Thread by @ErrataRob

So let's explore why Tim Cook is stupid about thinking we can vote from phones.

To make internet voting work, you first need to have a national ID card. This is ironic because in the above interview, Tim Cook criticizes the Georgia voting law that has an ID requirement, then proposes Internet voting that needs more of an ID requirement.

Online banking works because banking tracks every transaction back to the user. The principle of voting is that you cannot track votes back to the person who cast them. Voting is anonymous: you can track the fact people voted, but not who they voted for.

The most important attribute of a voting system is "trust". If it's computerized, anybody can make spurious accusations that the election has been hacked, and without non-computer records, there's no way to refute. See the following for how that happens.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Unit…

If you think you can build an online voting system that meets the criteria, then build an online voting system that meets the criteria and post the code to GitHub for everyone to see. Don't call for politicians to make laws forcing it until you've proven it can be done.

BTW, I think it's actually easy, something that a college student can do as a thesis. It'll require minor changes to the requirements we have with voting to match what's possible with cryptographic protocols.

...but by "easy" I mean "in retrospect". It'll be a whole lot of infighting about exactly which requirements we are allowed to change, such as having a national ID requirement.

This is a good point: local politicians love having control over the process, as we see here in Georgia. BTW, it's not just Georgia Republicans who are evil here, but also Democrats. They are fighting each other for control rather than fairness.

https://twitter.com/jason_carian/status/1379567688750489602

Every requirement is hard. With cryptography, we can make it so an individual can check that their vote hasn't been corrupted. But then that means their boss can look over their shoulder as they check their vote on their phone, coercing votes.

As this tweet points out, a small amount of fraud is acceptable for credit cards. This amount would not be for voting -- it'd swing close elections.

https://twitter.com/ajsta/status/1379569202185392129

Also, this thread.

https://twitter.com/VessOnSecurity/status/1284824106903404544