tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/online-voting-15563/articlesOnline voting – The Conversation2023-03-17T12:29:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2017512023-03-17T12:29:59Z2023-03-17T12:29:59ZEstonia’s e-governance revolution is hailed as a voting success – so why are some US states pulling in the opposite direction?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515523/original/file-20230315-20-f7nh74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas reacts to e-vote results on March 5, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/estonian-prime-minister-kaja-kallas-reacts-after-the-news-photo/1247815927">Raigo Pajula/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Estonia, a small country in <a href="https://data.un.org/en/iso/ee.html">northern Europe</a>, reached a digital milestone when the country headed to the polls on March 5, 2023. </p>
<p>For the first time, <a href="https://news.err.ee/1608904730/estonia-sets-new-e-voting-record-at-riigikogu-2023-elections">over 50% of voters cast their ballots online</a> in a national parliamentary election. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UZaVLvIAAAAJ&hl=en">political science researcher</a> who focuses on elections, I was in Estonia to learn about the process of internet voting. In the capacity of an international election observer, I visited standard polling places and also attended the final internet vote count held in the parliament building. </p>
<p>As someone who also regularly volunteers as a poll worker in the United States, I found the contrast between Estonia’s integrated information systems and internet voting, and the patchwork system operating in the U.S., to be notable. And with several U.S. states <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1161374479/electronic-registration-information-center-eric-florida-missouri-west-virginia">withdrawing from the Electronic Registration Information Center</a>, or ERIC, that contrast is growing sharper.</p>
<p>I believe Estonia offers America an important example of how information sharing can be used to enhance the integrity of elections.</p>
<h2>Estonia’s e-governance system</h2>
<p>Estonia has long been seen as a pioneer in digitizing the democratic process.</p>
<p>Internet voting, which <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2022.101718">began in Estonia in 2005</a>, is just a small part of the e-governance ecosystem that all Estonians access regularly. Using a government-issued ID card that allows Estonians to identify themselves and securely record digital signatures, they can register a newborn baby, sign up for social benefits, access health records and conduct almost any other business they have with a government agency. This ID card is mandatory for all citizens.</p>
<p>Central to the success of Estonia’s digitization revolution is a secure data-sharing system known as the <a href="https://e-estonia.com/solutions/interoperability-services/x-road/">X-Road</a>. </p>
<p>Government agencies collect only the personal information they require to provide their services, and if another agency has already gathered a piece of information, then it is accessible through the X-Road. In other words, each piece of personal information is collected only once and then shared securely when it is needed. A person’s home address, for example, is collected by the <a href="https://www.siseministeerium.ee/en/activities/population-procedures/population-register">population register</a> and no other government entity. If it’s needed by election administrators, health care workers, a school or any other agency, those organizations request it from the population register online.</p>
<p>So, imagine that you are applying for admission to a university, which requires both your date of birth and your school grades. These are stored by two different agencies. By using your ID card, you can auto-populate <a href="https://www.sais.ee">the application</a> using data that the system instantaneously pulls in from the two agencies that store that information. </p>
<p>Because of this information sharing, election officials know who is eligible to vote and which online ballot they should receive no matter where they live in the country.</p>
<h2>A decentralized approach in U.S.</h2>
<p>For many reasons, the U.S. system of election management is very different from Estonia’s, and <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/02/17/despite-security-concerns-online-voting-advances">online voting is rare</a>. </p>
<p>Developing and maintaining an e-governance system requires technical, political and social forces to align. Because each U.S. state manages its own elections, and decisions can vary at the county level or below, it is difficult to envision a consistent technical solution. It is also more challenging to coordinate a solution across such a large country and <a href="https://verifiedvoting.org/internet-voting-faq/">safely implement secure online voting</a> given current U.S. internet voting technology.</p>
<p>Additionally, concerns about federal interference in state matters have prompted political and social pushback on <a href="https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/report/destroying-election-integrity-the-unnecessary-and-unconstitutional-john-r">recent election reforms</a>. Public consensus on instituting a nationally mandated electronic ID similar to the one that forms the foundation of Estonia’s internet voting appears unlikely. </p>
<p>Research shows that most <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2022.101718">Estonians trust their e-governance systems</a>, although there are skeptics. Some critiques focus on <a href="https://gafgaf.infoaed.ee/en/posts/perils-of-electronic-voting/">perceived security shortcomings</a>. </p>
<p>The internet voting process has also become politicized. In the most recent election, one political party that had discouraged its voters from using online voting – and unsurprisingly trailed its rivals in the online count – challenged the process in court. Its <a href="https://news.err.ee/1608911129/estonia-s-supreme-court-rejects-ekre-s-e-voting-election-complaint">effort to annul internet voting</a> failed. The U.S. witnessed a similar dynamic around <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/10/supreme-court-leaves-in-place-order-requiring-pennsylvania-to-count-absentee-ballots-after-election-day/">absentee ballots in the 2020 elections</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Long line of people standing outside waiting to vote" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515527/original/file-20230315-28-ry6ind.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515527/original/file-20230315-28-ry6ind.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515527/original/file-20230315-28-ry6ind.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515527/original/file-20230315-28-ry6ind.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515527/original/file-20230315-28-ry6ind.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515527/original/file-20230315-28-ry6ind.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515527/original/file-20230315-28-ry6ind.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Nearly all U.S. voters vote in person or by absentee or mail-in ballot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-wait-in-line-for-early-voting-for-the-midterm-news-photo/1439028382">Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Balancing security, efficiency and access</h2>
