So there are a few things that bring us humans together in the way that an election does. We stand in elections; we vote in elections; we observe elections. Our democracies rely on elections. We all understand why we have elections, and we all leave the house on the same day to go and vote. We cherish the opportunity to have our say, to help decide the future of the country. The fundamental idea is that politicians are given mandate to speak for us, to make decisions on our behalf that affect us all. Without that mandate, they would be corrupt.
Ne obstaja veliko stvari, ki ljudi pripeljejo skupaj na način, na kakršnega to naredijo volitve. Na volitvah kandidiramo, glasujemo, jih opazujemo. Naše demokracije temeljijo na volitvah. Vsi razumemo, zakaj imamo volitve, in vsi gremo na isti dan iz hiše na volišče. Spoštujemo priložnost oddati svoj glas in soodločati o prihodnosti svoje države. Temeljna ideja je, da politiki dobijo mandat, da govorijo v našem imenu, in tako sprejemajo odločitve, ki vplivajo na vse nas. Brez tega mandata bi bili korumpirani.
Well unfortunately, power corrupts, and so people will do lots of things to get power and to stay in power, including doing bad things to elections. You see, even if the idea of the election is perfect, running a countrywide election is a big project, and big projects are messy. Whenever there is an election, it seems like something always goes wrong, someone tries to cheat, or something goes accidentally awry -- a ballot box goes missing here, chads are left hanging over here.
Na žalost moč ljudi kvari in ti počnejo marsikaj, da bi prišli na oblast in tam ostali, vključno s povzročanjem škode na volitvah. Veste, tudi če je zamisel volitev popolna, je izvedba nacionalnih volitev velik projekt, veliki projekti pa so kaotični. Kadarkoli potekajo volitve, se zdi, da gre nekaj narobe; nekdo skuša goljufati ali pa se kaj ponesreči -- tu izgine volilna skrinjica, tam ostane kup odrezkov.
To make sure as few things as possible go wrong, we have all these procedures around the election. So for example, you come to the polling station, and a poll station worker asks for your ID before giving you a ballot form and asking you to go into a voting booth to fill out your vote. When you come back out, you get to drop your vote into the ballot box where it mixes with all the other votes, so that no one knows how you voted.
Da bi zagotovili čim manjše število napak, so volitve povezane z mnogimi postopki. Na primer: pridete na volišče, član volilne komisije zahteva vaš osebni dokument, preden vam izroči glasovnico ter vas napoti v kabino, kjer jo boste izpolnili. Ko se vrnete, oddate svoj glas v volilno skrinjico, kjer se pomeša med druge glasove, tako da nihče ne ve, kako ste glasovali.
Well, what I want us to think about for a moment is what happens after that, after you drop your vote into the ballot box. And most people would go home and feel sure that their vote has been counted, because they trust that the election system works. They trust that election workers and election observers do their jobs and do their jobs correctly. The ballot boxes go to counting places. They're unsealed and the votes are poured out and laboriously counted. Most of us have to trust that that happens correctly for our own vote, and we all have to trust that that happens correctly for all the votes in the election. So we have to trust a lot of people. We have to trust a lot of procedures. And sometimes we even have to trust computers. So imagine hundreds of millions of voters casting hundreds of millions of votes, all to be counted correctly and all the things that can possibly go wrong causing all these bad headlines, and you cannot help but feel exhausted at the idea of trying to make elections better.
Pomislite za trenutek na to, kaj se zgodi po tem ko ste svoj glas oddali v volilno skrinjico. Večina ljudi bo šla domov prepričanih, da je bil njihov glas med preštetimi, saj zaupajo, da volilni sistem deluje. Verjamejo, da uslužbenci volilnih komisij in opazovalci volitev opravijo svoje delo, in to korektno. Volilne skrinjice odnesejo v prostore za štetje. Tam jih odpečatijo in stresejo ven glasovnice ter jih natančno preštejejo. Večina med nami mora zaupati, da se to zgodi pravilno za naš glas, in vsi moramo zaupati, da se to zgodi pravilno za vse glasove, oddane na volitvah. Zaupati moramo torej veliko ljudem. Zaupati moramo številnim postopkom. In včasih moramo zaupati celo računalnikom. Zamislite si na stotine milijonov volivcev, ki oddajo na stotine milijonov glasov, ki jih je vse treba pravilno prešteti, in vse, kar lahko gre narobe in pripelje do takih slabih naslovnic, in nedvomno boste utrujeni od razmišljanja, kako izboljšati potek volitev.
Well in the face of all these bad headlines, researchers have taken a step back and thought about how we can do elections differently. They've zoomed out and looked at the big picture. And the big picture is this: elections should be verifiable. Voters should be able to check that their votes are counted correctly, without breaking election secrecy, which is so very important. And that's the tough part. How do we make an election system completely verifiable while keeping the votes absolutely secret?
