CDR: Re: A secure voting protocol

[Ken Brown]

Augusto Jun Devegili replied to Tim May:


> > It won't happen in our lifetimes. It may happen in European nations,
> > but only because the average citizen does what he is told to do more
> > so than American paranoids and individualists will do.
> 
> [Augusto] I would like to see this happening after the scientific/academic
> community approves a secure protocol and its implementation architecture.
> And I also understand that it will be quite hard to convince the general
> voter of the security of e-voting.

I think I have to agree with Tim here. That blind-sign-sign-blind-vote
protocol might be wonderful but is not going to be accepted by the
average voter. Or even the brainiest. 

And us non-individualistic Brits are so non-paranoid that we still won't
accept voting machines or mechanical counting. All done by crosses on
the paper, counted by hand, with the candidates in the room watching the
counters. Which is the best defence against fraud. Everything is
literally out in the open, on big tables, with the candidates there, and
paranoid card-player rules - all boxes sealed at the polling station and
opened again at the count before witnesses, no-one except the counters &
Returning Officer (a sort of election supervisor) to physically touch
the ballots,  no hands under the table, the counters can't even wear
jackets in some places. It works.

Ken