<p>While <a href="https://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/em/annex/electoral-management-case-studies/the-united-states-decentralized-to-the-point-of">the United States’ decentralized approach</a> has its advantages, it also creates shortcomings in security, efficiency and access. </p>
<p>Secure elections means that only people who have the right to vote are able to cast a ballot and that they aren’t improperly influenced in the process. Efficient elections means the process is smooth — voters don’t have to wait in long lines, and their ballots are counted quickly and accurately. And access emphasizes that people who have the right to vote can register, gather the information they need in order to vote, and successfully cast their ballot. </p>
<p>Sometimes changes to voting practices that enhance one of these values – say, security – may create impediments for another – say, access. Requiring a photo ID to vote, for example, may reduce the <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_impersonation">small likelihood of voter impersonation</a>, but it also risks preventing a legitimate voter who forgets to bring, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html">or doesn’t have</a>, a valid photo ID from exercising their right to vote. Finding an acceptable balance among these values is a challenge for citizens and policymakers alike.</p>
<h2>Misinformation derails digital efforts</h2>
<p>Several states, including my own state of West Virginia, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1161374479/electronic-registration-information-center-eric-florida-missouri-west-virginia">recently made a decision</a> that I believe undermines all three of these values by making our elections less secure, less efficient and less accessible.</p>
<p>In early March, West Virginia joined Florida, Missouri, Alabama and Louisiana in withdrawing from the <a href="https://ericstates.org">Electronic Registration Information Center</a>. ERIC is a multistate, data-sharing effort to make voter rolls more accurate and encourage eligible citizens to vote. The 28 participating states and the District of Columbia provide voter registration and driver’s license data to ERIC and receive an analysis that shows who has moved, who has died and who is eligible to vote but has not registered. </p>
<p>These reports help states clean up their voter rolls, <a href="https://www.statenews.org/government-politics/2023-03-07/larose-says-ohio-may-drop-out-of-voter-registration-program-he-praised-last-month">identify incidents of fraud</a> and <a href="https://ericstates.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ERIC_Bylaws.pdf">provide unregistered voters</a> with information about how to vote. </p>
<p>In other words, ERIC is designed to enhance security, efficiency and access. However, over the past year, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/08/republican-states-eric-voter-rolls-program-conspiracy">unsubstantiated claims have circulated</a> that ERIC is being used as a <a href="https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/west-virginia-resigns-from-electronic-registration-information-center/article_f68b2bc4-bc50-11ed-b356-5b309dab29c3.html">partisan tool to undermine election integrity</a>. </p>
<p>ERIC was established, however, as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18541-1_31">nonpartisan information provider with bipartisan support</a>. States that exit ERIC may be sacrificing the integrity of their election process based on <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/oct/17/mark-finchem/arizonas-mark-finchem-falsely-links-george-soros-t/">unfounded conspiracies</a>.</p>
<p>The U.S. can learn a tremendous amount from Estonia’s e-governance revolution. Estonia faces a hostile security environment with an antagonistic Russia next door. But its integrated systems have helped balance security, efficiency and access in a wide range of government services. With the decision to withdraw from ERIC, some states are in danger of pulling the U.S. in the other direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erik S. Herron receives funding from the US Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative. </span></em></p>Americans can look to Estonia for lessons on how online voting systems can improve election integrity.Erik S. Herron, Professor of Political Science, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1808652022-04-27T04:13:11Z2022-04-27T04:13:11ZAustralia doesn’t have online voting for federal elections and we should keep it that way<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458517/original/file-20220419-25-ejn45q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Peled/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As we head towards the federal election, you may be wondering why we can’t skip the polling booth queues and vote online instead.</p>
<p>The reason is the difficulty of verifying that each person’s vote is accurately recorded and tallied. As yet, there is no safe way to ensure this over the internet. </p>
<p>But there are ways technology can improve the election - if we are careful. Recent legislative changes will help make this year’s electronic Senate count more secure and transparent. </p>
<h2>House of Representatives voting</h2>
<p>Think for a minute about how Australian election results earn public trust. House of Representatives ballots are cast on paper, voters put their own ballot into a ballot box, they are then manually counted and scrutineers are entitled to watch every aspect of the process.</p>
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<img alt="Woman casts a ballot for the lower house." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458520/original/file-20220419-27-gk5bb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458520/original/file-20220419-27-gk5bb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458520/original/file-20220419-27-gk5bb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458520/original/file-20220419-27-gk5bb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458520/original/file-20220419-27-gk5bb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458520/original/file-20220419-27-gk5bb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458520/original/file-20220419-27-gk5bb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Australian voters put their own ballots in the ballot boxes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Wainwright/AAP</span></span>
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<p>Except for some requirements to trust the postal service (for postal votes) and a phone-based remote voting service (for the small minority unable to vote by post) the entire process can be independently verified. </p>
<p>We don’t know how to replicate this transparent, verifiable process in a paperless way over the internet.</p>
<h2>What’s the problem with online voting?</h2>
