A Modular Voting - E-Commerce - Lecture Slides, Slides of Fundamentals of E-Commerce

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A Modular VotingArchitecture (“Frogs”)

Outline^

Moving from paper

^ electronic

^ Voting with frogs
^ Advantages of frogs
^ Security
^ Conclusions

Where are we now? Op-scan
^ Ballots are printed beforehand.^
^ On election day, voter:^ – Identifies himself– Receives ballot– Fills out ballot (“vote generation”)– Casts ballot (“vote casting”)^
^ Ballots scanned; results tabulated.^
^ Problems: UI, printing and storagecosts, scanning accuracy, security.

Move from paper to electronic?^

Preserve “voting experience”
Paper ballot

^ electronic “frog” (term intended to be neutral as totechnology)
Frog might be “dumb” flash memorycard (4K bytes) with “freeze” (lock)capability. (No software on frog tovalidate/certify!)

(2) Vote Generation^

Voter inserts frog into “votegeneration” equipment.
Vote generation equipment readsballot style, provides superb UI forvoter to indicate his selections.
Voters selections are written ontofrog in a standard format.
Voter removes frog.

(3) Vote-casting^

Voter inserts his frog into vote-casting equipment.
Voter sees frog contents displayed.
If voter pushes “Cast” button:^ – Frog is digitally signed; same signingkey(s) used for all votes.– Frog is frozen and deposited in frog bin.– Electronic copy(s) of vote

^ storage.

^ Else frog is returned and voter goesback to (2) vote generation.

Advantages of frogs^

Electronic: no “scanning errors”
Frogs can be kept as “physical audittrail” after election.
No printing costs: frogs can bepurchased “blank” in bulk (20 cents?)
Frogs can be stored compactly (sizeof business card?)
Frog can be “frozen” when castmaking it “read-only” (unmodifiable).

Advantages of frogs^

Frogs are

digital:

so they are

compatible with cryptography (e.g.digital signatures).
Frog is just a carrier for a digitalrepresentation of ballot; technologycan evolve while keeping underlyingdata formats constant (our proposalis technolgy-neutral).

Standardized Frog FormatMassachusetts, Middlesex County, Precinct 11^ Election Closes November 7, 2004 at 8pm EST^ Ballot: MA/Middlesex/1; English; No rotationBallot Initialized by Election Official 10^ You have chosen:^ U.S. President: Mary Morris^ U.S. Vice President: Alice Applebee^ Middlesex Dog Catcher: Sam Smith (write-in)^ Proposition 1 (Casino): FOR^ Proposition 2 (Taxes): AGAINST^ Proposition 3 (Swimming Pool): FOR^ Proposition 4 (Road Work): NO VOTE

Standardized Frog Format^

Is both human and machine-readable.
Provides a clean interface betweenvote-generation (frog-writing) andvote-casting (frog confirmation/freezing / depositing).
Allows

different

manufacturers to

build different vote-generationequipment (varying UI’s) compatiblewith

same

vote-casting equipment.

Security^

A secure system needs to be

simple.

Very simple.

Very very simple.

^ A good user interface is

complex.

Quite complex.

Really very complex.

^ It follows that the sophisticateduser interface should be separatedfrom the security-criticalcomponents.

What is

most

security-critical?

^ Vote-casting

, wherein voter

-^ Confirms

that his selection are recorded accurately,– Officially casts

his recorded selections.

^ This operation needs to beexceptionally trustworthy.
^ With electronics, records areindirect;

voter is much like a blind man voting with someone’s assistance.

Vote-casting equipment should:^
^ Display

exactly and completely whatever is in frog.
Be^ stateless

(no test/real modes!)

^ For cast vote,

digitally sign

whatever is

in frog, using one key (election official)or more (political parties too).
Send copies of cast votes

^ storage

units.
Be^ open source.
Be long-term purchase.

Vote-generation equipment:^

Is less security-critical.
May have proprietary design/code.
Has less stringent certificationrequirements, and so can evolve morequickly with technology.
May be leased rather than purchased.