The Coq mailing list

[Xavier Leroy <xavier.leroy AT college-de-france.fr>]

On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 7:39 PM Clément Pit-Claudel <cpitclaudel AT gmail.com> wrote:

On 4/26/22 18:41, Sam Kuper wrote:
> Therefore, where ballot boxes are, as above, not themselves robust
> against access, and if they are also stored (between the time of the
> ballot and the time of the count) in a place where an attacker can
> tamper with their contents away from observation and cover their
> tracks, then the attacker may be able to affect the outcome of the
> ballot without anyone else being the wiser.

Thankfully, French ballots are counted on the same day that they are cast, and ballot boxes are displayed in public throughout the election.  Does this concern remain in that case?

I agree with Clément: ballot stuffing looks rather difficult in the French system.

The cases of voting fraud that I can remember were all based on manipulating the voters' roll to enable accomplices to vote multiple times, either in different locations or under different identities.  (See for example the "dead people voting in Paris 5th district" affair, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Tiberi#Affaire_des_faux_%C3%A9lecteurs_du_5e_arrondissement ).

Manipulating the voters' roll works equally well with traditional voting, with electronic voting machines, and with online voting, no matter how much formal verification you throw at the problem...

- Xavier Leroy