SEMINAR WORK: E- ELECTIONS AND E- VOTING - THE CASE OF SWITZERLAND AND FRANCE

Transcription

1 SEMINAR WORK: E- ELECTIONS AND E- VOTING - THE CASE OF SWITZERLAND AND FRANCE STUDENT NAME: Adrian Dulaj STUDENT NUMBER: COURSE NAME: Masters in European Business DEPARTMENT: Department of SES COURSE CODE: OCEH8V1 SUPERVISOR: Luis Teran DATE OF SUBMISSION: 01 December 2011

2 Table of Content 1. Introduction What is E- Voting Types of E- Voting 3 4. Advantages and Disadvantages of E- Voting Advantages Disadvantages Basic Requirement for a good e- voting system Certification of E- Voting Systems in EU E- Voting Places E- Voting in France and Switzerland E- Voting in France Presidential Elections in E- Voting in Switzerland The Geneva Internet Voting System Conclusion 18 Sources

3 1. Introduction Nowadays, the use of technology and Internet has become very popular, day- to- day lots of people are using it worldwide and it has become part of people s life. In this paper, I am going to focus on our constitutional right the vote. Voting is very important for a society, thus for years, mankind is trying to make it better and more reliable. In recent years, we have taken a step forward, using IT to vote. Considering my interest in politics and the positive trends of interest in E- Voting these recent years (where many Governments have already tested and are using the e- Voting), I decided to choose this topic in order to study and give a wide overview of E- Voting in general, as well as specific cases in particular countries. Moreover, will see how the Governments and Society can profit from the advantages that this system provides. 2. What is E- Voting? Electronic Voting is an election system, which uses electronic ballots to allow users/voters to vote and transfer electronically their secret vote in a secure way to election officials. The term E- Voting comprises many different types of voting, from electronic voting to different types of counting the votes. Here it includes punch cards, optical scan voting systems, DRE (Direct Recording electronic voting systems, known as Specialized Voting Kiosks), voting via telephone, private computer networks and the Internet. In later parts, I will explain/describe into details each one of the above- mentioned voting means. Moreover, in general voting types can be gathered into two groups based on their supervisions: e- Voting which is physically supervised by governmental representatives with electronic voting machines located at polling stations and Remote e- Voting where voting is not physically supervised by an governmental performed and it is performed by internet, tv, mobile phones etc. (Source: Wikipedia) 2

4 3. Types of e- Voting Paper- based electronic voting systems also known as punch cards is the first known electronic voting system. In this voting type, paper is still present however it is called electronic because it is counted electronically. How does it function? With the invent of electronic tabulation where the paper cards or sheets could be marked by hand but counted electronically, it made possible for the voting papers to be counted electronically, which means much faster than a traditional way of counting, one by one! This group consists of punch cards, mark senses and digital pen voting systems. 1 Some voting systems in this group are pretty much the same as DRE Systems. The voters still use a touchscreen, however here after voting a paper is printed and the election official takes all these papers and sends to the centralized counting location where the votes are counted / scanned using an optically device. Figure 1. E- Voting Types Source: Secure Electronic Voting An advantage of using this system is because there is a physical presence of vote, which in some way ensure the voter that their choice will be counted, however it does not ensure that it will be counted correctly the disadvantage of the system. For example, the Florida elections case in year 2000 in U.S. 2 made

5 infamous these systems because the holes in punch cards were not properly/fully punched (so called hanging chad ) thus they where unreadable (as shown in Figure 2). Other disadvantages of this system may be that the printers that mark the card may run slowly or run out of the toner, which may result in an incomplete vote. As well, we all know that in few ballots, there are numerous cases where there is voted for more then one candidate, thus the tabulation devices do not read more then one vote! Figure 2. Hanging Chad s DRE Systems (Direct recording electronic voting systems) is a computer where voters view ballots on screen and vote using buttons or touchscreens. After voting, all the votes are stored in removable memory components, and after election officials take them to a central location for counting; or the other way is that they are transmitted through modem- to- modem line, though this last option is not a lot practiced. Many DRE devices also have the capacity to print a paper record of the home, however most of them have no corresponding trail, which is considered to be one the disadvantages of this system. Many critics have been addressed to this issue, because the votes are just stored in the memory and they have no trail. Moreover the critics believe that it might be from programmers possible to manipulate the numbers of vote since there is no trail to the votes. 4