<p>Australia has no secure or universal way of verifying a citizen’s identity online, so online voting incurs a risk of allowing ineligible people to vote, perhaps a very large number of times. </p>
<p>Another key problem is enabling voters to verify the electronic vote they sent is the one they wanted.</p>
<p>Unlike a postal ballot paper, an electronic vote cannot be directly verified. Malware, or a bug, on the voting device might change the vote without the voter’s knowledge.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-election-campaign-begins-what-do-the-polls-say-and-can-we-trust-them-this-time-180318">As the election campaign begins, what do the polls say, and can we trust them this time?</a>
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<p>Some countries have tried to address this, but issues remain. </p>
<p>In Estonia, voters can use an independent device to redo the vote encryption and check it matches what they asked for. This method has some good security properties, but <a href="https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/1098.pdf">introduces problems</a> around coercion and vote-buying.</p>
<p>In Switzerland, voters receive a code sheet in the mail and use the codes to check their vote was properly received. In 2019 <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9152765">colleagues and I</a> discovered some subtle flaws in this process, and in the later stages of the SwissPost verification process. These could allow a malicious attacker to alter votes while making it appear that verification had passed.</p>
<h2>Online voting in Australia</h2>
<p>New South Wales used an online voting option called <a href="https://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/Using-iVote-for-the-2021-Local-Government-election">iVote</a> for its local government elections in 2021. </p>
<p>Although originally justified as a necessity for special classes of voters, by 2021 iVote eligibility had expanded to include anyone who said they would be outside their local government area on election day. More than 600,000 votes, including one third of votes for the Sydney City Council, were received over this system.</p>
<p>The system suffered outages under this load - the NSW Electoral Commission <a href="https://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/NSWEC/media/NSWEC/LGE21/iVote-Assessment-Methodology.pdf">estimated</a> 10,000 or more people couldn’t cast a vote. This estimate is probably conservative, but nobody knows for sure how many people were disenfranchised. The NSW Supreme Court <a href="https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/17f913a39e2ade551b821020">determined in February</a> that three council election outcomes should be voided and re-run.</p>
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<p>Analysis by mathematical scientist Dr Andrew Conway and myself <a href="https://github.com/AndrewConway/ConcreteSTV/blob/main/reports/NSWLGE2021Report.pdf">shows</a> for 36 additional councils, the number of people acknowledged by the NSW Electoral Commission to have been excluded was enough to have possibly changed the outcome.</p>
<p>The systems used for local elections elsewhere in Australia may be even worse. The ACT allowed some overseas voters to vote online in the 2021 election for the ACT Assembly. A <a href="https://gitlab.anu.edu.au/u1113289/thomas-public-paper/-/blob/master/ACT_OSEV_February2022.pdf">February 2022 report</a> on that system by Australian National University computing lecturer Thomas Haines found it didn’t use end-to-end encryption to protect the privacy of the votes and didn’t use any sound cryptographic method to protect them from being modified when they passed through an internet-facing server. Nor does it appear to have any method of allowing voters to verify their votes are cast as they intended.</p>
<p>This is why it’s a good thing internet voting isn’t permitted for federal elections in Australia. And it’s important to remember it’s the verification issues, more than reliability failures, that are the problem.</p>
<h2>Senate vote counting</h2>
<p>Senate ballots are cast on paper and then scanned and digitised in a hybrid human and automated process. First preference votes for the Senate are manually tallied. But the rest of the Senate count is conducted electronically. </p>
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<img alt="Senate ballot paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458522/original/file-20220419-13-fcjuw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458522/original/file-20220419-13-fcjuw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458522/original/file-20220419-13-fcjuw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458522/original/file-20220419-13-fcjuw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458522/original/file-20220419-13-fcjuw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458522/original/file-20220419-13-fcjuw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458522/original/file-20220419-13-fcjuw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The complicated Senate count takes several weeks to complete.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bianca De Marchi/AAP</span></span>
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<p>The electronic preferences are published online, so the counting step can be independently checked using any <a href="https://github.com/AndrewConway/ConcreteSTV">open source Senate counting software</a>. </p>
<p>The hard part is ensuring the published preferences are accurate representations of the ballot. Until recently, there was no careful way to assess this. If a software error or security problem caused a divergence between the paper ballots and the scanned images, or between the scanned images and the final preferences, it might not have been detectable even by the Australian Electoral Commission, let alone scrutineers.</p>
<p>New <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6810">laws</a>, which passed parliament in December 2021, represent a tremendous improvement. They mandate a statistical audit of the ballot papers to verify they’re accurately reflected in the digital preferences.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/settheagenda-what-the-conversations-readers-want-politicians-to-address-this-federal-election-181336">#SetTheAgenda: What The Conversation's readers want politicians to address this federal election</a>
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<p>By law, the electoral commission must publish their audit methodology in advance, which should be soon. We need to see a clear, rigorous procedure for randomly choosing ballot papers and comparing them to their digitised preferences, in the presence of scrutineers. Observers also need to be able to check the pencil marks on the ballot paper have been accurately digitised.</p>
<p>This will provide a complete evidence trail all the way from the ballot papers to the election outcome.</p>
<h2>Earning and maintaining public trust</h2>
<p>We don’t know how to run trustworthy elections over the internet, but we can use technology to improve some electoral processes, without sacrificing the public evidence trail that is absolutely central to earning public trust in the results.</p>
