Posts tagged “Online Voting”

The online voting or e-voting signifies a voting method aided by the internet technology. The central idea behind using a voting method supported by internet and communication technologies is firstly to expand representative democracy and secondly, upgrading voting methods according to technological advancements and innovations. In any kind of democratic system, the voting method aims to enhance political participation of its citizens, speed up the counting of votes casted, is accessible to all the sections of population (disabled friendly, etc) thereby, aiming towards a transparent and accountable governance. The notion of liquid democracy is closely linked with the system of online voting as it seeks to combine representative democracy and direct democracy. The democracy may vary from direct, representative to liquid, however, online method of voting ensures that the divide between the leaders and citizens is eliminated.

Evolution of Online Voting

According to Scott Fletcher, the predecessors of online voting can be identified in the use of voting machines dating back to the 19th century USA and England. The use of TV sets via telesets paved the way for what was then named as tele-democracy in the 1980s which then gradually transitioned to internet voting with the advent of world wide web in the 1990s. This rapid development of e technology and model of direct democracy in USA and Switzerland resulted into voting machines and postal voting coming out as designs for developing online voting. However, online voting was used in the national elections of Estonia in 2005.

The small baltic state- Estonia began with internet voting in the local elections of 2005 where only 1.9% voted online. In the recent times, this percentage has increased to more than 30% in the parliamentary elections. The voters in Estonian context are named as ‘i-voters’ and eligibility criteria is not restricted to particular gender, income, education, and computer skills. In order to vote, the voters have to connect their ID-card during the early voting period using a smart card reader or using their mobile ID. The online voting method in Estonia has ensured that young voters are involved in the electoral process, and also, that Estonians residents in other countries can vote via internet. In this report by BBC, Arne Koitmae, the deputy head of Estonia electoral office said, “In 2015, Estonians living in 116 different countries participated in the elections using internet voting.” Further, it has been revealed in various news reports that the extension of online voting in the public sphere is not merely about increasing the percentage of voters but also suggesting a change in their preferred method of voting. The percentage of voters casting votes in the online elections has been explained in the following chart from 2007 parliamentary elections in Estonia to 2015.

Source: https://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/faq-a4-v02-i-voting-1.pdf

As we can see in the chart above, the voting percentage in the recent parliamentary elections has escalated from 6% in 2007 to 31% in 2015.

Besides, the increase in voting percentage the online security concerns are met by end to end encryption and keeping the voting method updated with new technological developments. The cryptography in the online voting method ensures same voter identity for the certificates in the document. Another aspect is that after the voting, the QR code can be verified with a mobile phone to authenticate the accuracy of vote through different communication channel.

Present system of Online Voting and the way ahead

In the recent decades, the internet voting became prevalent in political election of USA in 2000. The internet voting has also become a trend in other countries such as Canada, Estonia, France and Switzerland. It is true that internet voting is considered an important aspect in restoring individuals’ trust towards institutions and democratic structure, however, internet voting as a method is a complex one. For voters, it is pivotal to have some amount of technical expertise to understand the voting method. In such a context, it is crucial that voters are trained technically and various awareness programs are held so that they can make an informed choice. A mechanism that can also ensure the trustworthiness of the system is making the information publicly available. A pertinent aspect of voting system’s integrity lies in its certification, testing and audit methods.

The other issue considering the future of online voting concerns with the internet security. The risk of system being hacked, targeted by terrorists or rogue nations, plagued by computer viruses or hijacked by political groups. An example in this regard would be Russia’s attempts to hack into election systems of 21 states in USA. As reported here, “The hacking attempt was on the state’s voter registration system, not voting machines. Had hackers taken over the voter registration system, they could have suspended people’s registrations, creating confusion and long lines at the polls”. The attempt looked severe in the sense that hackers could have accessed voters address and other personal details like birth dates.

In the way ahead, it is significant to address that no voting method comes with a flawless detailing. The technology is itself prone to external threats and internal malfunctioning that can disrupt the electoral processes putting the larger democratic structure at risk. In such a context, it will only be appropriate to have a system with minimal risks and end-to-end secured mechanism.

This piece is written by Manisha Chachra. Manisha is Associate Researcher at Govern.

Online Voting: Manipulation or Transparency

‘E-voting’ is used to denote a voting process over internet or intranet. The process enables the voters to cast a secure and secret ballot on an online medium. The goal of any voting system should be to ensure free and fair elections, and enforce unequal access of an individual to the electoral process. The advent of e-voting as a voting method majorly overcomes the digital distances and gaps across regions and states, functioning as a supplement system to traditional paper based voting. For any kind of voting method it is pivotal to set constitutional and legal conditions for its operation. Apart from that, election procedures must be transparent, and subject to public scrutiny.

