Os Keller
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1) The document discusses open source voting systems and argues they can increase security and reliability compared to proprietary systems through public review and testing. 2) It outlines requirements for fully disclosed voting systems, including publishing source code, documentation, and hardware specifications. 3) Barriers to open source voting are mentioned, such as high certification costs and entrenched relationships with existing vendors, but the document proposes new system ideas like an electronic ballot printer to improve accessibility and auditing of hand-marked paper ballots.
Os Keller
- 1. Open Source Voting Arthur M. Keller, Ph.D. David Mertz, Ph.D.
- 2. Outline Concept Fully Disclosed Voting Systems Open Source Voting Systems Existing Open Source Voting Systems Open Source Is Not Enough Barriers to Open Voting What’s Wrong with DRE Voter-Verifiable Audit Trail New System Ideas Conclusion What You Can Do
- 3. Concept Secret Ballots Tallied in Public incompatible with Voting Machines and Tabulators whose inner workings are Trade Secrets
- 4. Concept Wholesale Fraud versus Retail Fraud Long and ignoble history of ballot tampering A ballot box contains hundreds of potentially vulnerable votes A DRE voting system affects millions of potentially vulnerable votes
- 5. Concept Computer + Human = Better than Just Human Computer voting systems do not substitute for human procedures, but enhance the capability of people to conduct fair elections Under the right arrangements, corrupt officials are unable to corrupt elections The nature(s) of trust
- 6. Fully Disclosed Voting Systems Part of making the entire voting process open to full inspection by the public Inventory of components Full source code (except true COTS) Object code images Checksums of object code images Hardware, Software, System Specifications Documentation Internal and external document formats and samples Hardware dependencies, specifications, and requirements For COTS: specifications, requirements, uses, version numbers, dates of manufacture Feature checklists License(s) Reports on non-internal tests Procurement contracts
- 7. Open Source Voting Systems Increases security and reliability Often secrecy of existing systems is to avoid embarrassment Open source systems are designed to be secure without secrecy “ Security by obscurity” is not true security Many eyes can find bugs, errors, or fraud Open source systems (e.g., Linux, Apache) often more secure than comparable secret source systems (e.g., Windows, IIS) Differences (compared with other Open Source applications) Special purpose application Difficulty in recruiting volunteers Security needed in changing source code Hard to finance Freedom to test, experiment, and analyze
- 8. Existing Open Source Voting Systems OVC Prototype System Described last year Demonstrated in 2004 Advanced the debate about voting systems Not a production quality system Berkeley research project (Yee, Wagner, et. al) Demonstrated in 2006 Similar in both features and limitations to OVC Prototype Open Voting Solutions A full, production-quality open source voting system Awaiting certification (an expensive process) Derived from OASIS EML open source voting tools and components Non-US Systems Australian Capital Territory system
- 9. New Open Source Voting Systems VoComp 2007–Univ. Voting Systems Competition Punchscan End-to-end verified system with encryption Two-part ballot with receipt Cannot manually recount First place at VoComp 2007 Prêt à Voter End-to-end verified system with encryption Two-part ballot with receipt Cannot manually recount Supports Ranked Preference Voting (such as IRV and STV) Second place at VoComp 2007 Prime III DRE with video backup Voting Ducks Coercion-free Verifiable Internet Voting Uses credentials mailed and submitted by cell phone
- 10. Open Source Is Not Enough Other parts of voting process must also be disclosed Adequate audits Paper ballots (whether hand marked or machine marked or printed) Public right of access and public right to observe entire process Timely disclosure to enable recounts and contesting results Electronic disclosure in any medium in which the records are readily available Electronic disclosure in any format to which data is readily convertible with the data custodian’s existing software Usable format (e.g., not fragmented) Disclosure costs only actual cost of materials (not labor)
- 11. Barriers to Open Source Voting High cost of system certification Entrenched relationships with existing vendors Experience of existing vendors Trust by election officials Limited market Risk of insertion of fraudulent code Problem with pure volunteer development Trust by elections officials at odds with trust by the voting public Elections officials motivations are different Most elections departments are small and understaffed
- 12. What’s Wrong with DRE Voter-Verified Audit Trail Helps ensure electronic ballot image is correct. Useful for recounts. Useful for audits ( if and when they are done!) Limited accessibility. If not machine readable and tallyable, will be effectively used only when legally required. Reel-to-reel approach compromises voting privacy by maintaining order of ballots. ATM-style roll hard to count by machine. Use of airline-style cards could solve these problems by using known reliable printers. Better: Voter Verified Paper Ballots directly counted for each election.
- 13. New System Ideas Hand-marked optical scan paper ballots Electronic Ballot Printer for accessibility Audio or Video interface Prints an entire optical scan paper ballot compatible with hand-marked ones Precinct-count optical scanner and voter ballot verifier Scans ballot (and saves image) Examines image to determine location of marks Interprets mark locations to create an Electronic Ballot Record Displays (or speaks) ballot choices to voter Voter verifies choices or ejects paper ballot for correction If voter verifies ballot is read correctly, non-sequential serial number printed on ballot and written on images Scanner totals posted at precinct and available from web Ballot images available from precinct on CD-R In random order by serial number Enables ballot-by-ballot auditing Let’s change the debate, again
- 14. New System Ideas (continued) Publish images of all ballots on CD-R or DVD-R By batch (e.g., by precinct (or scanner) for “regular” ballots) Each ballot image accompanied by corresponding Electronic Ballot Record With vote tallies for each batch Enables ballot-by-ballot auditing Can be matched with overall vote totals (and batch totals) Can be matched with precinct tallies posted at close of voting Allows complete hand-counting by the public Privacy issues with stray marks, problem reduced by electronic ballot printers Allows third-party vote auditing and tallying software Good opportunity for open source, volunteer contributed code
- 15. Conclusion Give election officials more choices. Enable best-of-breed voting systems. Enable competition in services and follow-on support. Build open source voting systems vendors can adopt. Cheaper, more reliable and secure, auditable, and more trustworthy. Privacy should be added to evaluation standards along with reliability, security, and trustworthiness.
- 16. What You Can Do Current legislative status: HR-811; California FOSS Voting Resolution For more information, see papers and talks at http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/keller and click on “Electronic Voting.” Contact your elect ion officials (county, Secretary of State). Contact your elect ed officials (federal, state, and county). Help with new prototype system (new ideas section).