<p>It is tempting but wrong to emphasise secrecy rather than transparency, to hide problems rather than exposing them to public scrutiny. The new Senate bill bucks this trend.</p>
<p>Auditing the Senate ballot papers is hard work and it’s not fashionable or convenient, but it will make a huge difference to the security of Australian elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180865/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vanessa Teague is consults for the Swiss Federal Chancellery for examination of their Internet voting system through their Expert Dialogue. She is a member of the advisory board of Verified Voting, a US nonprofit dedicated to improving the integrity of US elections. She is the chairperson of Australian not-for-profit Democracy Developers Ltd, which has received a research grant from Microsoft. </span></em></p>Australians vote on a piece of paper and put that into a box which is then counted. We don’t know how to replicate this transparent, verifiable process over the internet.Vanessa Teague, Adjunct associate professor (ANU) and CEO, Thinking Cybersecurity, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1596762021-05-04T14:22:57Z2021-05-04T14:22:57ZIndigenous communities should be able to choose online voting, especially during COVID-19: Report<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397905/original/file-20210429-14-ywlb6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C0%2C5955%2C4023&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A voter waits to enter a polling area to cast his ballot for Assembly of First Nations National Chief on July 25, 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Indigenous communities should be able to vote using the voting methods they choose, especially during a pandemic. Online voting is a method many Indigenous communities have deployed in recent years and others are looking to use.</p>
<p>While most governments have been able to make their own decisions around postponing their elections and how to conduct them during COVID-19, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/first-nations-elections-amid-covid-19-1.5510443">First Nations have felt the effects of colonial voting regulations</a> that limit their autonomy over their own voting processes. </p>
<p><a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/i-5/FullText.html">The Indian Act</a> and <a href="https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/F-11.65/FullText.html">First Nations Election Act</a> create governments with elected chiefs and councils and place strict rules on most aspects of First Nations governance, including fixed election terms and the types of ballots that can be used. Neither piece of legislation includes a provision to extend elections or votes in crisis situations.</p>
<p>At the beginning of the pandemic, First Nations whose elections fall under the Indian Act or First Nations Elections Act, were forced to proceed with planned elections despite public health risks. <a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/voting-in-a-time-of-pandemic-why-shoal-lake-39-felt-pressed-to-hold-an-election/">Iskatewizaagegan (Shoal Lake) First Nation</a> was one such community. At that same time, other elections in Canada were being postponed (like <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/new-brunswick-suspends-municipal-elections-in-lockdown-areas-1.5983455">New Brunswick’s municipal elections)</a>.</p>
<p>The public health risks of running an election during a pandemic are magnified for First Nations. Many communities are <a href="https://sac-oac.ca/sites/default/files/resources/Report-First-Peoples-Second-Class-Treatment.pdf">rural or remote and may have limited access to hospitals</a>, but are miles away from urban centres. In the past, <a href="https://www.ccnsa-nccah.ca/docs/other/FS-InfluenzaPandemic-EN.pdf">the government’s response to outbreaks have left communities feeling stigmatized and less valued</a>. During the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/news_research/2009/09/16/manitoba_chiefs_furious_after_ottawa_sends_body_bags_to_flustricken_reserves.html">Health Canada sent more than two dozen body bags to a Manitoba First Nation</a> instead of other needed supplies such as masks, respirators and hand sanitizer.</p>
<p>Our report, <a href="http://www.digitalimpactfn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/FN_DIGITAL_INAC_REPORT_DIGITAL_FNL5.pdf"><em>Indigenous Experiences with Online Voting</em></a>, provides eight best practices for communities wanting to use online voting as the COVID-19 pandemic lingers. The report also puts forth eight recommendations, which are the result of longstanding research collaborations with Indigenous communities as part of the <a href="http://www.digitalimpactfn.com">First Nations Digital Democracy Project</a>. </p>
<h2>Online voting and governance of First Nations elections</h2>
<p>Online voting has been used by First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities across Canada since 2011. In the context of First Nations, this has mostly been for the passage of ratification and agreement votes. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/nipissing-first-nation-passes-first-ontario-aboriginal-constitution-1.2505488">Nipissing First Nation was the first in Ontario to pass their own constitution</a> (Chi-Naaknigewin) and used online voting to do so. </p>
<p>First Nations have also used online voting for chief and council elections. To be able to use non-paper based voting methods for elections or referendums, however, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/experts-first-nation-emergencies-election-1.5565431">First Nations must have their own election code</a> or self-government agreement because federally derived frameworks do not allow for the use of alternative or digital voting methods. </p>
<p>Our top recommendation in the report is that the federal government amend the necessary regulations of the Indian Act and First Nations Elections Act to allow First Nations to choose and use their own voting methods. This change would not only support elections and voting in pandemic and post-pandemic times, it would also support First Nations in circumstances where participation thresholds are required for the passage of votes, improve voting accessibility on and off-reserve, enhance vote tabulation efficiency, and allow for the modernization of political institutions and processes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man sits at press conference" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397903/original/file-20210429-24-15bzp6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397903/original/file-20210429-24-15bzp6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397903/original/file-20210429-24-15bzp6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397903/original/file-20210429-24-15bzp6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397903/original/file-20210429-24-15bzp6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397903/original/file-20210429-24-15bzp6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397903/original/file-20210429-24-15bzp6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller responds to a question during a news conference, in Ottawa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span>
