eVoting 23 October 2006

What is included in e-voting Range of Systems Optically scanned paper Touch screen systems Internet voting All Processes (what is the weakest link?) Registration Ballot design Voting Counting of votes Recounts

Major concerns raised Correctness Certification process Digital divide System set up Auditing (recounts) Accessibility Internet vulnerability

Correctness Should code be open source? Corruption What is open source? Belief that more eyes are valuable Easier to hack Corruption Vulnerability – improved by open source Checking for errors that hackers can exploit Malicious changes – primarily a concern of which version is running

Certification process More than 40 states require certification But what does it mean? Need to guarantee certification of last minute fixes or changes – not always possible Both California and Indiana found themselves using uncertified code

A New Literacy Test? Intimidation Difficulty executing California recall Less than 1% missed (under voted) for yes/no But nearly 10% under voted in the candidate selection

System Set Up Lack of local technical skills Large number of local polling stations Short set up time

Auditability vs. Privacy Storing the full record means that someone could get at the information Acceptable in England Secret Ballot Act of 1872 Requires that each ballot be tied to the voter Records held as a state secret

Auditing (recounts) Voter Verified Audit Trail Used for Problems Print a copy Voter verifies Puts it into a ballot box Used for Routine audits (random) Recounts Problems Cost: Australia opted out Training

Why do an audit? If you can only identify a problem, what is the remedy? If audit can also produce the corrected results, more valuable

Broward County, Florida special election to fill a state House seat victor won by only 12 votes 137 of the electronic ballots were blank Florida law requires a manual recount but no paper ballots recount isn't possible

Are there other options? Code can be verified against manipulating Example: encryption within the system But, needs to get into the system User interface is the vulnerable spot Assuming no program errors, can we be sure that people will read a screen version correctly if they made a voting mistake? Depends … Primarily on the quality of the ballot design

Partial Solutions Turnout: separate track of how many people voted Number of votes cast should match Need to count abstentions Need to track people who quit in the middle Does not help to determine if the vote went to the right person

Accessibility Florida ban on plastic templates with holes for use by the visually impaired because NOT CERTIFIED How do you address this problem without compromising privacy? How is it done today? Generally, advocates for the visually impaired prefer electronic voting Techniques to support them, primarily audio What about the paper audit trail?

New Mexico last year Only two voting machines certified by the federal government for disabled and non- English speaking Neither measures up to state law that requires voter-verified paper record Upgrade would require $1000/machine