A bitcoin based, completely distributed voting system

[Eduardo Robles Elvira]

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# A bitcoin based, completely distributed voting system

https://blog.agoravoting.com/index.php/2013/11/28/a-bitcoin-based-completely-distributed-voting-system/

The Agora Voting project has already implemented a voting system that
has been used in spanish congress [0] and uses secure cryptographic
methods based on ElGamal mixnets: encryption keys are distributed on a
set of authorities where if at least one of them remains honest, the
secrecy of the vote is preserved, and even if all authorities are
compromised, the tally cannot be forged because it?s universally
verifiable via mathematical proofs. This is a standard method and has
been used in Norwegian general elections, for example.

We believe that the quest for secure electronic voting must continue.
Even if vote secrecy is maintained by a set of authorities and the
tally proofs are mathematically verifiable, vote casting is still done
by one web server and this is a single point of failure, prone to DDoS
attacks. We now announce our commitment to develop a working
Bitcoin-based voting system that provides both secrecy of the vote and
verifiability of the tally.

The basic idea is very simple: to use the bitcoin network as an
online, distributed notary and timestamping service to register votes.
Notary services based on bitcoin already exist, for example
proof-of-existence, bitnotar or chronobit. This proves that the system
can work: we need to adapt and make it practical: we must allow many
votes in a short period of time, provide ways to check the validity of
the registered votes and detect which transfers reflect the hash of a
vote. We also have to document all this and develop a working solution.

Please note that this is only the beginning, we have many more plans
towards distributing trust in online voting. In the future, we plan to
use namecoin so that you don?t have to trust the SSL certificate
authorities cartel, just the network and the hashtag of an election,
which is public. Another ambitious and promising idea is to use the
blockchain to anonymize the votes altogether using zerocoin so we can
remove the need for a trusted set of authorities altogether. Just
trust the name and the network. Make the whole process secure but
deeply distributed.

To develop all this we need time and resources and we ask the bitcoin
community and enthusiasts for your help: please join the discussion at
our mailing list [1], but also please donate to
1EwqtN6GwHmkfYEfxGhuVcjrNBdQwvXMd3. If we reach 100BTC, we will
release and develop the complete plan to use the bitcoin blockchain to
distribute trust onto the network. The initial draft of the plan is
already written, we have hashed it so that its existence can be
verified a posteriori, the sha256 hash is:

9251615dfc780e353b5d2c2946ca999d225d91c4e565e7e0330a7bd1800dc43c.

Let?s make remove unneeded third parties from electronic voting
processes; just trust the vote.

?
[0]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/joan-baldovi-spain-transparency-bill?CMP=twt_gu
[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/agora-ciudadana-devel
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Eduardo Robles Elvira, https://agoravoting.com
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[Sai]

Talk about this @ lunch on 28th @ WFD?

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[Eduardo Robles Elvira]

On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 2:42 AM, Sai <i...@s.ai> wrote:
> Talk about this @ lunch on 28th @ WFD?

Hello Sai:

Unfortunately I'm not at WFDemocracy :-/

Regards,
Eduardo

[Sai]

Sorry, thought you were. Isn't there someone here for agora?

Thanks,
- Sai

Sent from my phone; please excuse the concision.

[Eduardo Robles Elvira]

On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 8:44 AM, Sai <i...@s.ai> wrote:
> Sorry, thought you were. Isn't there someone here for agora?
>
> Thanks,
> - Sai

Hello:

Well we have @BenjaminMKnight that is appointed to be our ambassador
at WFD, but he's from Loomio :-P

Regards,
Eduardo

[Patrick Connolly]

Hey Eduardo!

Have you considered posting this on the bitcointalk forums and /r/bitcoin? My thought is that it's often helpful to post in the forums first, and then link to that from /r/bitcoin if and when a conversation has developed on bitcointalk. Often there will be more nuanced critique on the forums, since there tend to be much more knowledgeable people than on reddit.

Before posting it more widely, I would suggest that the hashed draft might not be conveying the message you'd like it to. I know you likely didn't intend it this way, but it almost comes across like you're holding the whitepaper hostage for $100,000. To give context, things change fast in bitcoin-land, and many of the most knowledgeable community members are already over-saturated with the rapidly changing landscape. If bitcoin experts were to take the time to read your draft and provide feedback in their spare time (their most valued scarce resource), I think many of them would feel that this should be enough. To be waiting on a $100,000 bounty before they can even have the privilege of giving you their informed opinions, it might rub some people the wrong way, if you know what I mean :) Also, the bitcoin community has a history of publishing important whitepapers for review with no strings attached.

And lastly, what you're proposing is actually a contentious use of the blockchain, which many people will have issue with. So prepare for the fact that some people might not be receptive to using the blockchain as the backbone of a voting system.

Anyhow, all the best. I'm very intrigued by the idea. Let me know if I can help!

Patrick

[Eduardo Robles Elvira]

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Hi Patrick:

Thanks for your feedback. You're 100% right in what you say, which
makes me think you're a good pirate recruit for this project =)

We had thought of this idea this spring, and we studied some of the
papers and the related documentation to see its viability, but we
didn't really engage in the community until recently. We should post
this proposal in the forums as you say, and take some feedback.

Liberating the proposal for 100BTC, this was a way to get some
attention, and you're righyt that it might not be a good strategy. We
have to review this. We're currently working in multiple paths for
agora and we have to prioritize our work because we're few people, but
sooner than later we'll have to reveal this and continue working on it.

We know that the community don't like the idea of using the bitcoin
blockchain for anything than transactions. Well, this can be fixed
using things like chronobit [1], or even creating an alternative
blockchain. Actually, this is something we have to talk with Manuel
Ar�oz, of Partido de la Red. Maybe it's time to hold a mumble meeting
about the people interested in working on this.

Regards.
- --
[1] https://github.com/goblin/chronobit

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[Afri Donschoe]

Hello guys,

I'm currently involved with a similar project. Could anyone tell me if this proposed blockchain-backend has ever been implemented in Agora Voting? I cant find much information except a few news items. So what's the status (if there is any)?

Cheers
Afri