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<h2>How online voting can help in times of crisis</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.digitalimpactfn.com/research/digital-politics/">Online voting is seen as a means to better connect citizens</a>. This includes individuals living off-reserve who may not be able to make the trip home to cast a ballot, and for people living in the community who may want to vote online because of accessibility or convenience. Online voting has enhanced inclusiveness and representation while helping meet required participation thresholds for some votes. </p>
<p>The work conducted for the report also points to ways in which online voting and other remote ballot types could serve Indigenous communities in times of crisis. These include: maintaining relationships, enhancing community voice and supporting a willingness to innovate.</p>
<p>Maintaining relationships is a key factor for community health and well-being. <a href="https://doi.org/10.18584/iipj.2016.7.3.3">The deployment of online voting in Whitefish River First Nation</a> empowered the community to pass their own <a href="https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1408981855429/1581783888815">Matrimonial Real Property law</a>. This sparked community dialogue regarding the law and technological adoption, particularly between elders and youth. Elections and voting are one way of nurturing these relations. Even when participation may not be possible in person, maintaining these connections is critical.</p>
<p>Improving participation and enhancing community voice was articulated as being important by communities. Use of online voting can facilitate remote participation and promote inclusiveness without public health risks.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/cities-villes/videos/akwesasne-eng.html">First Nations are not afraid to innovate</a> when faced with challenges. Some communities that were unable to meet required quorums with traditional paper voting were willing to try online or telephone voting to engage more citizens to ensure they could adopt their own legislation. </p>
<h2>Enough with the excuses</h2>
<p>First Nations across Canada are urging Indigenous Services Canada to <a href="https://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/news/local-news/first-nation-wants-online-voting-approved/wcm/9a1357de-ae49-430e-828a-6c57a0f80b1e/amp/">be responsive</a>. Our report advances recommendations to support online voting use and development. Some of these are items that the Government of Canada can take immediate action on. As noted above, this includes <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2017/reforming-the-indian-act-to-allow-for-online-voting/">amending the applicable election and referendum regulations to allow First Nations to use remote voting methods</a>. </p>
<p>A second recommendation for the federal government is to increase earmarked core funding that could be used to support remote voting such as online or mail-in ballots. Communities suggested that this funding should be discretionary, have the ability to be carried over, contain no claw-back option and not require reporting. The funding could also support prioritizing digital literacy, which could further reduce the impact of COVID-19 related challenges.</p>
<p>These proposed changes must be made with First Nations. Acting quickly with a single amendment would provide First Nations the option to continue elections as our country emerges from a third, and potentially not final wave. It would also provide space for much needed conversations about how to move forward with changes to elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chelsea Gabel receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Goodman receives funding from Brock University, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Mitacs. She is a Board Member at International IDEA.</span></em></p>The federal government needs to amend the necessary regulations of the Indian Act and First Nations Elections Act to allow First Nations to choose their own voting methods.Chelsea Gabel, Associate professor, Indigenous Studies Program, McMaster UniversityNicole Goodman, Associate professor, Political Science, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1447372020-08-23T20:07:16Z2020-08-23T20:07:16ZAs the first ‘remote’ sitting starts in Canberra, virtual parliaments should be the new norm, not a COVID bandaid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353796/original/file-20200820-14-p4txvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Federal parliament is back today after a nine-week break. And it’s going to look a bit different. </p>
<p>Some MPs, unable to travel to Canberra for <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/pregnant-mps-warn-they-are-being-shut-out-of-inflexible-parliament-20200815-p55m2c.html">health reasons</a> or <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-06/victorian-politicians-face-coronavirus-quarrantine-parliament/12529700">COVID-19 border restrictions</a> will participate via video. </p>
<p>It will be the first time MPs have been able to contribute remotely like this during a sitting week. This is a big leap for the parliament. </p>
<h2>What will change in the chamber?</h2>
<p>Federal parliament is adopting a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/virtual-parliament-is-virtually-ready-for-mps-trapped-by-virus-rules-20200817-p55mjf.html">hybrid model</a>. Many MPs are still expected to attend the chamber in person. But others will be there via secure video link from their electorate office, with strict rules against slogans and novelty items in the background. </p>
<hr>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-virtual-participants-and-border-restrictions-will-make-for-a-bespoke-parliamentary-sitting-144602">View from The Hill: 'Virtual' participants and border restrictions will make for a bespoke parliamentary sitting</a>
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<p>Those attending via video won’t be able to vote or be counted for <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/House_of_Representatives/Powers_practice_and_procedure/Practice7/HTML/Chapter8/Quorum">quorums</a>. But they will be able to ask questions in question time and speak as part of debates. </p>
<p>There will not be a free-for-all on the video option. As Attorney-General and Leader of the House, Christian Porter explains, it will only be available to MPs who can prove the pandemic makes it,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>essentially impossible, unreasonably impracticable, or would give rise to an unreasonable risk for the Member to physically attend. </p>
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<p>The remote access will be via the existing system used for parliamentary committee hearings that frequently take place around the country. </p>
<h2>Virtual parliaments around the world</h2>
<p>This may be new for Australia, but it is not radical. Before COVID-19, other parliaments have been experimenting with remote proceedings and online participation. </p>
