E-Voting

SEMINAR REPORT

ON

E – VOTING

Prepared By

Dhaval Patel

04IT6006

Guided By

Prof. C.R. Mandal

Submitted To:

School Of Information Technology,

IIT Kharagpur

Purpose Of The Seminar

This Seminar has been developed in an attempt to provide an objective introduction to the issues of E-Voting surrounding the introduction of information technologies into the voting process. Voters’ trust in elections comes from a combination of the Mechanisms and procedures we use to record and tally votes. In this seminar I am going to present the various Electronic voting Method like voting by kiosk, Internet, telephone, punch card, and optical scan ballot, Proms and Cons of all voting types. I have also described how the evolution of various voting machines has been carried out in last 100 eras. There is a discussion on some of the problem found in e-voting machine like Florida’s butterfly ballots design problem. As the new problem known to the people, what is a reaction of the people toward this voting process? Like I have discussed some the well-known issues like Voter Verifiable result, Mercuri Method, Ballot Design Issues and etc.. At the end I have illustrated IEEE performance standard for voting machine.

Introduction

This section is mainly concern of the discussion of the definition of the Voting, Structure of Vote, and Importance of the Voting. The Subsequent Section discuss procedure for E-Voting with the specific need of the Voting Machine.

Voting

This is what the public does to choose the politician they want to run their area or country. Only those over 18 can vote at present

Structure of Votes

The structure of votes depends on the type of Elections. More precisely, It depends on the question that is put forward to voters in the election and Possible answers.

Type of Election

We will distinguish between the following types of election.

yes/no voting / Voter’s answer is yes or no. Vote is a one bit: 1 for yes and 0 for no
1-out-of-L voting / Voter has L possibilities and he chooses one of them. Vote is a number in the range 1 . . .L
K-out-of-L voting / Voter selects K different elements from the set of L possibilities. The order of the selected elements is not important. Vote is a K-tuple (v1 · · · vK)
K-out-of-L ordered voting / Voter puts into order K different elements
from the set of L possibilities. Vote is an ordered K-tuple (v1 · · · vK).
1-L-K voting / Voter picks out one of the L sets of possibilities, and from the selected set he chooses K elements. Vote is a K+1-tuple (i, a1 · · · aK); a1 · · · aK are elements of the ith set.
Structured voting / There are n levels of possibilities. Voter moves from the first level to the last one. At the ith level he can select at most ki possibilities from the subset Si of all possibilities in the ith level. Si, ki depend on his choices in the previous levels. Vote is a tuple (v11, · · · , v1k1 , · · · , vi1, · · · , viki , · · · , vnkn), where {vi1, · · · , viki} _ Si.
Write-in voting / Voter formulates his own answer and writes it down. Vote is a string with specified maximum length.

Voting importance

Voting is one of the most critical features in our democratic process. By casting a vote we hold previous politicians to account and express our hopes for the future. Of course democracy is more than votes - it's debate, letter writing, campaigning, consultation - but the vote is how every single citizen can wield real and immediate power. In addition to providing for the orderly transfer of power, it also cements the citizen’s trust and confidence in an organization or government when it operates efficiently. It's incredibly important that everyone can vote without interference, safe in the knowledge that it will be counted. Through the long history of democracy we have learnt that in the pursuit of power some groups are willing to threaten voters to make sure they vote 'the right way'. But if the vote is secret then there is no way for intimidators to know whether someone has voted for them or not - threats become useless. So votes are a vital expression of the people's power, which need to be secret and restricted to only one per citizen.

E-Voting

Electronic voting is a term used to describe any of several means of determining people's collective intent electronically. Electronic voting includes voting by kiosk, Internet, telephone, punch card, and optical scan ballot (a.k.a. mark-sense). Voting is done for many reasons and in many situations, ranging from determining the next garden club officers to determining the next leader of a country. Depending on the situation, a voting scheme will be required to meet differing needs depending on the circumstances. One hopes that in this way the voting process becomes faster, cheaper, more convenient, and also more secure.

Requirements in E-Voting

A voting system should satisfy these requirements:

  • Eligibility and authentication – only registered voters must be admitted.
  • Uniqueness – no voter may cast his vote more than once.
  • Accuracy – voting systems should record the votes correctly.
  • Verifiability and audit ability – it should be possible to verify that all votes have been correctly accounted for in the final tally, and there should be reliable and verifiably authentic election records.
  • Secrecy – no one should be able to determine how any individual voted.
  • Non-coerciability – voters should not be able to prove to others how they voted; otherwise vote selling and coercion would be facilitated.
  • Minimum skill requirement for voter
  • Minimal requirement of equipment
  • Minimum Time required for vote

Voting Technique

The traditional way of voting has been to mark a token (shell, card or piece of paper) in private and then put it into a box or pot. The key points were to make sure that:

  • Each voter could only have one token to vote with.
  • The token could be marked in private.
  • The box could only be accessible to voters.
  • At the end of the election the box would be opened in the presence of observers of all the parties standing for election.
  • If results were in doubt different people could count the tokens again.

How Much information to be collected during the voting? If only the Name of the candidate then it is very easy to count. Consider a case like in USA, large number of issues Americans are asked to vote on at the same time. Thus to ease the counting lever and so new voting technique in using an optical machines are used in elections.

1. Raise Your Hand Or Raise Your Voice Or Put Stick in Box

Election has been used to decide various questions for at least 2000 years. In ancient Greece, people voted by putting white or black stone in bucket. Early methods including Shouting out “Aye” or “Nay”, raising hands or depositing objects to be counted.

2. Paper Ballot (1858, Australian paper ballot introduced)

The first Known use of the paper ballots in an election in the U.S. was in 1629 to select a church pastor.

Invented By

Australian paper ballot system was considered as a great innovation. Standardized ballots are printed at government expenses, given to voter at polling places, and people are required to vote and return the ballot on the spot. The Australian government comes up with this procedure, which is now the most widely used system in the world.

Procedure for voting

The paper ballot system employs uniform official ballots of various stock weights on which the names of all candidates and issues are printed. Voters record their choices, in private; by marking the boxes next to the candidate or issue choice they select and drop the voted ballot in a sealed ballot box.

Current Usage

As of 1996, paper ballots were still used by 1.7% of the registered voters in the United States. They are used as the primary voting system in small communities and rural areas, and quite often for absentee balloting in other jurisdictions

Problem with Paper Ballot System

  • It may take a long time to geta handcount under the current system. (Counting Problem)
  • A small portion of the disabledmay lose the ability to vote privately.
  • Paper ballot counting and recounting generates endless arguments about whether the X crosses inside the square

A Specimen for the Paper Ballot Voting

3. Lever Machine (1892, Mechanical lever voting machines)

The first official use of a lever type voting machine, known then as the "Myers Automatic Booth," occurred in Lockport, New York in 1892.

Procedure for voting

On mechanical lever voting machines, the name of each candidate or ballot issue choice is assigned a particular lever in a rectangular array of

levers on the front of the machine. A set of printed strips visible to the voters identifies the lever assignment for each candidate and issue choice. The levers are horizontal in their UN voted positions.

The voter enables the machine with a lever that also closes a privacy curtain. The voter pulls down selected levers to indicate choices. When the voter exits the booth by opening the privacy curtain with the handle, the voted levers are automatically returned to their original horizontal position. As each lever returns, it causes a connected counter wheel within the machine to turn one-tenth of a full rotation. The counter wheel, serving as the "ones" position of the numerical count for the associated lever, drives a "tens" counter one-tenth of a rotation for each of its full rotations. The "tens" counter similarly drives a "hundreds" counter. If all mechanical connections are fully operational during the voting period, and the counters are initially set to zero, the position of each counter at the close of the polls indicates the number of votes cast on the lever that drives it. Interlocks in the machine prevent the voter from voting for more choices than permitted.

Current Usage

Nationally, mechanical lever machines were used by 20.7% of voters in the 1996 Presidential election. Trend is to replace them with computer based Mark sense or Direct Recording Electronic systems.

Problem with Lever Machine

Lever-handle voting machines are subject to malfunctions that can invalidate hundreds of votes

4. Postal

Step Of Postal Voting

  • Ordinary paper ballot is delivered to voters, by post
  • Paper ballot is returned by post for counting
  • Voters need to sign a declaration
  • They have to prove they are authorized to cast the vote posted

Problem

How sure we can be that only authorized citizens have cast their votes?

5. Punch Card (1964, Punched card voting (Votomatic))

Invented

Herman Hollerith invented a punchcard tabulation machine system for statistical computation

Procedure for voting

Punch card systems employ a card (or cards) and a small clipboard-sized device for recording votes. Voters punch holes in the cards (with a

supplied punch device) opposite their candidate or ballot issue choice. After voting, the voter may place the ballot in a ballot box, or the ballot may be fed into a computer vote-tabulating device at the precinct.

Two common types of punch cards are the "votomatic" card and the "data vote" card. With the votomatic, the locations at which holes may be punched to indicate votes are each assigned numbers. The number of the hole is the only information printed on the card. The list of candidates or ballot issue choices and directions for punching the corresponding holes are printed in a separate booklet. (Today’s "votomatic" cards are the direct descendents of the original punchcard developed from a concept introduced by political scientist and former government administrator Dr. Joseph P. Harris) With the datavote, the name of the candidate or description of the issue choice is printed on the ballot next to the location of the hole to be punched. The tabulation may be done either by a computer equipped with a standard punched-card reader or by an electromechanical tabulating machine.

Feature

  • Voters with a stylus punch holes in cards to register their votes
  • Mechanical machines counted automatically
  • Punch card election results have been very solid in recounts
  • Ambiguous ballots ("hanging chads") are extremely rare

Problem

  • It is common to notice a few pieces of chad accumulating in areas where Votomatic ballots are being processed, and each of these may represent a vote added to some candidates total by accident
  • Systems have reliability problem
  • Cards can be checked manually
  • Poor user interface the punch card voting device
  • Centralized handling and ballot counting they require
  • Use of secret, proprietary software to do the counting

The problems with punch-card ballots became well known after the state of Florida’s 2000 US Presidential Election. Because voters might not completely remove punch-card holes, it can be unclear from a punch card what the voter intended. Unlike permanent markings on paper, punch-card ballots are susceptible to accidental voters have lost faith in them, which makes them unacceptable. After the Florida elections served to destroy voter confidence in punch-card systems, the US government passed a law encouraging states to replace their

punch card and mechanical-lever systems. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) allocated US$3.86 billion for election upgrades. According to the HAVA act, US states that accept funds must replace their existing punch card and mechanical-lever voting machines.

6. Optical Scanning (Mark sense)(~1970, Optical mark-sense ballots)

Invented

In 1937, IBM introduced the Type 805 Test Scoring Machine, sensing graphite pencil marks on paper by their electrical conductivity

Procedure of Voting

In this system voters record their choices on a ballot card by filling in a circle, rectangle or oval or by completing the arrow. They then either place the ballot in a sealed box, or they feed it into a computer-tabulating device at the precinct. The tabulating device reads the votes using “dark mark logic,” selecting the darkest mark within a given set as the correct vote. This technology has existed for decades.

Feature

  • Counts are quicker
  • Problems arise recounts of the ballot can still be done by hand

Problem

  • Error rates from using the wrong type of pencil
  • Misunderstanding the card

7. Phone

Provide voting either through a touch-tone system or through SMS text messages on mobile phones. Authentication is achieved through the use of PIN and access codes, which are mailed to voters ahead of the ballot

Telephone voting allows people to call different telephone numbers to indicate preference for different options, or a voter might call one number and indicate a preference by pressing buttons in a menu system. Its main drawback is the difficulty in verifying the identity of the voter and in permitting only one vote per person. Its chief advantage is the ease in getting people to participate.

Problem

Poor. Convenient but extremely unlikely to meet basic voting requirements

The Fox TV Network used telephone voting to determine the winner of the American Idol television talent contest.

In the case of the 2003 Ruben Studdard/Clay Aiken contest, another drawback of telephone voting appeared. Viewers were asked to call a number indicating their preference, but the telephone systems, presumably two identical systems for counting votes, were operating very near capacity for the duration of the voting period. Perhaps as a result, out of 24 million votes cast, Stoddard "won" by only 130,000 votes.

8.Electronic Machine Voting [EMV] (Direct Recording Electronic [DRE])

~1985, Direct-recording electronic voting (Electro vote 2000)

The most recent configuration in the evolution of voting systems are known as direct recording electronic, or DRE. They are an electronic implementation of the old mechanical lever systems. As with the lever machines, there is no ballot; the possible choices are visible to the voter on the front of the machine. The voter directly enters choices into electronic storage with the use of a touch-screen, push buttons, or similar device. An alphabetic keyboard is often provided with the entry device to allow for the possibility of write-in votes. The voter’s choices are stored in these machines via a memory cartridge, diskette or smart card and added to the choices of all other voters.

Consists of a normal computer or more often a specially designed electronic 'kiosk' in the polling booth Use buttons or a touch screen votes are made which are stored in an electronic memory Recounts are not possible

In 1996, 7.7% of the registered voters in the United States used some type of direct recording electronic voting system.

Advantages

DRE voting systems are often favored because they can incorporate assistive technologies for handicapped people, allowing them to vote without involving another person in the process

They can also offer immediate feedback on the validity of a particular ballot so that the voter can have an opportunity to correct problems if they are noticed.