Well, good, because I couldn't fathom why anyone would want to run an election using blockchain.
Paper ballots with automated scanners is a solved problem. It works, it's cheap, and it's virtually tamper-proof. (Tampering with the result will require physical access by many people: if you allow that possibility you're basically conceding that you cannot trust the government to run the election properly, and using any technology won't save you.)
In other words, paper ballots is a boring, unsexy technology whose only benefit is that it works. No wonder people aren't excited.
What? I agree it works, but it's pretty insecure. Paper ballots can just be swapped out for other paper ballots. With a public blockchain (or something like it) you could always look up your vote and by nature it cannot be changed. The vote count could be tallied instantly as well and recounts are unnecessary.
Blockchains can't ensure no false votes are cast for deceased or unwilling participants, but it honestly would be better than paper in many ways. I am not advocating people use some third party token to do this. That I believe would be unnecessary. Am I missing something though? I don't understand the overwhelming hatred any blockchain related tech gets on HN. This is one area where I think it could provide real value.
The original story wasn't very clear how blockchain was involved. It seems very likely now with the NEC denying the claims that it was a bunch of hype.
>“Agora’s results for the two districts they tallied differed considerably from the official results, according to an analysis of the two sets of statistics carried out by RFI,”
>Was Agora simply attempting a PR stunt in support of its upcoming token sale.
for what it is worth, the indigenous Sierra Leone News site I follow has 0 references to "blockchain" and only one to "agora" (which doesn't seem to actually contain "agora")
I have yet to see how blockchain is supposed to solve problems with elections that can't be solved with good process. And if process isn't fixed, I don't see how blockchain alone will get around the process shortcomings.
Elections are no different than any other info security problem. Multiple checks at multiple locations in the process. Blockchain is not magic pixie dust that makes info security issues go away.
> I have yet to see how blockchain is supposed to solve problems with elections that can't be solved with good process. And if process isn't fixed, I don't see how blockchain alone will get around the process shortcomings.
Blockchains provide a verifiably immutable log. This is the exact primitive you want for elections - tamper-proof logging. It is genuinely a good technological solution to the problems of election legitimacy and validation. That isn't a defense of this article, or of any of the current blockchain/election projects, but in principle, the idea makes sense.
It's almost like people are thinking of blockchain as a global immutable append-only log with source attribution.
Then the main question is, is what you're willing to pay to append a record more than what the operators (miners) are willing to accept to append a record? In the case of elections, I don't know a lot of governments that would be willing to pay to do what they do for free today.
Beware of Blockchain stories with unsubstantiated facts. The original story had many red flags, not the least of which being the use of the future tense in a quote by Gammar.
“Anonymized votes/ballots are being recorded on Agora’s blockchain, which will be publicly available for any interested party to review, count and validate,” said Gammar.
Agora makes zero attempt to rebut the claims with evidence, and instead, attack the source:
> Through research we have found that username "Tamba Lamin", who is the main source of this article, is from a competing service. You can do your own research into his position by Googling the username and "election". We do our part to not incite witch-hunts or dox users so please do not either but he used his real name on our channels and we have no other way to reference it.
The article by Tamba Lamin is just one of more than a dozen articles listed in the cited post that argue against Agora. This is not a great response from the Agora team (posted below for posterity):
Hi /u/custom1made, we welcome both positive and negative feedback on our company so we can continue to learn, earn trust, and grow.
Our continued success will attract many unsavory characters that will attack us - we must remain professional, honest, and composed - and hope to foster a community that agrees to that mantra.
We are very much hoping you will do your part in helping us stay strong so we can focus on our mission to bring transparent Democracy to the world.
Through research we have found that username "Tamba Lamin", who is the main source of this article, is from a competing service. You can do your own research into his position by Googling the username and "election". We do our part to not incite witch-hunts or dox users so please do not either but he used his real name on our channels and we have no other way to reference it.
Although his motives may have been questionable, he brought up important topics. We had an internal meeting about our stance on sensational subject titles, filters in place, and how we will handle incorrect information from third-party news organizations. Our intent is to set and keep the record straight.
As stated in our pinned posts and in all of our Reddit posts, we do not verify the accuracy of third-party news reports. Thank you.