6 Furthermore, private companies produce the DRE devices so there is a way to fraud them. Last but no least, the DRE systems costs much more than all other systems currently in use, thus the economic factor should be considered! Figure 3. DRE Systems In the other hand, this system provides a few more advantages compared to paper- based one. First, since they are electronically displayed you can vote for more than one candidate; screen fonts can be designed larger for the poor eyesight people or can even play audio for the blind voters. Moreover, since votes are recorded in memory, it take less time to count them, they are automatically done. Brazil is the best case to describe the advantages of this system. Since 2000, Brazilian voters are able to vote using these machines. In Presidential elections of the same year 2000, there were around 135 million voters and the results where defined for a record time, just 75 minutes after the end of voting! In Brazil, the ballot box is made of two micro- terminals) which are connected by a 5 meter cable from voting machine to the voting board representative. The micro- terminals have only numerical keyboard in both sides in order not to take any commands in any case. As well, they have an internal battery, which saves the votes in case of energy failure. The electronic ballot box of Brazil is used as a model for countries

7 Internet Voting As computer ownership was increased in late 90 s, people where using more Internet, thus more opportunities where discovered in the electronic democracy field as well. Considering that Internet provides a lot of opportunities, the concept of voting through Internet was introduced. However, as all new ideas, they where faced (and still are) with critics mainly in the security issues. That time, critics where taking a parallel between Internet transaction and Internet voting. The fraud in Internet transaction (payments) was said to be in the level of 10% of all the transactions, and if this would be approximately the same in the election, then it would not be possible and legitimate to vote through Internet. Moreover, in year of 2000, in order to test these opportunities a Task Force was created in California, U.S. in order to see the whether in that time conditions was possible to undertake elections through internet. The task force reported it this time it would not be legally, practically or fiscally feasible to develop a comprehensive remote Internet Voting system that would completely replace current paper process. However, officials from Election.com website 4, claim that efficient security measures exist - which make it possible for the public to vote via Internet. Furthermore, advantages of internet voting where introduced; the observers say that it will lower the cost, as well, based on public opinion, a widely part of population, especially the younger ones prefer and are looking forward to the internet; which in other words will increase the number of participants in elections. Later on, I will present into details pros and cons of this system as well as present the real cases - how Geneva, Switzerland introduced and is using the Internet voting

8 4. Advantages and Disadvantages of E- Voting Elections are unique and important for many parties including citizens, nation, political parties, different activism etc. Elections directly affects the lives of thousand of people, moreover it even changes fate of nations! E Voting as mentioned above provides a lot of advantages both, for citizen/voters as well as for election officials in many areas such as more flexibility, secure, convenient and less costly elections. On the other hand, there exist a few arguments against the use of electronic voting. 4.1 Advantages The first of all advantages of this system is that in offers the possibility to increase the efficiency of the elections. With voting machines citizens may reasonably be confident that their vote will be counted (despite hanging chads problems in U.S.). As well, the new voting machines are programmed and design that based on what is being voted, can reduce the number of answers (ability to vote only for a person) which will stop common voters faults of voting two persons ore more and after the vote being excluded or not counted! Moreover, machines provide the opportunity to enlarge the fonts or even play a sound for a people with poor eye sights, - it reduces a lot t common mistakes/fault that happen in paper elections! So, on the others words, it provides convenience; software can be designed in the way the voters can simply use it with the minimal time and skills! Mobility is another very important issue. From my personal experience, I was very interested to vote in the national elections of my country, however since I was geographically far, I didn t have the chance to give my vote! Internet voting breaks these barriers. Voters can cast their votes from many different places through different devices, i.e. personal computer, mobile, TV s etc, which of course requires Internet connection. 7

