Demo of Free Software Voter-Verifiable Voting

Lulu of the Lotus-Ea writes "The Open Voting Consortium (OVC) is holding a demonstration of its Free Software voting system in Santa Clara, California on April 1, 2004 (yeah, I know the date, but it's not a joke). An announcement on the OVC homepage has further details. The Sourceforge hosted EVM2003 project of the OVC has produced touchscreen and vision-impared interface voting systems that produce visually inspectable (or machine-aided audio verification) paper ballots. As well, OVC will demonstrate systems for reconcilliation and reporting of precint results, and provide handouts and a presentation explaining the virtues of a publicly inspectible system with a tamper-proof paper trail."

Comments

Today, digital votations in Spain

[Anonymous Coward]

Today (march 24th) in Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (The Basque Country's University) they will elect the new vice chancellor that will rule the university.

They will use a system called Demotek that is made by four basque companys (Ibermatica, Ikusi, Hunolt and Euskaltel), and uses a really curious way for voting, half analogic, half digital. The voter uses a normal paper for voting, but the ballot paper has a bar code that is read when it is inserted in the ballot box.

The results are available in the moment that the ballot boxes are closed. But, they are not official until the ballot papers are counted.

- It's a easy way because there are no skills necesary (it's not necesary to know using a computer). My grandmother can use it.

-It's a safe way, because there are always the ballot papers for testing if the system was ok and no one has cheat the results.

- It's a fast way for knowing the results. No more Florida like recounting needed.

Sorry for my awfull english

Marcus Ramius

Much ado about very little

[heironymouscoward]

Electronic voting has been used in parts of Belgium for over a decade, with little fuss or controversy.

The system is simple, robust, secure and verifiable. Each voter gets a smart card (magstripe card in the older days) when they present their papers; they take this smart card into the voting booth and insert it, much like using an ATM (and everyone knows how to do this). The voting machines use a touch screen like an ATM (in the older days, using a light pen), and let you select your candidate/party. The vote is registered to the card, which is then ejected, and inserted into a ballot box that counts the vote as the card is entered.

The ballot boxes are locked, so tampering with the cards is impossible. The card readers in the box cannot write to the cards. The voting booths are stupid, with no memory or network connections.

So what's the big deal in the US?

Re:Much ado about very little

[theLOUDroom]

The system is simple, robust, secure and verifiable. Each voter gets a smart card (magstripe card in the older days) when they present their papers; they take this smart card into the voting booth and insert it, much like using an ATM (and everyone knows how to do this). The voting machines use a touch screen like an ATM (in the older days, using a light pen), and let you select your candidate/party. The vote is registered to the card, which is then ejected, and inserted into a ballot box that counts the vote as the card is entered.

Holy crap! That system is not simple, robust, secure or verifiable!

There's about a million fundamental problems with that idea. Here are some of them.

• The voter has no way to know what is being written to the smartcard.
• The voter was no way of knowing if the smartcard is being read correctly.
• There's no way to audit the system. (The first point above can't be checked.)
• The system is needlessly complex.
• The system is anything but robust. It requires you to place ultimate trust in THREE machines!
• You have to walk around with something that says who you voted for (if just for a second).

Here's the way electronic voting SHOULD work:

1. I walk into a private booth.
2. I press a button for the canidate I want.
3. I press OK
4. The System prints up a paper card showing the name of the person I voted for. This card can be clearly seen behind a plexiglass window.
5. I press OK again and the card drops into a locked box.
6. I'm done.

Unlike your system, the above system allows voters to verify that their individual votes are being registered correctly (at least on paper) and allows for a double-check of the electronic count by counting up all the voter-verifyable paper ballots.

Re:Okay, I fail to see why they don't just do. . .

[Eastree]

Something somewhat similar to this has been done in Louisiana for many years (for those who are unfamiliar with the state's statistics: La is known for the worst drivers, close to worst education, etc. -- almost everything is close to the worst). The voters sign an afadavid (sp?) when they enter the voting facility, and the booth number is noted. Inside the booth, there is a very simple interface with buttons next to each candidate's name, and there is a brief description of the candidate's platform. Before submitting the vote (a light is illuminated by the pressed button) the voters are asked to confirm.

Any way, back to the 5-step process:

1. Identify yourself (the afadavid as in Louisiana) -- Most states' driver's licenses have some sort of electronically readable media. That part seems easy enough -- scan the card.

2. A nice, easy format is WAY too easy to do, unless it's for Florida residents (or so it seems)

5. Not quite -- the hard copy ballots should be automatically dropped (or printed in a long strip like a cash register receipt?) within the machine, and only printed after the voter has confirmed his/her choice.

Also, there should be a database of local users at the voting points of only the local registered voters. If a scanned ID (if that is the chosen method) does not match, the voter is denied. The information of voters is kept separate from too easily attaching a name to a vote, but not ipossible in case someone somehow successfully votes twice (another reason for theinitial database check), which would invalidate the person's votes. Of course, this could be modified and expanded for many types of possible fraud detection.

Web demo online

[laird]

We've just linked in an online demo of the voting system as it will operate in a polling station. You can go to the Open Voting Consortium web site, and click on 'web demo'. Or go straight to the ballot if you're impatient.

Please keep in mind that we're not proposing voting through web browsers, or across the internet, because of the numerous security issues. This web demo is intended to let you see what you'd see on our demo on April 1 in California, for people who can't be there.

What you'll see is a ballot formatted for a large screen (1280x1024). You fill it out, then click 'print ballot'. What would happen in a polling station is that the ballot is printed out. In the online version, you can get the ballot as a PDF, Postscript, or JPEG image.

In the stand-alone polling station you will be able to take your paper ballot to a validation station that will read your vote back to you, so that you know that the paper ballot accurately represents your vote.

You then take your ballot to the tabulation station, where a poll worker will scan the ballot and store it in a locked box, where the paper ballots are available for recounts, audits, etc.