Electronic%20Voting

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Electronic Voting

• Linh Nguyen

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Electronic Voting

• Voting Technologies
• The Florida 2000 Election
• Direct Recording Electronic Devices (DREs)? -
  Diebold Touch-Voting
• Security and Ethical Issues
• The Future of Voting

Linh Nguyen
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Voting Technologies
Electronic Voting Punch Card
Optical Scan Paper Ballot Lever
Machine
Linh Nguyen
4
Paper Ballots

• Oldest voting technology
• Voters record their choice by placing a mark in a
  box next to the candidates name
• Ballots are dropped into a sealed ballot box
• Votes are counted manually
• Widely used today in rural areas

Linh Nguyen
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Direct Recording Electronic Devices (DREs)?

• Electronic versions of the lever machines
• Different interfaces
• push button, touch screen, key pads
• Full-faced or paginated ballot designs
• Voters record their choices by pushing a button
  or touching the screen next to the candidates
  name or issue
• Not possible to vote twice for the same office

Linh Nguyen
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The Florida 2000 ElectionControversies and
discriminations

• Controversies
• There were a number of overseas ballots missing
  postmarks or filled out in such a way that they
  were invalid under Florida law
• Some 179,855 ballots were not counted in the
  official tally
• 57,700 voters were incorrectly listed as felons
  on a scrub list and their votes were not
  counted.
• One Florida counts hard-to-use ballot may have
  unfairly decided the presidency.
• Discriminations
• the African Americans voter against the vote
  stealers
• Black people turned the presidential vote but it
  was stolen
• Many African Americans did not cast ballots

Linh Nguyen
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The outcomes before and after the recount

• Before the recount, the votes for President in
  FLORIDA as follows
• Bush 2,909,176 Gore 2,907,451
• Margin 1,725 votes in Bushs favor
• After the recount, the votes for President in
  FLORIDA as follows Bush 2,912,790 Gore
  2,912,253
• Bush wins Florida by 537 votes
• George W. Bush, thus, wins all 25 of Florida's
  Electoral Votes and the presidency with the
  result
• Tung Le

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IEEE Standardization

• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Responsible for many of the internet protocols in
  use today
• Discussion stymied by political maneuvers
• Conflicts between pro-security and pro-industry
  groups
• Whether voting software is stored on read-only
  media
• Whether electronic voting should produce a
  verifiable paper trail
• Systematic disenfranchisement of pro-security
  group
• Misinformation about voting privileges
• Prevention of admission of new members before key
  votes
• Proposals from pro-security group often ignored

Linh Nguyen
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Diebold Touch-Voting

• The design goals
• To create a and voting
  system that is to the entire
  voting population

correct
secure
accessible
Linh Nguyen
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Diebold Touch-Voting

• Implementation
• Proprietary Software
• Inherited code from Global Election Systems,
  formerly I-Mark Systems, which it acquired in
  September, 2001
• Interface Hardware
• AccuVote-TS touch-screen terminal
• Smart voter access card reader
• Accessible Design
• Simple touch-screen interface
• Multi-language
• Voice-directed for the blind or illiterate
• Third-party OS
• Windows CE platform

Linh Nguyen
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Diebold Touch-Voting

• Analysis of Source Code
• Our analysis shows that this voting system is
  far below even the most minimal security
  standards applicable in other contexts
  Analysis of an Electronic Voting System
• Unauthorized privilege escalation
• Incorrect use of cryptography
• Vulnerabilities to network threats
• Poor software development processes
• No assurance that the output is correct

Linh Nguyen
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Future of Voting

• Ethics
• Software used by an electronic voting system
  manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems has been
  left unprotected on a publicly available server,
  which raised people concern about the possibility
  of tampering. The software, made available at
  ftp.jaguar.net, is stored on an FTP server owned
  by Jaguar Computer Systems, a firm that provides
  election support to a California county.
• Company like Diebold Election Systems aware of
  security flaws in its e-voting software for years
  but sold the faulty systems to states anyway.

Linh Nguyen
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Future of Voting

• Empowerment or Disappointment?
• Voter confidence in current system waning
• IEEE standardization efforts stalled
• Foremost electronic voting software maker below
  par

Linh Nguyen
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Thank

• You

Linh Nguyen