9 Less costs Compared with the traditional voting system, the e- voting reduces costs a lot which comes from reducing personal, administration fee, materials, location management etc. In case of voting machines, it may be possible that the cost of creating/buying them might be high in the beginning but after it is possible to use them many times - for the other ballots. Speed - with the Electronic Voting, when voting time is over, computer will immediately count the votes, and in few minutes after we will the results, which is much faster the traditional voting systems. Flexibility Since this system has not a lot of costs and it has mobility advantage, it means that it is also possible to vote for many ballots, starting from public opinions to elections. Increased Participation: Based on a public opinion that was mentioned above, with all these advantages of e- voting, it will motivate people to vote (especially the younger generation) who before where not interested to go physically to vote. 4.2 Disadvantages Despite advantages the e- voting system offers, there exists the opposite side. Mostly the critics are directed to security issues, as well as other issues with technology, access to machines/internet etc. Let s start with inequality problem. When I refer to inequality, I mean the contrast that exists between people salaries for example. Not all people are allowed and can afford access to Internet. Moreover, although designers are trying to program and design the ballot (Interface) in an user- friendly way, still there are people that don t know how to use machines/mobiles/internet in general, especially in leased developed countries. Secondly, the security issues. With the use of electronic machines, the possibility of frauds becomes higher. Why? To be straight public doesn t have information of how system work. Companies who build electronic voting machines, although they are supervised by election officials/government, they do provide information but in a very basic level, however, the way that the voting program 8

10 is designed, the way it functions - insufficient information exists. This is more because they try to protect it and compete with competitors but still it affects the larger part of the population. Other disadvantage - voting devices might be attacked from Viruses, for instance the well- known - Trojan virus, can effect from the operating system to a Webb rowers and the voting system overall. It might infringe the secrets ballot and privacy, modify the results and reduce the justice of the elections 5. Moreover, Prof. Dr. Dimitris Gritzalis in his work Secure E- Voting: New trends and New Threats listed other barriers for the E- Voting as follows: Lack of Common voting system standards across nations Time and difficulty of changing national election votes Time and cost of certifying a voting system Political risk associated with trying a new voting system Need for security and election experts etc. 5. Basic Requirements for a good e- voting system Any electronic voting system should meet the below mentioned criteria s in order to be reliable as set by Internet Policy Institute 6 : Authentication only eligible and authorized voter should be able to vote through that particular system Uniqueness voters are allowed to vote only once Accuracy all votes should be correctly recorded and counted Integrity in no way, votes should not be modified, forged, or deleted without the detection Auditability the votes should have audit trail, which means that it should be possible to verify that all votes have been correctly counted and that for that to be proofed by a reliable records Report of the National Workshop on Internet Voting 9

11 Secrecy and Non- Coercibility no one should know how an individual voted, nor no one should be able to prove how they did vote in order to reduce the risk of coercion (vote- selling) Transparency The election process should be transparent to the voters. Voters should be able to have a general knowledge and understand the voting process/mechanism. It increases the voting confidence of the public for the particular voting type. Creditability election systems should be testable and meets specific criteria s, so that the election officials have a confidence in them. Simplicity and Flexibility As mentioned in above parts as well, the program should be design in a way to be simple and understandable for the users/voters. It should also provide opportunities to vote for the people with disabilities. Furthermore, it should be flexible and allow a variety of ballot questions format. 5.1 Certification of e- voting systems in EU In 2004 the Legal, operational and technical standards for e- voting where adopted by the Committee of Ministers of Council of Europe. Since then the Council of Europe members states agreed to hold biennial meetings in order to keep in touch about their experiences of e- voting since the adaption of the Recommendations. At the 2008 Biennial Review meeting, it was suggested that certification of e- voting system (with recommendations) and the transparency of electronic elections demanded more attention. For this reason the work in the certification of e- voting system began and the present guidelines where elaborated during the meeting of the council from November 2009 and May/June With this documents, they recommend the member state to introduce a certification process, which means that the e- voting system should be review in a process of confirmation that they are in compliance with requirements and standards set by the council in This is done through different measures from testing and auditing to formal certification, and in the end as a result a report or a certificate is given. 10

12 Figure 4. Theoretical model of possible formal certification process Source: voting/evoting%202010/biennial_nov_meeting/guidelines_certification_en.pdf 6. E- Voting Places Voting at polling places: It provides the highest security compared to other electronic forms because it happens physically, and the department can provide the reliable, no virus, easy handled voting machines at places. Furthermore, the voters are authenticated. Voting at home via computer: means that individual can vote from their home, however it s hard to predict or prevent the other/third person from viewing or 11