<p>Spain’s parliament has <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2020/649348/EPRS_ATA(2020)649348_EN.pdf">allowed remote voting </a> since 2011 if people are seriously unwell or on maternity leave.</p>
<p>Brazil’s parliament - which covers a large geographical area, with more than 500 members in its lower house alone - had already begun using <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2016.1235331">virtual discussion tools</a> to conduct debates among MPs and between MPs and citizens. This is supported by an app, <a href="https://www.ipu.org/innovation-tracker/story/preserving-parliaments-functionality-during-covid-19-pandemic-brazils-experience">called Infoleg</a>, which provides information on parliamentary business for both citizens and MPs and enables secure online voting. </p>
<p>Both Spain and Brazil were <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2041905820933376">among the first</a> parliaments to swap to hybrid and <a href="http://parlamericas.org/uploads/documents/Organizing_Virtual_Parliamentary_Sittings_Infographic_ENG.pdf">virtual sittings</a> during COVID-19, thanks to their <a href="http://parlamericas.org/uploads/documents/COVID19_and_Role_of_Parliaments_ENG.pdf">technical know-how</a> and procedural flexibility. </p>
<h2>What about Westminster parliaments?</h2>
<p>Westminster parliaments were also making <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/virtual-parliament.pdf">tentative online moves</a> pre-COVID. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-virtual-australian-parliament-is-possible-and-may-be-needed-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-134540">A virtual Australian parliament is possible – and may be needed – during the coronavirus pandemic</a>
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<p>The United Kingdom had introduced a <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2016/november/mobile-app-for-vote-results-launched/">CommonsVotes app</a>, which shows how MPs have voted, following a division. There is also a <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=housepapers.digiminster.com&hl=en_AU">HousePapers app</a> which contains parliamentary papers. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2020/april1/virtual-house-of-commons-end-of-week-one/">UK</a>, <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/mi/get-involved/features/live-streaming-and-video-conferencing-make-select-committee-meetings-more-accessible/">New Zealand</a> and <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Department_of_the_Senate/Annual_Reports/Annual_Report_2011-2012/Report_of_Performance/Committee_Office">Australian</a> parliaments have been among those using video conferencing for committee work. </p>
<h2>Question time is not the same</h2>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2020/april1/virtual-house-of-commons-end-of-week-one/">some success</a>, reconfiguring Westminster traditions into virtual parliamentary settings during COVID-19 has been challenging. </p>
<p>This is particularly so when it comes to facilitating the <a href="https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/marie-le-conte-mps-virtual-parliament-zoom-pmqs-technology-digital-voting">spontaneous scrutiny</a> that should occur in question time. Or the visual drama that comes from voting together or calling a <a href="https://constitution-unit.com/2020/04/05/democracy-and-the-coronavirus-how-might-parliament-adapt/">physical division</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="House of Commons chamber with MPs spaced out on benches and appearing on video screens." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353966/original/file-20200820-22-60z16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353966/original/file-20200820-22-60z16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353966/original/file-20200820-22-60z16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353966/original/file-20200820-22-60z16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353966/original/file-20200820-22-60z16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353966/original/file-20200820-22-60z16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353966/original/file-20200820-22-60z16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Video links were used when the UK Parliament sat in May.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jessica Taylor, UK Parliament Handout/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The UK parliament muddled through <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2020/april1/hybrid-house-of-commons/">its post-Easter 2020 sitting</a>, using <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2020/may/mps-cast-first-ever-remote-votes-in-commons-chamber/">online voting</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/21/virtual-house-of-lords-sittings-will-not-be-broadcast-live">Zoom and Microsoft Teams</a> in the chamber and pre-prepared questions for ministers. But it has since <a href="https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/why-the-governments-rationale-for-closing-the-virtual-parliament-doesnt-add-up/">backed away</a> from virtual proceedings, citing the need for a “proper level of scrutiny”. </p>
<h2>But there are ‘real positives’</h2>
<p>The response to UK parliament’s decision <a href="https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/share-your-views-on-the-virtual-parliaments-success/">has been mixed</a>. British Labour MP Chi Onwurah <a href="https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/marie-le-conte-mps-virtual-parliament-zoom-pmqs-technology-digital-voting">has spoken</a> of the need to be there in person. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Video engagement is not the same as being there face-to-face with a minister. You also lose the spontaneity, because you have to put in questions five days in advance, so you can’t ask a question about something a constituent emailed you about in the morning.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On the other hand, the <a href="https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/share-your-views-on-the-virtual-parliaments-success/">Electoral Reform Society</a>, has argued there are “real positives” to virtual methods. Such as, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Less booing and jeering during Prime Minister’s Questions, the ability to call Select Committee witnesses from afar through video-link […] MPs from far ends of the UK noted that they’d be able to spend more time in their constituencies if they could contribute remotely, or that they could spend more time on casework if voting times were cut down through online voting.</p>
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<p>The <a href="https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/infocus/house-of-lords-virtual-sittings-participation-and-covid-19/">House of Lords library</a> also suggests there was more debate. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Almost 1,000 more contributions were made during the interim virtual/chamber phase than during a comparative period at the beginning of the year.</p>
