Was looking at cryptocurrency and how, as a non techy, to get involved when I be
ID: 657120 • Letter: W
Question
Was looking at cryptocurrency and how, as a non techy, to get involved when I began thinking about the security of it being developed to undermine the stranglehold bankers have on economy and the unfettered misuse of currency by governments. Very good. I applaud the theory and effort to overcome inequality. If something as complicated as a secure currency can be developed electronically, why not voting? As long as politics can be manipulated by bribes and rigging, it will happened, and the people will never have the government the people actually want. Cryptovoting should be as feasible as cryptocurrency and would tackle corruption that maintains inequality. Can someone explain why sorting the voting system is so hard compared to currency. (remember to use non techy words)
Explanation / Answer
Cryptographically secure voting is difficult because voting encompasses so much. Let's take, for example, vote-buying or coercion.
Imagine a system where I can vote, and can verify that my vote was tallied correctly. Now I can provide that proof to a third party who purchased my vote to claim renumeration for that vote.
If the voter cannot verify their vote was tallied correctly, then how can the voter be sure that the authorities counting the vote are not corrupt, and deliberately mis-counting votes?
As it turns out, when you really get into the nitty-gritty of cryptographically secure voting systems, these sort of issues are found all over the place. Arriving at a consensus for a system of governance is inherently a social problem, and technical solutions almost universally fall short of helping in any large, meaningful way.
Further, there is the issue of the hardware and software platform. Many companies have attempted to produce "secure" voting platforms, but inevitably, they have shown to be weak to simple tampering attacks, or even just buggy to the point of uselessness. There's no time to deal with a batch of bad machines or fix a software bug when the election is held on a single day.
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