13 taking part in voting process. As well, it is more difficult to secure the voter s computer from the attack of hackers or viruses. Voting anyplace with mobile devices: The voters who vote through their laptop, mobile, PDA or any other device, in any place that is convenient for the voter, but that is connected to internet. The important issue in this group is that network where voter get s access to Internet. It is crucial to make sure that is not monitored or hacked by any attackers. 7. E- Voting in France and Switzerland In this section, we will see how the real e- voting cases in Switzerland, United States and in France, how did they adapt and the benefits, consequences and remarks of the system E- Voting in France Presidential Elections in 2007 Since introduced E- Voting in France has been met with a criticism and opposition. This was proved that although with a record number of voters, there was a strong opposition in Presidential Elections in In France, electronic voting machines were first authorized in 2004 but they were first used in general elections of First round had a record of voters million or 85% voter turnout. But, the remote Internet voting in France was used years earlier. In 2003 French citizens living in U.S. were allowed to vote and elect their representative to the Assembly of the French Citizens Abroad (Conseil Supérieur des Français d étranger (CSFE)). Actually, over 60% of the electorate did choose to cast their vote over the Internet 7. So, after the E- Elections in 2003, the debate over the e voting and its future began. A report published by Forum des Droits sur l Internet in recommended that this systems of voting (Remote Internet Voting) could be 7 cs- faculty.stanford.edu/~eroberts/cs181/projects/ /electronic- voting/index_files/page0005.html

14 used only by French citizens abroad, whereas the electorate in France should able to vote through polling place e- voting (i.e. DRE). Furthermore, the report argued that this system offers: Increased opportunity for political participation Simplifies the voting process etc. However, the debate in 2007 proved the opposite. Most of the political parties in elections of 2007 where against using electronic voting for these reasons: Lack of Security The ease of use Cost of the machine Despite many trials and projects, the first round of presidential elections had many malfunctions, and for this reason in 2008 an online petition in Ordinateurs- de- vote.org was lunched for voting in traditional way and in time more than 80,000 signatures where collected. Still, since then, the France government officials are working in Internet elections are are preparing to lunch internet voting in near future 9! 7.2. E- Voting in Switzerland The Swiss E- Voting initiative was introduced in 2002 with creating of all necessary legal basis and recommendation. In its Report on the electronic vote, opportunity, risks and feasibility the Federal Council 10 mentions that: E- Voting should be easy, practical and safe as possible It should under no circumstances penalize citizens who have no access to electronic method The technical infrastructure should be reliable The system should allow verifying votes The system should help prevent abuse, count all votes and of course protect secrecy 9 de- vote.org/

15 In order to clarify whether this system can be used, the pilot experiments were carried in the canton of Geneva, Neuchatel and Zurich. In September 2004, Geneva introduced e- voting system for a cantonal and federal ballot. It may be considered a success turnout of the election reached 56.4% 11. The Switzerland s objective for E- Voting is not to replace the postal voting, but to serve as a way to increase the voter s turnout, which in years was declining. Figure 5. The voter s turnout in years in Switzerland The Geneva Internet Voting System Internet voting system is more a sociological task before being a technical one. As of official representative responsible for Geneva Internet Voting, the social issues are issues that need to be first solved: Acceptance of virtual voting system in the voting channel Creation of trust in the system Define procedures that minimize human error and manipulations 11 Gasser_SwissCases_Evoting.pdf 14

16 The idea was to create an accessible system that does not oblige voters to purchase any infrastructure beyond PC and Internet access. Voters who wished to vote online where not required pre- registering with the state first because it discourages them. The Geneva University was chosen to conduct legal and social political studies. As well, after the social issues, one should focus in technical issues. In Geneva, many it companies were mandated to develop aspects of the application, and audit its security. A website was created to inform citizens and provide them a contact with voting platform Ergonomic test helped to define the user interface. Figure 6. Demo of Internet Voting in Geneva The Geneva parliament was also involved in the procedure in order to give a hand to the improvement of the system. Moreover cantonal and federal 15

17 lawmakers have developed a set of rules specific of Internet voting. Some of them are mentioned below: 1. Visually impaired voters should be able to vote online 2. The electronic voting application must be clearly separated from the state s other IT applications. 3. Systematic fraud, systematic vote hijacking on the internet and systematic identity theft shall be impossible 4. Voters should be provided a way to ensure that they are voting on the State s official website and should be informed that their ballot has been properly cast and stored in the electronic ballot box 5. Stored votes should be totally anonymous etc The development of this system of Internet voting in Geneva has relied as much as possible in the Recommendation Act (2004) mentioned above by the Council of Europe! So, as we can see, many parties are need to be involved in the procedure in order to have a reliable voting system. Open Source of the Internet voting The open source of the system is an delicate issues of the e- voting in general. It can be seen as a barrier of this system if the source code is not provided or very partly provided for the public or other institution to understand and valuate it. But in Geneva it is different. Geneva always had an opinion that state must own the intellectual property of its internet voting system. So this means that either that state uses software whose source are public open source or it acquires the intellectual the source. For now, more then 80% of the software in Geneva is an open source, and the rest is own by the state. Moreover Geneva law opens the code for any interest, review or scientific research to citizens, experts etc. The security approach in Geneva The key issue of security for Geneva officials is the securing the data. They propose that three parties must be taken into account: - The voter s PC 16