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<p>There were also more contributions from female MPs. Women made up a “<a href="https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/infocus/house-of-lords-virtual-sittings-participation-and-covid-19/">slightly higher proportion</a>” of those participating in the virtual chamber, up from 31% earlier in the year to 35%. </p>
<p>Scottish National Party MP Kirsty Blackman also noted the remote provisions made it easier for <a href="https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/marie-le-conte-mps-virtual-parliament-zoom-pmqs-technology-digital-voting">MPs with disabilities</a> to participate. </p>
<h2>Technology is key</h2>
<p>The big lessons from these experiences are very similar to those facing other workplaces. </p>
<p>That is, the need to be flexible and invest in suitable technology. This includes secure and individually verifiable voting apps - such as <a href="https://www.en.bussola-tech.co/virtual-parliament">Infoleg</a> - <a href="http://thegovlab.org/democratizing-policymaking-online-liquid-feedback/">political discussion software</a> and reliable, high-quality video conferencing facilities. </p>
<h2>Australia’s parliament can do better (it needs to)</h2>
<p>Long before COVID-19, researchers have been calling for parliaments to make better use of technology, to be more efficient and enhance the <a href="http://parliament-engagement.com/">quality of public engagement</a>.</p>
<p>A 2009 <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/APF/monographs/What_lies_beneath/WorkLife">parliamentary survey</a> of MPs found most spent between 5% and 10% of their time travelling. It is a common refrain of MPs they would rather spend more time in their electorates than in Canberra. </p>
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<img alt="Treasurer Josh Frydenberg pulling a sad face on the frontbencher, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison in foreground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353968/original/file-20200820-24-1348h7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353968/original/file-20200820-24-1348h7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353968/original/file-20200820-24-1348h7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353968/original/file-20200820-24-1348h7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353968/original/file-20200820-24-1348h7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353968/original/file-20200820-24-1348h7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353968/original/file-20200820-24-1348h7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Is coming to Canberra really necessary?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Cosh/ AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>There is also growing acknowledgement travel and work requirements on our MPs - particularly in such a geographically dispersed country - <a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/political-life/">are unhealthy and unreasonable</a>. Travel time and time away from family has also been identified as a <a href="https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/four-ways-to-get-more-women-into-parliament">particular barrier</a> to attracting more more female MPs.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-can-do-more-to-attract-and-keep-women-in-parliament-here-are-some-ideas-110174">Australia can do more to attract and keep women in parliament – here are some ideas</a>
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<h2>So, this is our big chance to make a change</h2>
<p>Yes, there are challenges when it comes to “going virtual”. But by forcing our parliaments to experiment with new ways of operating, COVID-19 presents a critical opportunity to reimagine how our democratic institutions can work better. </p>
<p>If we embrace this moment with energy and enthusiasm, we can create new spaces for new voices (as well as better spaces for those we already have). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Aged Care Minister Richard Colebeck appearing at a Senate hearing via video link." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353992/original/file-20200821-24-679p1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353992/original/file-20200821-24-679p1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353992/original/file-20200821-24-679p1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353992/original/file-20200821-24-679p1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353992/original/file-20200821-24-679p1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353992/original/file-20200821-24-679p1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353992/original/file-20200821-24-679p1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parliamentary committee have already been using video conferencing to conduct hearings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This might sound naïvely optimistic, but we have been here before. </p>
<p>About 40 years ago, someone stood in a dry Canberra paddock and imagined the light-filled, <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6018546/our-finest-achievement-30-years-of-parliament-house/">architectural wonder</a> that is the current “new” Parliament House. And how MPs could be inspired by that environment to communicate their ideas with each other and their country.</p>
<p>Now, as we sit in front of our screens, we can begin to see a new parliamentary landscape. It might feel impersonal at first, but it has the potential to make parliament more user-friendly for MPs and citizens alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Moulds receives occasional funding from the Law Foundation of South Australia. She is a co-founder of the Rights Resource Network SA. </span></em></p>Some MPs will be be allowed to attend the chamber via video link this week. This is a ‘big leap’ when it comes to improving access to parliament.Sarah Moulds, Senior Lecturer of Law, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1225212019-10-18T11:25:19Z2019-10-18T11:25:19ZBlockchain voting is vulnerable to hackers, software glitches and bad ID photos – among other problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297192/original/file-20191015-98640-irfz02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C343%2C4167%2C3256&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How secure is online voting with blockchain technology?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/blockchain-online-voting-concept-stock-vector-691323088">WhiteDragon/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A developing technology called “blockchain” has gotten attention from election officials, startups and even Democratic presidential candidate <a href="https://www.yang2020.com/policies/modernize-voting/">Andrew Yang</a> as a <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/wouldnt-it-be-great-if-people-could-vote-on-blockchain/">potential way to boost voter turnout and public trust in election results</a>.</p>
