On October 27th, 2011, the first public test with the new electronic voting machines has been executed in Belgium and 6.700 votes have been cast. The machines will be used in the municipal election in 2012 for the first time. The use will not be nationwide but only in selected municipalities.

The current status is that two municipalities in the Region of Brussels as well as half of the municipalities in the region Flanders will use the new EVM.

The new machines have been developed by a consortium led by Smartmatic. The modernized electoral process will be a combination of a touch-based Electronic Voting machine, a barcode printer, a scanner and a ballot box. This multi-faceted and complicated looking system design and setup is the result of the research efforts from the project “bevote”.

The voting machine hardware is based on previous developed voting machines from Smartmatic with an increased screen size and resolution and a newly developed operating system for the machines. The requirement engineering has been subject of the tendering process which originally planned a development time of two months. This timeframe is not sufficient when you take a look at the detailed requirements and specifications. Such requirements made a new development of the operating system of the EVM mandatory, which is an important factor for the successful implementation of electronic voting systems in general due to the very specific needs and demands of different political and electoral systems.



The setup consists in detail of the electronic voting machine. This machine does not store the vote or any voter information. The voting process at the machine is initiated by the voter with an identification card, which has been given to the voter by the polling station representatives based on a voter’s identity and eligibility check. Per polling station there will be 50 cards existing.

The casting of the votes takes place on the screen of the machine and the voter is displayed only the races he or she is eligible to participate.

After making the choices and confirming the selection the ballot paper is printed by the voting machine on a paper stripe containing the vote as a two-dimensional barcode and the selection per election in clear letters.



The voter takes the printed ballot to the separately located ballot box with a barcode scanning unit on top and puts the ballot after the successful scan in the sealed ballot box.



The scanning unit is connected to a laptop, which automatically stores the cast vote on two redundant secure USB-sticks. The used laptop does contain any other software than the electoral administration tool used for administrating the voting cards and for operating the USB-Sticks. As operating system for the laptops a Linux distribution is used.



The whole system worked in the artificial test environment perfectly and although the process sounds very complex and complicated, it was relatively easy to be executed. According to the representatives from the national electoral office in Belgium and the developer of the solution this impression was confirmed by the test users in the trials at the end of October. The final test for the solution will be the certification and auditing executed by the PWC later in December.


Acknowledgements:
We would like to thank the Belgium federal election authorities, the election administrators of the region Brussels as well as the developer Smartmatic for their cooperation and openness as well as access to the machines.

The Proceedings of the EVOTE2010 are now available as one single PDF for download:

Proceedings_EVOTE2010 (pdf, 3,712 KB)


For citation please use:
AUTHOR/S (2010) TITLE. In: Krimmer, R., Grimm, R.: Electronic Voting 2010. Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Electronic Voting P-167, LNI GI Series, Bonn.

By Gerhard Skagestein, retired associate professor from the University of Oslo



The first remote electronic voting in Norway

The first election in Norway involving Internet-voting took place on a trial basis during August and September this year. In this municipal and county election, voters in ten selected municipalities could vote from their homes during the advance voting period from August 10th to September 9th. However, the voters also had the option to vote by traditional paper ballots, either during the advance vote period or on the Election Day September 12th. 22 % of those entitled to vote in the ten municipalities did so during the advance voting period, and of those advance votes were ¾ electronic votes.

This real life trial is not uncontroversial, however. The mostly discussed issue in the public here in Norway is that the ballot casting is brought out of the polling station into an open, uncontrolled environment. The voting in secrecy is then no longer guaranteed; the voter may be coerced to vote against his own will, or votes may be sold or bought. Also, some people say, the solemnity of the voting action is threatened.

In order to alleviate the secrecy problem, the Norwegian voting system allows you to cast a ballot electronically as many times as you like, but only the last ballot will be counted. Further, you may still vote on paper the traditional way, either during the advance voting period or on Election Day, and a paper ballot will always supersede any electronic ballot from the same voter. Thus, if a voter feel coerced, he or she will usually have another opportunity to cast a ballot.

