United States Postal Service Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

heraldsheets.com...

link to patent

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has reportedly filed a patent for a blockchain-based mail-in voting system.

Following President Donald Trump’s conclusion that mail-in voting would represent ballots all over the place and fraudulent ballots would be named after dogs and dead people, the patent that was filed back in February 2020 was made public on Thursday 13th August.

A voting system can use the security of blockchain and the mail to provide a reliable voting system. A registered voter receives a computer-readable code in the mail and confirms identity and confirms correct ballot information in an election. The system separates voter identification and votes to ensure vote anonymity, and stores votes on a distributed ledger in a blockchain.”

“Often a voter is not able to or does not desire to go to a polling place to cast a vote. An election official in a jurisdiction may wish to send secure ballots via mail. Or, a jurisdiction may opt to utilize electronic resources for voting. In such cases, a secure voting system is desired.

The security of a voting system can be increased by using the dependability and security of the United States Postal Service or similar entity, and this can be incorporated with a secure computer system using a blockchain or distributed ledger to ensure vote security and to prevent tampering or modification of electronic voting results.”

Personally, I think this is a poor idea. To start with blockchains are not anonymous, far from it, under this system, each individual vote can be tracked and linked back to an individually identifying id.

Completely digital, blockchain based voting is potentially targetable by foreign governments, malicious individuals or others by DDoS attacks that could delay or even entirely stop an election.

It will also come with a new system of 'implicit trust'. Whatever the system gives as.the results shall be the results and if there's anything that's been shown in the past with digitial and electronic voting systems,

This article from last year goes over some of the potential issues with blockchain based voting.

www.computerworld.com...

The issues around online voting include server penetration attacks, client-device malware, denial-of-service attacks and other disruptions, all associated with infecting voters' computers with malware or infecting the computers in the elections office that handle and count ballots. 

"If I were running for office and they decided to use blockchain for that election, I'd be scared," said Jeremy Epstein, vice chairman of the Association for Computing Machinery's U.S. Technology Policy Committee.

he criticized blockchain and internet voting as a ready target for online attacks by foreign intelligence and said transmission of ballots over the internet, including by email, fax and blockchain systems, are seriously vulnerable.

There are many reasons blockchain is not good for voting, Epstein said. For one, it assumes there's no malware in the voter's computer. It also assumes you want all the votes to be perennially public, because if someone finds a way to hack into the blockchain, everyone's vote becomes public. And, while blockchain networks may be able to handle small absentee voter populations, the technology could not stand up to use by the general voter populace and its volumes.

While paper ballots are not tamper-proof, they are not vulnerable to the same wholesale fraud or manipulation associated with internet voting, Epstein said.

"Tampering with mailed paper ballots is a one-at-a-time attack. Infecting voters' computers with malware or infecting the computers in the elections office that handle and count ballots are both effective methods for large-scale corruption," Epstein said.

Why are people allowed to line up to buy crap at Walmart...but it's not safe for them to line up to vote?

a reply to: dug88

I think a block chain based voting system is a good idea if executed properly.

Though, I say we cut costs and do it primarily online with mail in as a supplement. The first scan initiates those who mail in.

Almost everyone complains about our current structure. I think block chain would take away a lot of those gripes.

All goes back to the best way is to use real ballots at a polling location and verify all IDs and make sure each ballot is counted by hand with multiple video cameras confirming everything. Easy to do. 😎

a reply to: xuenchen

Why can't we just require the use of Real ID?

Fill out your ballot, put your I'd in a box prepared for it, make 2 copies.

One goes in the ballot box, one is kept for your personal records. An automated verification, with proof.

originally posted by: Notoneofyou

Why can't we just require the use of Real ID?

Fill out your ballot, put your I'd in a box prepared for it, make 2 copies.

One goes in the ballot box, one is kept for your personal records. An automated verification, with proof.

Because minorities do not have computers, phones, cars, ID of any kind, electricity or running water... duh...

originally posted by: xuenchen
All goes back to the best way is to use real ballots at a polling location and verify all IDs and make sure each ballot is counted by hand with multiple video cameras confirming everything. Easy to do. 😎

There is a reason the most secured systems have zero access to the internet of any kind.

Iowa caucus debacle is one of the most stunning tech failures ever

I don't understand why anyone with half a brain would think undertaking a massive change to the voting system nationwide in under two moths is a good idea?

Its not even two months; by the time a process is agreed on it will be considerably less than two months to implement.