18 - - The Internet The State s IT System. The Geneva team instead of focusing to them as a three different entities, they focus on the common factor of all three: The data First, the voter s PC this is the weakest part of the system with regard to the security issues. The risks are managed by sending a signed java applet to the voter s PC but without installing it there. All through voting session this applet protects PC from the malicious software that could attack the PC. Secondly, on the Internet the data here is protected by java applet encryption, which is generated by quantum generator. Last, but not least the state s IT system is a very complex system, which after all, filters all requests and commands so that only ones who are compatible with a voting procedures are processed. The ID Card In Geneva, before every voting, voters receive by post a voting card (single use), which is their numerical ID. This card as well carrier voters number and a PIN code. In order to vote the individual has to give to the system two shared secrets: birthdate and a municipality of origin, as well as the PIN Code. So far, the system has shown success. Figure 7. The ID card used for Internet voting in Geneva (with PIC code hidden in the down- left side) 17

19 8. Conclusion In this seminar work, I have presented detailed and understandable the subject of the e voting in general. We have been introduced to types of e- voting, advantages and disadvantages and focused in the real cases as well. All though, there are different types of e- voting, i.e. DRE systems or Internet voting, still the results in the end are things that matters. In most of the cases, the results are positive, however a further improvements need to be done. Even though, some countries have different opinions/preference on which e- voting type to choose, still each one of them has their benefits. I recall the case of DRE in Brazil, which is very used and serves like a model these days for other countries, and in Switzerland they are not practiced; in opposite Swiss are known for their Internet voting experiences, i.e. in Geneva. In my opinion, after all what has been mentioned above, what needs to be done for other governments that want to use any types of the e- voting is that they should: Make public research which way of e- voting would be more convenient for the citizens Understand their financial and IT capacities When chosen, take a supervision from countries/cities which are pioneer in any way of e- voting (i.e. Geneva) Try to rely as mush as possible on the Recommendations Report (2004) of the European Council etc. 18

20 Appendix The system architecture of the Geneva Internet Voting Source: 19

21 Sources: Prof.Dr. Dimitris Gritzalis, 2002 [Secure Electronic Voting: New Trends, New Threats]. Available on: csirt/meeting7/gritzalis- electronic- voting.pdf; Accessed on:03.nov.2011 Wikipedia 2011: Electronic Voting. Avaiable on: accessed on: 29.Oct.2011 Califronia Internet Voting Task Force, 2000 [A report on the feasibility of Internet Voting in 2000]; available on: accessed on: 10.Nov.2011 Tsun Shao Chen, 2003 [Electronic Voting]; avaiable on: accessed on: 10.Nov.2011 Internet Policy Institute, March 2001 [Report on the National Workshop: Issues and Research Agenda]; available on: news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/voting/nsfe- voterprt.pdf; accessed on: 19.Nov.2011 Directorate General of Democracy and Policial Affairs, 2011 [Certification of E- Voting Systems: Guidelines for developing processes that confirm compliance with prescribed requirements and standards]; available on: voting/e- voting%202010/biennial_nov_meeting/guidelines_certification_en.pdf, accessed on: 18.Nov.2011 Standford 2006/07 [Electronic Voting]; available on: cs- faculty.stanford.edu/~eroberts/cs181/projects/ /electronic- voting/index.html; accessed on: 04.Nov

22 Tiresias, 2011 [Countries with E- Voting Projects]; available on: 1 accessed on: 06.Nov.2011 State Council Report of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, July 2007 [Electronic Voting]; available on: accessed on: 23.Nov.2011 Jan Gerlach, Urs Gasser 2009 [Three case studies from Switzerland: E- Voting]; available on: 1 Gasser_SwissCases_Evoting.pdf; accessed on: 20.Nov.2011 Republic and Canton of Geneva [The Geneva Internet Voting System]; available on: accessed on: 05.Nov