Soočeni z vsemi temi negativnimi naslovi so raziskovalci stopili korak nazaj in razmislili o tem, kako izpeljati volitve drugače. Na stvar so pogledali od daleč, celostno. In celostna slika je taka: volitve bi morale biti preverljive. Volivci bi morali imeti možnost preveriti, ali so bili njihovi glasovi pravilno prešteti, ne da bi pri tem prekršili načelo tajnosti volitev, ki je tako zelo pomembno. In to je zahtevni del vsega. Kako naj bo volilni sistem povsem preverljiv, če naj ostanejo glasovi absolutno tajni?
Well, the way we've come up with uses computers but doesn't depend on them. And the secret is the ballot form. And if you look closely at these ballot forms, you'll notice that the candidate list is in a different order on each one. And that means, if you mark your choices on one of them and then remove the candidate list, I won't be able to tell from the bit remaining what your vote is for. And on each ballot form there is this encrypted value in the form of this 2D barcode on the right. And there's some complicated cryptography going on in there, but what's not complicated is voting with one of these forms. So we can let computers do all the complicated cryptography for us, and then we'll use the paper for verification.
No, naš način uporablja računalnike, ni pa odvisen od njih. Skrivnost je v glasovnici. Če od blizu pogledate te glasovnice, boste videli, da je seznam kandidatov na vsaki drugačen. To pomeni, da če svoj glas oddate na eni od njih in potem odstranite seznam kandidatov, od papirja, ki ostane, ne morem ugotoviti, komu je namenjen vaš glas. Na vsaki glasovnici je tudi kodirana vrednost v obliki te 2D črtne kode na desni. In tule je udeležena določena zapletena kriptografija, tisto kar pa ni zapleteno, je glasovanje na teh obrazcih. Tako pustimo računalnikom, da opravijo z zapleteno kriptografijo, mi pa uporabimo papir za preverjanje.
So this is how you vote. You get one of these ballot forms at random, and then you go into the voting booth, and you mark your choices, and you tear along a perforation. And you shred the candidate list. And the bit that remains, the one with your marks -- this is your encrypted vote. So you let a poll station worker scan your encrypted vote. And because it's encrypted, it can be submitted, stored and counted centrally and displayed on a website for anyone to see, including you. So you take this encrypted vote home as your receipt. And after the close of the election, you can check that your vote was counted by comparing your receipt to the vote on the website. And remember, the vote is encrypted from the moment you leave the voting booth, so if an election official wants to find out how you voted, they will not be able to. If the government wants to find out how you voted, they won't be able to. No hacker can break in and find out how you voted. No hacker can break in and change your vote, because then it won't match your receipt. Votes can't go missing because then you won't find yours when you look for it.
Glasujete torej tako. Dobite naključen obrazec, greste v volilno kabino in označite svoj izbor, potem pa listič pretrgate po perforaciji. Seznam kandidatov uničite. Tisto, kar ostane, ta del z vašim izborom, to je vaš kodiran glas. Sodelavec volilne komisije na volišču skenira vaš kodiran glas. In ker je kodiran, ga je mogoče oddati, shraniti in prešteti na centraliziran način ter ga objaviti na spletni strani na ogled vsem, tudi vam. Tole kodirano glasovnico odnesete domov kot potrdilo. Po zaključku volitev pa lahko preverite, ali so vaš glas prešteli, tako da svoje potrdilo primerjate z glasom na spletni strani. Ne pozabite, glas je kodiran od trenutka, ko zapustite volilno kabino, tako da če volilni uradnik želi ugotoviti, kako ste volili, ne more. Če vlada želi ugotoviti, kako ste volili, ne more. Noben heker ne more vlomiti in ugotoviti, kako ste volili. Noben heker ne more vlomiti in spremeniti vašega glasu, saj se potem ne bo ujemal z vašim potrdilom. Glasovi ne morejo izginiti, kajti potem jih ne bi našli, ko bi jih iskali.
But the election magic doesn't stop there. Instead, we want to make the whole process so transparent that news media and international observers and anyone who wants to can download all the election data and do the count themselves. They can check that all the votes were counted correctly. They can check that the announced result of the election is the correct one. And these are elections by the people, for the people. So the next step for our democracies are transparent and verifiable elections.
A volilna čarovnija se tu ne konča. Namesto tega želimo celoten proces narediti tako transparenten, da lahko novinarji in mednarodni opazovalci ter kdorkoli drug, ki to želi, pridobijo vse volilne podatke in sam opravi štetje. Lahko preverijo, ali so bili glasovi pravilno prešteti. Lahko preverijo, da so objavljeni rezultati volitev res pravilni. In to so volitve od ljudi za ljudi. Naslednji korak naših demokracij so transparentne in preverljive volitve.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplavz)