Was YOUR vote counted? (feat. homomorphic encryption) - Numberphile
What it is
Numberphile interviews cryptographer Ron Rivest about end-to-end verifiable voting. He explains how homomorphic encryption and receipts let a voter confirm their ballot was counted without being able to prove how they voted to anyone else.
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters point to it in election-security threads as an accessible explainer of how a vote can be verifiable but not sellable.
- 5 people recommended it
- 5 different months
- 0 strong recommendations
- first 2016, last 2024
What HN commenters said
“Ron Rivest was recently on Numberphile, where he talked about using homomorphic encryption to enable end-to-end verifiable voting.”
Ron Rivest on homomorphic encryption for verifiable voting
pdkl95, 2016-11 · Recommendation · in “Computer scientists urge Clinton campaign to challenge election results”
“I find Rivest's video( ) on homomorphic encryption as voting mechanism quite interesting.”
Voter receipts verifiable without enabling vote selling
khrm, 2017-08 · Recommendation · in “To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software”
“Numberphile made a video on this topic recently, with a few basic explainers”
Basic explainer of homomorphic encryption for voter verification
YokoZar, 2019-05 · Recommendation · in “Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting”
“here's a good video explaining the basic concepts of how it works[2].”
Good explanation of basic concepts behind verifiable voting
PyroLagus, 2019-06 · Recommendation · in “A Peer to Peer Voting Algorithm [pdf]”
“Cryptographers are clever and have figured out a way to let you know your vote was counted without being able to prove it to a third party!”
Verify your vote counted without proving it to others
c1ccccc1, 2024-11 · Recommendation · in “Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak”
Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.
Topics: homomorphic encryption, e-voting, cryptography, ron rivest, election security
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