This, however, does not soothe everybody. The Norwegian conservative political party Høyre proposed last year to the Parliament that the e-vote project should be stopped, and as an attachment had a legal report on the topic [Smith 2010]. (The proposal, by the way, was turned down by the majority in the Parliament.) In this report, the revoting possibilities described above are characterized as a fig leaf: "But it is difficult to understand why we should trust that the individual, who committed the criminal act to sell his vote, will actually bother to correct [his vote] later. The same goes for those who have voted under other forms of social pressure. For both groups is it also the case that the appearance in a polling station could easily be detected and reported by (other) members of the social structure that is the source of the problem." (My translation of the original text in Norwegian.)



First Internet Voting in India in Gujarat

During spring this year, I traveled India and studied electronic voting there. Of special interest to me was the state Gujarat, because this state is also embarking into Internet voting, and has already, in some municipalities, carried out an election where some voters could vote from their homes. I had the opportunity to meet the State Election Commissioner and some other employees of the State Election Commission of Gujarat.

In the Gujarat Internet voting system, you have to apply for being an Internet voter before the election, and if you get the status as Internet voter, you are not allowed to vote at a polling station. As an Internet voter, you can cast your vote only once, and it must be done on the Election Day. So in the Gujarat system, there are no possibilities for recasting your vote if you feel coerced, and any coercer has to watch you for only one day – the Election Day.

With the controversy in Norway in the back of my head, I found this extremely interesting, so I asked the Chief election commissioner about the coercion problem. He did not see this as a problem at all. His opinion was that it was the responsibility of the voter himself not to be coerced. He also encountered with a bit of humor that the divorce rate in Gujarat was now approaching the divorce rates in Europe, and there was no reason to believe that people that were independent enough to get a divorce would not be independent enough to vote exactly the way they wanted.

His view was more or less confirmed by people in the street. Yes, there is a lot of coercion going on during the elections in India, mainly in the rural districts, where the head of the tribe often make the decisions for all its members. But this coercion is there independent of the voting technology – whether you vote from your home or from a polling station does not matter. Over all, the voters trust in the voting system is very high.

It may belong to this story that the Gujarat Internet voting is mainly aimed at members of the middle class that have Internet connection at home and normally do not take the trouble to go to a polling station to vote. The idea is to increase the democratic responsibility of the middle class by getting its members to vote. And in this perspective is probably the coercion problem a minor issue.


Who is responsible for privacy - the state or the voter?

No one questions the democratic right to vote in privacy. But whereas the Indians think that the voter himself must take a lot of responsibility for achieving this, many Norwegians think that this must be ensured by the election authorities through the setup of the voting system. The skeptical Norwegians are probably not so worried about their own privacy, but rather that the possible violation of other people's privacy may influence the outcome of the election and thereby erode the trust in the election system in general. The Indians have other problems – the challenge there is to educate people so that they dare to stand up and have their own point of view, independent of the leader of the social group they belong to.

The coercion problem will be investigated as a part of a rather substantial research project "Research and evaluation of the e-vote 2011 project", led and coordinated by the Institute for Social Research in Oslo. The future of Internet voting in Norway will certainly be influenced by the findings of this research project.

------------------------------
[Smith 2010] Eivind Smith: Hemmelige elektroniske valg? Juridisk betenkning
http://www.stortinget.no/no/Saker-og-publikasjoner/Publikasjoner/Representantforslag/2009-2010/dok8-200910-128/3/
(in Norwegian)

------------------------------
Gerhard Skagestein is a retired associate professor from the University of Oslo. He was one of the co-authors of the E-vote 2011 Pre-project report Electronic voting – challenges and opportunities (2006), electronically available on http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/kilde/krd/red/2006/0087/ddd/pdfv/298587-evalg_rapport_engelsk201106.pdf
---------------------------------------

Internet voting is going to be implemented for the first time in a political election in june 2012 for French expatriates.

by Pascal Courtade, French Ministry of Interior

The French electoral experience is ancient and therefore quite conservative. Online democracy is for the time being limited to a few voting machines (around 70 cities) and the online election of the members of the Assembly of the French Abroad, a consultative body related to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Legal aspects

