With the elections concluded and the winner decided, a few words about voter fraud and identification.

There has been a lot of talk about voter ID requirements and policing and its sometimes adverse effects (such as this story about an elderly woman not allowed to vote since she doesn’t drive and therefore has no driver’s license). Voter fraud and voting machine malfunction have been contentious subjects; in previous campaigns, there have been multiple cases of identity fraud – as bad as dead people registering to vote.

How do you solve the problem of identification? Interestingly enough the suggestions are very similar to attempts for stopping account take-over in online services. There are basically two common responses.

The first is – get a 3rd party certificate. The equivalent in the online world is using Facebook connect – basically your online passport – or other types of openID solutions. That requires trust in that 3rd party. We know that FB is riddled with fake accounts, but as far as government issued driver’s licenses our trust is a little bit more warranted – if only due to the physical, offline nature of issuing a new one.

The second is – issue yet another authentication factor for citizens to identify themselves. I wrote about this topic in the past; issuing new secrets tends to not work (since fraudsters will target getting those secrets, and will be less likely than legitimate users to have them handy when prompted). Using biometrics, such as DNA samples or finger prints, as the blogger I linked to suggests is the beginning of a slippery slope of lack of privacy[1].

Let me offer a third options: social collateral. Let groups of pre-registered voters vouch for one another as being who they are, as long as at least one of them can be recognized with a government issued ID, while you register them jointly as a “voting batch”. Have those people sign a pledge to maintain voting in good faith. The mechanics of having to commit to that pledge as a group as well as include at least a minimum amount of outside validation will govern against voter fraud. This could be a cheap, reasonable and research-supported way to enforce identity and reduce incentive for fraud.

As President Obama noted in his acceptance speech, the voting process must be fixed in the next 4 years. Using social mechanics is one way that must be considered.

[1] Edit: In the comments, Nir Alfasi presented a biometric solution that doesn’t require an actual database. I believe it still falls under the complexity of the first  type of solutions since it, too, requires pre-registration. It’s however good to know that such solutions exist.