I realize COVID-19 is scary; but fear, even justifiable fear; is no excuse to through common sense out the window. No matter how good mail in voting could be the time table makes it impossible.

a reply to: Xtrozero

#, I forgot. How rude of me.
Lol

a reply to: DanDanDat

I think looking into changes in the 2024 election is a good idea, but like you, it's too damn late to make changes to the process now. If you are scared to vote, request an absentee ballot. If you aren't capable of doing that, you probably aren't smart enough to vote anyhow.

I'm OK with this and believe it will be the future if secure elections. The technology is proven and should be explored as a means of voting for 3 main reasons:

Security. Once a vote is cast it cannot be changed. The consensus model just won't let you change a vote or double cast a single vote in any given election. It will be counted.

Ensured secrecy through cryptography and a public/private ledger system.

Increased voter participation due to ease of access and identity security through a blockchain based voter ID system.

a reply to: projectvxn

From my op

he criticized blockchain and internet voting as a ready target for online attacks by foreign intelligence and said transmission of ballots over the internet, including by email, fax and blockchain systems, are seriously vulnerable.

There are many reasons blockchain is not good for voting, Epstein said. For one, it assumes there's no malware in the voter's computer. It also assumes you want all the votes to be perennially public, because if someone finds a way to hack into the blockchain, everyone's vote becomes public

Infecting voters' computers with malware or infecting the computers in the elections office that handle and count ballots are both effective methods for large-scale corruption,

At that point you're putting your trust in the security used on the servers that handle counting votes etc. It's a single point of failure and strong a vector for attack. A single security failure would destroy public trust and compromise the entire election and come counting time, those servers are going to be the target of God knows how many people trying to # with the election and all it takes is one person to potentially cause chaos and instability to any government or country using a system like that.

a reply to: dug88

Not all blockchains are public ledgers and voting can and does take place across distributed networks regularly.

There are nation's like Estonia who have digitized their IDs and moved to a blockchain based voter registration and ID system.

coincentral.com...

It's a concept worth exploring in my opinion.

a reply to: projectvxn

Security analysis of Estonian internet voting system (pdf)

Estonia was the first country in the world to use Internet
voting nationally, and today more than 30% of its ballots
are cast online. In this paper, we analyze the security of
the Estonian I-voting system based on a combination of
in-person election observation, code review, and adversarial
testing. Adopting a threat model that considers the advanced
threats faced by a national election system—including dis-
honest insiders and state-sponsored attacks—we find that
the I-voting system has serious architectural limitations and
procedural gaps that potentially jeopardize the integrity of
elections. In experimental attacks on a reproduction of the
system, we demonstrate how such attackers could target
the election servers or voters’ clients to alter election results
or undermine the legitimacy of the system. Our findings
illustrate the practical obstacles to Internet voting in the
modern world, and they carry lessons for Estonia, for other
countries considering adopting such systems, and for the
security research community.

Someday, in the distant future, after fax machines, smart phones, home computers, printers and the internet have been invented....

The Postal system will be viewed as an anachronism.

Much like a rushed to market vaccine I wouldn't trust any changes in the voting system this close to an election. It's just common sense. If we had a year there would still likely be problems, one of them enough training for the volunteers, one of the reasons the Iowa caucus failed miserably

originally posted by: dug88
a reply to: projectvxn

From my op

he criticized blockchain and internet voting as a ready target for online attacks by foreign intelligence and said transmission of ballots over the internet, including by email, fax and blockchain systems, are seriously vulnerable.

There are many reasons blockchain is not good for voting, Epstein said. For one, it assumes there's no malware in the voter's computer. It also assumes you want all the votes to be perennially public, because if someone finds a way to hack into the blockchain, everyone's vote becomes public

Infecting voters' computers with malware or infecting the computers in the elections office that handle and count ballots are both effective methods for large-scale corruption,

At that point you're putting your trust in the security used on the servers that handle counting votes etc. It's a single point of failure and strong a vector for attack. A single security failure would destroy public trust and compromise the entire election and come counting time, those servers are going to be the target of God knows how many people trying to # with the election and all it takes is one person to potentially cause chaos and instability to any government or country using a system like that.

Non of that makes any sense. The distributed nature of blockchain literally exists for that reason.

There is no single point of failure as 100% of the clients have 100% of transactions that have ever occurred.

a reply to: AScrubWhoDied

In experimental attacks on a reproduction of the
system, we demonstrate how such attackers could target
the election servers or voters’ clients to alter election results
or undermine the legitimacy of the system. 

This has been proven to be capable and demonstrated through a real world example using an actual in place blockchain based election system that actually exists.

lol

i'm so over the corona hoax.


wearing a god damn mask 12 hrs a day.


lets burn this motha down!

originally posted by: IAMTAT
Why are people allowed to line up to buy crap at Walmart...but it's not safe for them to line up to vote?

Common sense. It seems to be in very short supply on the blue side.