In 2008, the French Constitution was changed and the 2.5 million expatriates were granted 11 elected representatives in the lower chamber of the Parliament from the June 2012 election. In order to boost voters’ participation, the government and the Parliament decided to authorize internet voting among other possibilities (including postal voting). The Law only includes the principle of i-voting and mentions the compliance with two principles: vote secrecy and election sincerity. The real legal work was namely the elaboration of the decree applying these principles. Its main challenge was to balance on the one side the objective of boosting the participation and enhancing the accessibility of the poll for expatriates, and on the other side of minimizing the risks of electoral fraud, family voting and so on. It was finally issued the 15th of July 2011. In particular, it was decided that the online election would be monitored by an electronic voting office including one magistrate, councillors of the Assembly of the French Abroad and government officials.

Technical choices

The main technical decisions were taken in accordance with this legal framework. It was chosen to improve the voting system currently used for the Assembly of the French Abroad election. The development of the voting system started 18 months ago with a consortium of two leading companies (Atos and Scytl). All along this period, the government had a constant care of associating the “Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés” (the administrative authority responsible for ensuring that information technology respect privacy and public liberties) and the French Network and Information Security Agency. It was decided fit very strong IT security requirements for cryptographic processes. The separation between the e-ballot cast and the voter identity was also a cardinal principle of the conception of the system. In order to prevent any fraud, voters will receive their login and password by different ways. In the same time it was taken great care of ergonomics and accessibility (one-clic voting).

Final concerns

The next major step will be a worldwide technical test (12 000 voters) to be organized in December. One of the challenge will be to detect the problems which could occur in some countries forbidding cryptographic procedures or deprived of sound internet infrastructures. The councillors of the Assembly of the French Abroad will be involved in this test.

By Ardita Driza Maurer, Geo Taglioni and Anina Weber, Swiss Federal Chancellery

Switzerland is a federal state made up of 26 cantons (states) and some 2'500 communes (local level government). It is a direct democracy where citizens are consulted several times a year: four voting days per year are foreseen at federal level. Cantons and communes regularly use these deadlines also for cantonal and communal votes and elections and often appoint additional ones as well. Federal elections are held each four years. A number of other elections are organized at lower levels as well.

In addition to voting in person at the polling station, Swiss people can vote per post since 1992. In the year of 2000, e-voting project has been started with three pilot cantons (Geneva, Neuchâtel, and Zurich). Today 13 cantons participate at the e-voting trials. The Federal Chancellery coordinates the different cantonal projects and prepares the authorization needed for trials at the federal level.

Gradual introduction of Internet voting

While acknowledging the advantages of Internet voting, the federal government has opted for a step by step introduction of this third and additional voting channel in Switzerland. Such realistic approach reflects the technical and organizational challenges that the new voting channel brings with as well as the risks it presents. The federal government has decided already in 2006 that during the present legislation period (2007-2011), e-voting should be offered to no more than 10% of the federal electorate . The cantonal electorate who can benefit from this third additional channel is limited at 20% in certain cases .

The current projects focus on Swiss voters living abroad. Due to problems with the post delivery, this group of voters benefits the most from the new voting channel. Some 130'000 Swiss abroad are registered in Swiss electoral registers.

Innovative inter-cantonal cooperation

The present e-voting extension was made possible thanks to innovating inter-cantonal cooperation. The three pilot cantons who started to use e-voting already at the beginning of the project and who own and operate each an e-voting system, offer their expertise as well as the possibility of using their e-voting systems to other cantons. As a result, cantons without e-voting systems are able to organize Internet voting in a sure and economical way. Ten cantons profit already from this possibility and have signed the necessary agreements. Other cantons prepare to join.

