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Electronic Voting

MIT Laboratory for Computer Science

Edison’s 1869 Voting Machine

Intended for usein Congress;never adoptedbecause it was“too fast”!

A “dimpled chad” ???

Voting Technology Study^

MIT

and

CalTech

have begun a joint

study of alternative voting technologies.
Companion to Carter/Ford commissionon political issues in voting systems.
Initial work funded by the CarnegieFoundation.

Many kinds of equipment used

Categories^ Punch CardDataVoteLeverMachinePaperBallotsOpticalScanElectronicMixed

Changes from 1980 to 2000

Percentage of Counties Using Different Voting Technologies

45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Paper Ballots

Lever Machines

VotoMatic

DataVote

OpticallyScanned

Electronic (DRE)

Mixed

Voting System

Percentage of Counties

Series1 Series

(Chart from Prof. Steve Ansolabehere, MIT PoliSci)

Electronic Voting

^ Could the U.S. presidential electionsbe held on the Internet?
^ Why bother?

• Increased voter convenience?– Increased voter turnout? – Increased confidence in result?– “Because we can”?

Security Requirements^

All eligible voters should be able to vote.^ – Therefore: can at best augment current system,

not replace it.– May need to close electronic voting early.
^ Votes should be private (anonymous).

• May be difficult to ensure at home.
  ^ Voters should not be able to sell their votes! - Voting should be private and “receipt-free”
  ^ Integrity and verifiability of result; novulnerability to large-scale fraud.

Structure of Voting Scheme

Voter

Administrator Anonymizer

Counter

1

2

3

4

5

6

Voting Details

(1)

Voter to Admin, signed:^ Blinded commitment to ballot (2)

Admin to Voter:^ Blinded commitment, signed by Admin (3,4)

Voter to Counter, anonymously: Unblinded commitment, signed by Admin (5,6)

Voter to Counter, anonymously, afterdeadline: Key to open commitment

Issues to be dealt with:

^ Administrator can forge votes for voterswho don’t vote

.

Solution: Multiple administrators(DuRette’s thesis)
Voting is not “receipt-free” Solution: Difficult! Needs research…
Voter’s PC is not secure Solution: Difficult! New platform?? (Smartcard ?? Perhaps a secure phone??)

The “Secure Platform Problem”^ In theory:

Alice SKA

VotingSystem

In fact:

SKA Alice

VotingSystem

Perhaps a smart phone?

^ Promising, but starting to look toomuch like a desktop PC in terms ofcomplexity and consequentvulnerability…
^ Maybe with a special SIM card justfor voting…?
^ Problems would remain: vote-selling(allow voting multiple times, wherelast one counts!)

Some personal opinions

^ More important thatno one has their thumb on the scale^ than havingscale easy to use or very accurate

^ Can I convince my mom that system istrustworthy?
^ Physical ballots (e.g. paper) canprovide better audit trails thanelectronic systems.