If it's the case that Sierra Leone did not use blockchain for any part of its election, I think TechCrunch needs to own up to its reporting, which seems very thinly sourced:
In fact, it seems completely sourced to "Leonardo Gammar of Agora", "Agora" being a company that is trying to sell its "blockchain-based digital voting solution" [0] and thus has every incentive to hype the usage of their product. The TC reporter apparently made no attempt to contact anyone who actually works in Sierra Leone's government/elections, or anyone who actually lives there.
It is possible that Agora was accredited as an independent observer of results. But it's problematic that they use their Sierra Leone results page to advertise their services, which don't seem to have been used as described:
> Agora is a Swiss foundation providing decentralized digital voting systems based on the blockchain technology. Agora’s solution will enable secure and remote voting from digital devices, as well as allow each voter to verify his or her untampered vote in the final count.
When you go to Agora's "results" page, all you get is an aggregated tally of votes. I don't see a ledger of any kind:
Luckily, I have the answer: a blockchain which records overhyped blockchains. This technology will make it possible to create an immutable, universal record that will exclude all falsehood.
ICO imminent. Act now and receive a 20% bonus on your next overpromise.
I live in a third world country (Colombia) and the scammy hype is even here, people at cafes telling each other to "invest" in BTC and the other crypto currencies, usually through a middlemen (the ones doing the convincing, so they take a commission one way or another); usually involving people with not much money to begin with, just hungry for an opportunity to make some, willing to take bank credits or other forms of debt in order to "invest". It's all so lame.
This sounds like an argument against rolling your own blockchain instead of using an existing, highly secure one. Not that I'm convinced blockchains are the proper tool for the job.
BTW, is it too late to stop using the word "blockchain" like it's something that can be bottled up and sold? I believe an article is required.
That's not true at all. The worst the state can do is to deny votes to be written in the blockchain by mining empty blocks. But no matter how much computing power it has, the state can't write false votes, thanks to public key cryptography.
If transactions where cheaper, voting on a public blockchain like Bitcoin would be a great thing. That's not the case today, but I'm pretty sure it will be in the coming years.
[+] [-] yongjik|8 years ago|reply
Paper ballots with automated scanners is a solved problem. It works, it's cheap, and it's virtually tamper-proof. (Tampering with the result will require physical access by many people: if you allow that possibility you're basically conceding that you cannot trust the government to run the election properly, and using any technology won't save you.)
In other words, paper ballots is a boring, unsexy technology whose only benefit is that it works. No wonder people aren't excited.
[+] [-] hmcdona1|8 years ago|reply
Blockchains can't ensure no false votes are cast for deceased or unwilling participants, but it honestly would be better than paper in many ways. I am not advocating people use some third party token to do this. That I believe would be unnecessary. Am I missing something though? I don't understand the overwhelming hatred any blockchain related tech gets on HN. This is one area where I think it could provide real value.
[+] [-] dwighttk|8 years ago|reply
>“Agora’s results for the two districts they tallied differed considerably from the official results, according to an analysis of the two sets of statistics carried out by RFI,”
>Was Agora simply attempting a PR stunt in support of its upcoming token sale.
almost certainly
[+] [-] GenericsMotors|8 years ago|reply
Didn't stop the ridiculously titled "Sierra Leone just ran the first blockchain-based election"[1] from being shared and strongly upvoted here on HN.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16622245
[+] [-] dwighttk|8 years ago|reply
http://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/?s=blockchain
http://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/?s=agora
[+] [-] xorcist|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beat|8 years ago|reply
Elections are no different than any other info security problem. Multiple checks at multiple locations in the process. Blockchain is not magic pixie dust that makes info security issues go away.
[+] [-] darawk|8 years ago|reply
Blockchains provide a verifiably immutable log. This is the exact primitive you want for elections - tamper-proof logging. It is genuinely a good technological solution to the problems of election legitimacy and validation. That isn't a defense of this article, or of any of the current blockchain/election projects, but in principle, the idea makes sense.
[+] [-] bdamm|8 years ago|reply
Then the main question is, is what you're willing to pay to append a record more than what the operators (miners) are willing to accept to append a record? In the case of elections, I don't know a lot of governments that would be willing to pay to do what they do for free today.
[+] [-] apo|8 years ago|reply
“Anonymized votes/ballots are being recorded on Agora’s blockchain, which will be publicly available for any interested party to review, count and validate,” said Gammar.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16598210
The space is littered with claims like this that turn out to be nonsense. Don't trust, verify.