First trials at federal elections

Until now, e-voting trials at the federal level focused on referenda. For the elections of the National Council of the 23rd of October 2011, four cantons (Aargau, Basel-Stadt, Graubünden, and St.Gallen) offered Internet voting for the first time at federal elections to their Swiss abroad. Two different e-voting systems had been in use: the systems of Geneva and Zurich. Up to 53% of the voters took advantage of the new voting channel and cast their vote over the Internet. In addition to the higher complexity of elections, election procedures differ from canton to canton. Therefore this new phase of elections means a big challenge. The four cantons and the Federal Chancellery started preparing these trials in 2010. A third report on e-voting which will be written in 2012 will analyze the gained experiences.

The national elections have been monitored by a delegation of the OSCE/ODHIR. E-voting was one of the focuses of the mission. The report and the recommendations of the OSCE/ODHIR are expected for December 2011.

Future Goals

It is the goal of the Federal Chancellery that the greatest majority of the 130’000 Swiss abroad registered to vote are able to vote via Internet by 2012 and participate at (federal) elections by 2015. The long term goal is the introduction of e-voting as a third, complementary voting method including everyone who is eligible to vote. It is up to the cantons, whether and when they wish to introduce e-voting.

More information on the Swiss Internet Voting "Vote électronique" is available at the project website (LINK)

All articles and videos of the EVOTE2010 are now available for download below. Everything is structured according to the order in the conference proceedings.

For citation please use:
AUTHOR/S (2010) TITLE. In: Krimmer, R., Grimm, R.: Electronic Voting 2010. Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Electronic Voting P-167, LNI GI Series, Bonn.


EVOTE 2010 conference proceedings:


Overview
Robert Krimmer, Rüdiger Grimm:
Download PDF
Watch Video

Keynote Speech
Donetta Davidson, Election Assistance Commission, USA
Watch Video


Session 1: Recent Developments in E-Voting

Voting Technology and the Election Experience: The 2009 Gubernatorial Races in New Jersey and Virginia
Thad Hall, Charles Stewart , R. Michael Alvarez
Download PDF
Watch Video

The Use of E-Voting in the Federation of Students Elections 2009
Robert Krimmer, Andreas Ehringfeld, Markus Traxl
Download PDF
Watch Video


Scantegrity Mock Election at Takoma Park
Alan T. Sherman, Richard Carback, David Chaum, Jeremy Clark, Aleksander Essex, Paul S. Herrnson, Travis Mayberry, Stefan Popoveniuc, Ronald L. Rivest, Emily Shen, Bimal Sinha, Poorvi Vora
Download PDF
Watch Video


Session 2: Sociocultural Issues of E-Voting

The Role of Trust, Participation and Identity in the Propensity to E- & I-Vote
Letizia Caporusso
Download PDF
Watch Video

The Virtual Polling Station – Transferring the Sociocultural Effect of Poll Site Elections to Remote Internet Voting
Philipp Richter
Download PDF
Watch Video


Session 3: Certification and Evaluation of E-Voting Systems

A Formal IT-Security Model for the Correction and Abort Requirement of Electronic Voting
Rüdiger Grimm, Katharina Hupf, Melanie Volkamer
Download PDF (will be added shortly)
Watch Video (will be added shortly

Compliance of POLYAS with the Common Criteria Protection Profile
Kai Reinhard, Niels Menke
Download PDF
Watch Video

A Survey: Electronic Voting Development and Trends
Komminist Weldemariam, Adolfo Villafiorita
Download PDF
Watch Video


Session 4: Operation and Evaluation of E-Voting Systems

An Evaluation and Certification Approach to Enable Voting Service Providers.
Axel Schmidt, Melanie Volkamer, Johannes Buchmann
Download PDF


Session 5: End to End Verfifiability and Protocol Improvements

Verifiability in Electronic Voting Explanations for Non Security Experts
Rojan Gharadaghy, Melanie Volkamer
Download PDF

Verification Systems for Electronic Voting: A Survey
Jordi Pujol-Ahulló, Roger Jardi-Cedó, Jordi Castellà-Roca
Download PDF
Watch Video

Sigma Ballots
Stefan Popoveniuc, Andrew Regenscheid
Download PDF
Watch Video


Session 6: E-Voting Experiences

Electronic Elections in a Politicized Polity
Thad Hall, Leontine Leober
Download PDF
Watch Video