E-voting, in terms of generic requirements list must be considered institutionally equivalent to traditional voting system, and eligibility with regards to registration and verification, free in terms of uncoercibility, no propaganda on e-voting site, non-valid voting capability, equal in terms of equality of candidates, equality of voters, one voter- one vote, secret with respect to secrecy and balance security vs transparency, and democratic with regards to trust, transparency, verifiability, accountability, reliability, security and simplicity. E-voting as an election procedure requires an efficient and viable infrastructure e.g. public internet kiosks, internet voting in government offices, so that citizens are allowed to exercise their voting rights. It is equally necessary to make this infrastructure easily accessible to the voter and create awareness about operational nuances of such procedures.

Ideal requirements in E-Voting

The significance of generic requirements for e-voting could be highlighted in following ways:

1. Eligibility ensures that the voter is registered and meets the requirements of eligibility

2. Secure registration and authentication to ensure that the principle of universal suffrage is being respected and that the elections are not being rigged

3. Free elections requires that elections take place without any violence, coercion, rigging, pressure and manipulative interferences or other influences exercised either by the state or other agencies

4. Un-coercibility and prevention of vote buying can be ensured by developing publicly accessible infrastructure, controlled physical sites and designing e-voting such that no voter can prove he/she voted in a particular way.

5 Freedom of decision the e-voting procedure should make technically infeasible the advertisement of political parties/candidates on the e-voting website.

6. Free expression of preferences the e-voting procedure should make technically infeasible the advertisement of political parties/candidates on the e-voting website

7. Equality regarding the political parties, candidates who participate in the elections, and equality regarding the voting rights of each voter.  Another element of equality among the parties to be elected is that the decision of the voter, as expressed through the online ballot, is transmitted and counted without changes or land interference.

8. Transparency ensures all parties have equal access to the elements of voting procedure, in order to establish its proper functioning.

8. Secrecy is the precondition of the voter’s free political decision. In democratic elections the link between the vote and the voter must be irreversible, in order to ensure that votes are cast freely.

E-Voting prone to manipulation?

The news of Russian hackers targeting the electoral systems of USA in 2016 presidential election alerted the states to bolster the defenses of their voting systems. The vulnerability of voter registration systems lies in the fact that many of them have a dilapidated technology– voter registration systems being decade old. It has been suggested in this analysis that hackers who gain access to them could erase voters’ entries or create fictitious ones and then mail in votes for fake personas. Other disadvantages of e-voting includes no one could control the voting process, prone to hackers’ attacks and data spoofing, DDOS (denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to the Internet, technical failures such as in poor administration the data can be lost or damaged, system malfunction in terms of falsification and manipulation in counting of votes.

In terms of voter check in, the use of tablet like devices to verify voters becomes vulnerable on account of hackers being able to target the networks to gain access to poll books, either shutting them down or altering data that’s on them. They could also break into the systems of companies that develop software for the poll books and insert malicious code. The other dangers are like that of gerrymandering raising the question of political squabbling within the rules of American democracy. In order to lessen such instances, states are made aware of such threats and enforced to take steps like running vulnerability scans on software, and gain a security clearance from the federal government. Other steps taken in the direction are like recording votes on the piece of paper so that one could go back and tally the recorded response, good security practices developed for securing government and industry databases.

E-Voting secured with Blockchain?

Blockchain technology is a chain of blocks, virtual and united in one huge computer network. The technology is presented in the form of a distributed database, where all information is stored on independent computers within a single network rather than in a single server or what a layman would understand as centralized manner. The Blockchain is built on a consensus system, thus, in order to hack it hackers would have to try really hard to attack such a system, and to do that they will have to hack each computer on the network. Besides, the unauthorized access attempts are immediately tracked by the system and recorded to history. Estonia has been able to use the online voting secured with blockchain technology — the government of Estonia announced the use of blockchain secured integration into voting technology. Other countries deploying blockchain e-voting among the inner party levels include Denmark, Australia. The method provides for accessibility, speed of vote counting, elimination of geographical issues, associated with physical presence and increased turnout rates in all categories of the population.

While there has been criticism against blockchain for its ability to fix the hard parts of securing online elections. Some have pointed out that hackers might compromise voters’ devices or the servers that record votes and log them to the blockchain, they can still manipulate election outcomes. However, the viability and feasibility of voting procedures must be evaluated in terms of ideal criteria listed above in the article. It is important to remember that any kind of voting procedure is only to ensure that an accountable and transparent functioning of democracy.

This piece is written by Manisha Chachra. Manisha is Associate Researcher at Govern.