Along the same lines as this discussion, http://www.ivta.org
was recently brought to my attention in/on the "cert-talk"
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) mailing list.
I appreciate that pointer (and others like it such as are appearing
here and elsewhere) a great deal, especially in quotation:
"Encryption alone is not sufficient for an Internet voting process
because voting is not an e-commerce transaction. Anonymity and
integrity must be assured, and we must know that the results in an
election have not been tampered with in any step of the process."
as it demonstrates in full that, as in all of engineering, the
heavy lifting is in getting the problem statement right. The
advocates of Internet voting do not, repeat, do not have the
problem statement right.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the sanctity of a vote once
cast can be absolutely preserved as it is moved from your house
to the counting house. What cannot be done, now or ever, is to
ensure the sanctity of the voting booth anywhere but in a
physical and, yes, public location attended to by persons both
known to each other and drawn from those strata of society who
care enough to be present. There are no replacements for the
voting booth as a moment of privacy wrapped in inefficient but
proven isolation by unarguable witness, a place where we are
equal as in no other. Move the dispatch of a vote to a remote
browser and $100 bills, concurrent sex acts, a pistol to the head,
wife-beating or any other combination of bribes and coercion is
an undiscoverable concommitant of the otherwise "assured"
integrity of the so-called vote.
Internet voting is anti-democracy and those who cannot bestir
themselves to be present upon that day and place which is never
a surprise to do that which is the single most precious gift of
all the blood of all the liberators can, in a word, shut up.
Trust is for sissies,
--dan