[+] [-] CryptoPunk|8 years ago|reply
https://np.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/83v7x9/these_resul...
[+] [-] danso|8 years ago|reply
http://en.rfi.fr/africa/20180319-sierra-leones-electoral-com...
https://np.reddit.com/r/agora/comments/85k6cx/sierra_leones_...
Agora makes zero attempt to rebut the claims with evidence, and instead, attack the source:
> Through research we have found that username "Tamba Lamin", who is the main source of this article, is from a competing service. You can do your own research into his position by Googling the username and "election". We do our part to not incite witch-hunts or dox users so please do not either but he used his real name on our channels and we have no other way to reference it.
The article by Tamba Lamin is just one of more than a dozen articles listed in the cited post that argue against Agora. This is not a great response from the Agora team (posted below for posterity):
Hi /u/custom1made, we welcome both positive and negative feedback on our company so we can continue to learn, earn trust, and grow.
Our continued success will attract many unsavory characters that will attack us - we must remain professional, honest, and composed - and hope to foster a community that agrees to that mantra.
We are very much hoping you will do your part in helping us stay strong so we can focus on our mission to bring transparent Democracy to the world.
Through research we have found that username "Tamba Lamin", who is the main source of this article, is from a competing service. You can do your own research into his position by Googling the username and "election". We do our part to not incite witch-hunts or dox users so please do not either but he used his real name on our channels and we have no other way to reference it.
Although his motives may have been questionable, he brought up important topics. We had an internal meeting about our stance on sensational subject titles, filters in place, and how we will handle incorrect information from third-party news organizations. Our intent is to set and keep the record straight.
As stated in our pinned posts and in all of our Reddit posts, we do not verify the accuracy of third-party news reports. Thank you.
[+] [-] danso|8 years ago|reply
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/14/sierra-leone-just-ran-the-...
In fact, it seems completely sourced to "Leonardo Gammar of Agora", "Agora" being a company that is trying to sell its "blockchain-based digital voting solution" [0] and thus has every incentive to hype the usage of their product. The TC reporter apparently made no attempt to contact anyone who actually works in Sierra Leone's government/elections, or anyone who actually lives there.
[0] https://agora.vote/#about
edit: looks like the reporter has just decided to reach out to authorities:
https://twitter.com/johnbiggs/status/975841632661786624
https://twitter.com/johnbiggs/status/975814093994151938
Quartz also wrote about Sierra Leone's alleged use of blockchain, and like TC, solely sources it to Agora: https://qz.com/1227050/sierra-leone-elections-powered-by-blo...
It does link to this page though, from Agora:
https://agora.vote/sierraleone2018/
It is possible that Agora was accredited as an independent observer of results. But it's problematic that they use their Sierra Leone results page to advertise their services, which don't seem to have been used as described:
> Agora is a Swiss foundation providing decentralized digital voting systems based on the blockchain technology. Agora’s solution will enable secure and remote voting from digital devices, as well as allow each voter to verify his or her untampered vote in the final count.
When you go to Agora's "results" page, all you get is an aggregated tally of votes. I don't see a ledger of any kind:
https://agora.vote/sierraleone2018/results
[+] [-] shpx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] microtherion|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sangermaine|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacques_chester|8 years ago|reply
ICO imminent. Act now and receive a 20% bonus on your next overpromise.
[+] [-] mattigames|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] specialist|8 years ago|reply
"...The Agora people appear smart, earnest. So maybe there's something here." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16599728
Voting systems are like catnip for both conspiracy theorists and charlatan's. It's nutty making. Sometimes I wonder which one I am.
On the positive side, the Sierra Leone govt's refutation saves me the effort of debunking yet another hairball scheme.
[+] [-] inetknght|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Analemma_|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mozumder|8 years ago|reply
A large state can hack election results just by having millions of computers perform blockchain proof-of-work on false election data.
[+] [-] rebuilder|8 years ago|reply
BTW, is it too late to stop using the word "blockchain" like it's something that can be bottled up and sold? I believe an article is required.
[+] [-] popol12|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s73v3r_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malikNF|8 years ago|reply
I think its a really cool project, may be they might help you change your mind too.