Open electronic voting

opengov

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A major impediment to transparent government is the widespread use of insecure electronic voting machines. These machines have been shown to be easily hackable, thus opening the door wide to voter fraud. Ultimately, an election might be rigged entirely, with no way to do a "recount" to correctly determine the will of the electorate.

A transparent government would mandate that all electronic voting machine hardware and software, from the machine in the polling booth to the collection systems used to collate results, would be subject to publication and verification as true open source software. Every citizen has the right to ensure that their vote is properly and fairly counted. Having the entire process open to the public eye is the only proven way of not only ensuring fair elections, but also allowing a process whereby each voter can assure themselves that the process is verifiably fair and impartial.

Sean Ahern
Computer Scientist
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Why Is This Idea Important?

The idea is important because representative democracy hinges upon properly representing the will of the people. If elections are able to be rigged or otherwise thrown in undetectable ways, this threatens the very fabric of our government at all levels.

Idea # 109Legal & Policy Challenges, voting, election, open source

Comments

skidadsr 10 months ago

Actually the real problem is the voting population. They are so ignorant. I think there should be a required quiz and if you can't answer 5 queations about your party or propositions you shouldn't be allowed to vote... Yeah, I know that doesn't sound fare to democrats...

erick.gonzalez 10 months ago

Not going to happen, not at least with our current internet technology. This will however, be possible when a better framework and internet security has been implemented in the not so distant future. For now let's continue to vote the old fashion way.

opengov 10 months ago

Erick, I believe you misunderstand. I am not proposing "internet voting." I agree with you that current internet strategy is woefully insecure and not up to the task of local elections, let alone state, or national.

What I am suggesting is making the platforms that existing electronic voting operates on (touchscreen voting machines, collation, reporting, etc.) open source and available for inspection and validation. And mandating that it must always be so for the principles of transparency.

stuart.mckee 9 months ago

Sean, although I agree 100% with the idea that 'trust' in voting system is critical. 'Open Source' does little (if anything) to provide real accountability for voting systems. The perception that somehow access to source code eliminates any capability for fraud is misleading and will not assure voters that the process is verifiably fair and impartial.

Three comments I would like to suggest to improve the discussion;

1. What about hardware and people running the systems? These are certainly areas of 'risk' to integrity every bit as important as software.

2. 'Auditing standards' should be set. Regardless of system, the capability to 'audit' performance and results is the best way to verify integrity. Certainly voting systems should be verified and perhaps 'certified' by an agency with appropriate skills to do so (and these 'certification agencies' may in fact have capability to review and 'audit' source code which is totally appropriate.) In addition, we should have a consistent method to validate the entire 'system' running 'in production' is the same as the certified system. Throughout an election, audits of system integrity should be conducted.

3. I believe in the discussion and concern for how technology might corrupt and/or create opportunities for fraud, we have completely missed the discussion about the shortcomings of our current processes, and how much technology can dramatically help increase trust in government and voting. For example, rather than bags of paper ballots transported in bins and mail systems, with many opportunities for human interference - encryption for transmission of results and digital tabulation. And rather than no opportunity for a truly 'private polling booth' - real access for disabled voters with readers, audio, etc. These are two examples of how technology can (and should) radically transform shortcomings in our current voting processes.

Thank you for the discussion!

bbrandon 9 months ago

I think your idea makes sense upstream of the polling place. Precinct-based optical scan systems are a far more secure way to vote in a polling place than with DREs. But this does not solve the problem of hacking into the system later in the vote collection process as the Hursti hack proved. This is a critically important issue.

kdtroxel 9 months ago

3. Paper Ballot Requirement: The use of paperless voting machines will henceforth be disallowed for presidential and congressional elections in all states. Paper ballot provides a concrete record of voter will and intent. The use of voting machines should never be allowed in any state; there will always be a will to defraud and whenever there is a will there is a way.
• Provisional ballots should count as a vote. Modern election fraud is about throwing out votes and provisional ballots are generally not counted as a vote.
• Election Day should be on a weekend. Voting should be mandatory with fines for not voting. The fine should not be steep but should encourage turn out. Business must allow workers to vote with punitive fines should they not allow workers to vote. Election Day should be reconsidered as more than one day, for instance, Saturday and Sunday.
• Institute an online voting system with Real ID as validation device. This would allow people to see that their vote was counted along with individual voting history.
• This year I sent in an absentee ballot about four weeks prior to November 4, 2008 election day. I have no way of knowing if my vote was counted or if any absentee ballot was counted. The nature of clouding election committee ballot counts must become more transparent and uniform.

brent 9 months ago

1. We use electronic voting systems- and we are highly likley to continue doing so.

2. Open source systems are more secure than closed, secret software systems

3. Paper ballots must be mandatory

adirondack_1 9 months ago

Electronic voting would be great if there were a need to hurry.

That we see a congress hurry their procedures to no good ends should be all the warning needed for people to demand their vote be counted and recounted in a fashion where any mistakes are tangible and made by the voter not the counter, as evidence, and not some record which in its entirety could be wiped out by slight of hand in seconds.

kdtroxel 9 months ago

Electronic voting is only viable if each voter could go online and see their vote. This would insure that their vote was counted.

adirondack_1 9 months ago

What would be used to determine invalid votes then, such as fake or ineligible votes?

brent 9 months ago

The better system design has been demonstrated at LinuxWorld by Open Voting Consortium. It includes an open source ballot printer providing perfectly marked ballots see www.openvoting.org

dunstvangeet 9 months ago

brent

1. I agree.

2. No, not neccessairly. Open Source software can be more secure than closed source software, but it fundamentally has a problem. If someone does have access to the source code, and anybody can edit it, why can't they put bugs in it to steal the election, and upload their source code right before the code goes dark? The reason that Open Source is usually more secure is because the people that find the bugs also fix them. However, just as people find bugs, people can insert bugs into the software.

3. I agree, or some way of error-testing the system. kdtroxel's system might also be okay.

brent 9 months ago

#2- Security is not simply a software code issue- Suffice it to say open source code is no panacea to concerns, merely a necessary element. I suggest you analyze the Open Voting Consortium system to recognize the level of security, and deterrent to manipulation, that is inherent. Through encryption and lock down procedures, and system design, we can effectuate appropriately secure open source, paper ballot printing systems.

William M. Riggles 9 months ago

The main thing is there a way to verify that your votes were accurately recorded.

Post them online, and where you voted. You receive a random number when you vote, and look up that number online or at the polling place to make sure it was correct.

A person can lie and say they didn't vote such and such, but when there is a public outcry something is wrong.

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