Double-entry Accounting Provides Software-Independent Algorithm for Confirming the Integrity of Automated Election Tallies
Roberto S. Verzola
Download PDF

Analysis of Recommendation Rec(2004)11 Based on the Experiences of Specific Attacks Against the First Legally Binding Implementation of E-Voting in Austria
Andreas Ehringfeld, Larissa Naber, Thomas Grechenig, Robert Krimmer, Markus Traxl, Gerald Fischer
Download PDF


Session 7: Discussion of E-Voting Protocols

Universally Verifiable Efficient Re-Encryption Mixnet
Jordi Puiggalí Allepuz, Sandra Guasch Castelló
Download PDF
Watch Video

Why Public Registration Boards are Required in E-Voting Systems Based on Threshold Blind Signature Protocols
Reto E. Koenig, Eric Dubuis, Rolf Haenni
Download PDF
Watch Video


Session 8: Theoretical and Practical Implications of E-Voting

Coercion-Resistant Hybrid Voting Systems
Oliver Spycher, Rolf Haenni, Eric Dubuis
Download PDF
Watch Video

E-voting in Japan: A developing case?
Masahiro Iwasaki:
Download PDF


Council of Europe Session

Key steps to e-enabled elections
Susanne Caarls
Watch Video

Council of Europe Plenary Discussion on Internet Voting
Watch Video

Best Paper Award Ceremony
Watch Video

On March 6th, 2011, Estonians were called to elect their next national Parliament. Stop, it was not only on this day, when they could vote.

Estonia, is among the only countries in Europe offering the possibility to cast your vote online.
Within the last days, I was often ask to provide comments or opinions on Internet voting in Estonia. Today, I would like to take the opportunity to look at several points of this election starting with conclusions from the turnout.


First some key facts:

Every Estonian could participate in several ways in the election. the most interesting ones are the advanced voting, the Internet voting and the traditional casting on election day.

1. Advanced voting is paper-based voting in advance to the election at specific polling stations throughout the country. This advanced voting took place from February 28th to March 2nd, 2011. Each voter could go to such a polling station and cast the ballot.
2. Internet voting enables the voters to cast their vote from any computer via the Internet. The national ID card, the digital ID or the mobile ID can be used for identification and authentication. This voting channel was available for 7 days prior to the election (Feb 24th to March 2nd). A specific attribute of the Estonian I-Voting system is the possibility to cast the vote as often as the voter wish to do so.
3. On March 6th, the voter can go to the polling station in her or his distinct precinct and vote on paper. The voter can even overwrite her or his online vote with a paper vote on election day. The polling stations use a connected election administration system to have updated data available and to transmit turnout and results to the National Election Commission.

Analysis of the turnout:

This year the turnout further increased in comparison to the years before and especially to the record turnout in 2009. 63.5% of the 913 346 eligible voters participated in the election. The interesting number are 15.4% internet voters out of the eligible voters and 24.3% Internet voters out of the 580 264 participating voters. In total 140 846 Estonians casted their vote over the Internet.



From the local elections in 2009 to the Parliament elections in 2011 the number of I-votes increased by 35%. Looking at the last Parliament elections in 2007, the number of Internet votes increased by the factor 4.5. Parallel to this development the general turnout increased only by 3% from 2009 to 2011 and by 1.6% when comparing the two Parliament elections.
This leads to the consequence, that a significant amount of voters prefer the online voting solution to cast their vote.

Often an increase in the electorate is one argument to use electronic voting, especially it is supposed to be a cure for the diminishing participation of young people.
The Estonian development supports this development only two an extent of 2%, which is not significant. Especially the number of young voters is constantly at 10% of the Internet voters. In contrast, voters above 55 account for 18% of the Internet votes on average supporting underlining the trend of the Silver surfer community.
There are several reasons:

• Since the independence in 1994, Estonia faced a negative population growth rate (Source: World Bank). Thus, the number of people below 24 is smallest part of the population.

