> I also think “3 out of 3” is not a good idea, as it allows any single key holder to prevent election outcomes that they don’t like (something that may have happened here, too. I don’t think cryptography experts often lose such keys by accident)
It's also important to factor in the case of "a key holder was hit by a bus, and now we can no longer access their private key".
I’m fairly sure the holder of a single private key cannot see the outcome of the election, then withhold the key if they don’t like it. Of course, if they reasons outside the narrow election process (media, gossip) to believe that the outcome would be unfavourable to them, then that’s a reasonable worry.
Maybe when the next draft of democracy is written it can leverage these tools.
“Unfortunately, one of the three trustees has irretrievably lost their private key, an honest but unfortunate human mistake, and therefore cannot compute their decryption share. As a result, Helios is unable to complete the decryption process, and it is technically impossible for us to obtain or verify the final outcome of this election.”
⇒ that first paragraph is badly worded, but they’re not hiding facts.
I also think “3 out of 3” is not a good idea, as it allows any single key holder to prevent election outcomes that they don’t like (something that may have happened here, too. I don’t think cryptography experts often lose such keys by accident)