Google needs to be broken to bits. Very. Tint. Bits.

[Sgt_Schultze]

tint = tiny

[Still Thinking]

I’ve never understood how a person can be smart and liberal at the same time. Common sense seems to debunk all their ideas. Weird. But yeah, Schneier on crypto is awesome.

[ducttape45]

“Trouble” is my middle name!