• The citizens in the age group until 24 have been 7 years or younger when Estonia became independent. The conclusion could be, they imagine democracy as something normal.

• In contrast to that, the age group of 34-55 has been born in a soviet controlled state and therefore, value democracy higher than younger generations. A development that is confirmed by turnout and participation in other countries like the Philippines, too.

• The increasing number of Internet votes and the slow increase in overall turnout suggest a shift from paper to online voting serving the needs of mobile and flexible citizens that see participation in elections as an imminent citizen's obligation but demand easy access and service-orientation from the state.

• On average, most people in the age group 25-55 have daily access to computers and internet at work or at home and have the necessary knowledge to handle a computer.

Conclusion

1. Simply offering a further voting channel does not solve the democratic turnout problem. Voter education and voter information are necessary complements of an electoral modernization. Young voters need to be attracted differently to participate
2. Internet voting can be an assurance to preserve turnout and offer citizens a convenient way of participation.
3. the constant increase in Internet votes of the last 6 years shows the demand of citizens to have flexible and easy ways to participate in elections.
4. The nearly 25% of Internet votes in Estonia clearly indicate, that there is a need to offer several voting channels to maintain turnout.
5. Similar to the numbers of postal votes in Germany (on average 20-25%), distance voting has to be offered to assure a sufficient turnout.

Source of statistical information on the election in Estonia: National Election Commission

Today, the new issue of the Modern Democracy Magazine is available. Get your inside reports on the latest developments and news from the electronic voting sphere.



The second issue of 2010 marks a very important milestone in the development of the magazine and the competence center. This issue covers in deep the EVOTE2010 conference, which took place in Castle Hofen at the Lake of Constance, Austria. The conference centered around the three topics of trust certification and verification. Furthermore, at the EVOTE2010 the managing responsibility for E-Voting.CC was handed over by Robert to Manuel. we would like to thank Robert for his extraordinary and outstanding work for E-Voting.CC and the community.

With the second magazine for 2010, we continue the tradition of guest authors and are very grateful for their contributions on the first e-voting in Poland, the developments in the Netherlands as well the use of technology in elections and its pitfalls. Finally, the carbon footprint of e-voting is analyzed.

Apart from that, we provide the schematics of a generic internet voting system, which you can separately download as well.

Get your electronic copy of the Modern Democracy Magazine here (PDF).

The schematics of a generic internet voting system is available for download here (PDF).

The EVOTE2010 conference proceedings are available as printed copy.
We are offering you the possibility to order the latest trends and knowledge on electronic voting presented at the EVOTE2010 international conference in Bregenz in July. Get all the articles in one printed publication.

You can have a look at the content of the proceedings here (PDF).

Follow the link below and get your copy of the EVOTE2010 proceedings. We have provided a very simply online order form.The basic price for one copy is 22 EUR plus shipping charges.

Order your copy of the proceedings.

For citation purposes please use:

Krimmer, R., Grimm, R. (Eds.): Electronic Voting 2010, GI Lecture Notes in Informatics, P-167, Bonn, 2010.

The first issue of our Modern Democracy Magazine in 2010 is out. We are very happy to invite you to reading interesting articles about E-Democracy in Developing Countries, an insight report on the Norwegian E-Voting Pilot taking place in 2011, a guest contribution from IFES on challenges and opportunities for technologies in elections in the Philippines and finally we would like to steer your attention to our Pocket Guide for the EVOTE 2010 in July in Bregenz.
Apart from that we have a short report on new videos covering electronic democracy and an updated version of our conference schedule.

This issue of the Modern Democracy Magazine marks the beginning of an interesting year regarding the development of Modern Democracy. In Summer, experts from academia, government and business will gather to discuss the latest developments and trends as well as challenges of the Modern Democracy in Bregenz @EVOTE2010.

If you have any comments, feedback or would like to contribute to our next Modern Democracy Magazine let us know before September 1st @ modern-democracy@e-voting.cc and follow us on twitter: twitter.com/MoDemCC
Get your free Modern Democracy Magazine here (PDF-Download).