<p>I <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Qx3YMi4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">study</a> blockchain technology and its potential use in <a href="https://theconversation.com/blockchain-systems-are-tracking-food-safety-and-origins-106491">fighting fraud</a>, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/blockchain-could-be-the-answer-to-cybersecurity-maybe-1527645960">strengthening cybersecurity</a> and securing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2018.2801546">voting</a>. </p>
<p>I see promising signs that blockchain-based voting could make it more convenient for people to vote, thereby boosting voter turnout. And blockchain systems can be effective at <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-blockchain-to-secure-the-internet-of-things-90002">strengthening the security of devices, networks and critical systems like electricity grids</a>, as well as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2017.09.003">protecting personal privacy</a>.</p>
<p>The few small-scale tests run so far have identified problems and vulnerabilities in the digital systems and government administrative procedures that must be resolved before blockchain-based voting can be considered safe and trustworthy. Therefore I don’t see clear evidence that it can prevent, or even detect, election fraud.</p>
<h2>How it works</h2>
<p>There are a few steps in a blockchain-based voting system, which uses technology to mirror the process of in-person voting. </p>
<p>First, the system needs to verify a voter’s identity – often by having the user upload a photo of a government-issued ID and then a photo or video self-portrait. The system confirms the ID’s validity, and facial recognition software makes sure the person in the self-portrait is the person on the ID. Then the user is <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/08/some-americans-will-get-to-vote-via-blockchain-this-november">authenticated as eligible to cast a vote</a>.</p>
<p>Only at that point does blockchain technology actually enter the process. The system gives each authenticated voter a <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2016/10/22/blockchain-tech-could-fight-voter-fraud-and-these-countries-are-testing-it/">digital token that represents the person’s vote</a> and a list of the digital addresses to which he or she can send that token. Each address indicates a vote for a particular candidate or an answer to a ballot question.</p>
<p>The tokens don’t indicate who cast them, so votes remain anonymous. When a voter sends a token, a record of that act is <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611850/why-security-experts-hate-that-blockchain-voting-will-be-used-in-the-midterm-elections/">stored simultaneously on several different computers</a>, making it much harder for hackers to <a href="https://qz.com/1574671/the-fbi-is-investigating-west-virginias-blockchain-based-midterm-elections/">alter the vote records</a>. After casting the ballot by sending the token, the user receives a unique code that they can use to look at the anonymized online vote tally to <a href="https://www.governing.com/Utah-County-Puts-Blockchain-Voting-to-Test-in-Live-Audit.html">confirm their vote was counted as they intended</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297220/original/file-20191015-98678-1h37es5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297220/original/file-20191015-98678-1h37es5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297220/original/file-20191015-98678-1h37es5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=173&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297220/original/file-20191015-98678-1h37es5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=173&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297220/original/file-20191015-98678-1h37es5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=173&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297220/original/file-20191015-98678-1h37es5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297220/original/file-20191015-98678-1h37es5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297220/original/file-20191015-98678-1h37es5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An example of a Voatz voting interface.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blog.voatz.com/?p=848">Voatz</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Small-scale trials, so far</h2>
<p>Early results show that blockchain systems may increase voter turnout, though it’s not yet clear why. <a href="https://www.cyberscoop.com/nasdaq-estonia-evoting-pilot/">Many of the tests</a> have been for <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/article/sierra-leone-pilots-blockchain-based-voting-for-political-elections-cm938309">informal ballots</a>, like <a href="http://www.govtech.com/biz/Blockchain-Voting-Startup-Raises-22M.html">student government groups</a> and <a href="https://kryptomoney.com/south-korea-uses-blockchain-technology-for-elections">community projects</a>.</p>
<p>However, several election officials in the U.S. have held small-scale trials of blockchain voting, allowing members of the military who are stationed overseas to vote electronically, rather than by mail. </p>
<p>In the November 2018 congressional elections, West Virginia allowed <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/west-virginia-blockchain-voting-voatz.html">144 voters living overseas to cast ballots from 31 different countries</a> using an app developed by a <a href="https://www.computerworld.com/article/3430697/why-blockchain-could-be-a-threat-to-democracy.html">private company called Voatz</a>, which is involved in many of these trials.</p>
<p>Another <a href="https://www.longhash.com/news/west-virginia-will-use-blockchain-voting-in-the-2020-presidential-election-why">200 voters overseas expressed interest</a> in using the system, but their home counties in West Virginia weren’t set up to do so. Based on the results, West Virginia says it plans to <a href="https://www.longhash.com/news/west-virginia-will-use-blockchain-voting-in-the-2020-presidential-election-why">continue and expand the trial in the 2020 presidential election</a>.</p>
<p>Denver, Colorado, had <a href="https://statescoop.com/west-virginia-denver-mobile-voting-app-voatz-increased-turnout/">119 voters who were overseas use a Voatz system</a> to cast their ballots in municipal primary elections in May. In the city’s June runoff election, <a href="https://statescoop.com/west-virginia-denver-mobile-voting-app-voatz-increased-turnout/">112 voters did so online</a> through a blockchain system. In August, <a href="https://www.governing.com/Utah-County-Puts-Blockchain-Voting-to-Test-in-Live-Audit.html">24 voters cast their ballots from overseas using a Voatz app</a> in a Utah County, Utah, election.</p>
<h2>A big test in Moscow</h2>
<p>The most recent – and largest – use of a blockchain-based voting system was in the city council election in Moscow, Russia, on Sept. 8. Because of <a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2019/08/20/after-hackers-break-moscow-s-prototype-internet-voting-city-officials-stop-sharing-contest-results-on-github">concerns that the system</a> was <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/five-takeaways-moscow-elections-russia/30155264.html">not set up</a> <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2019/09/08/russians-cast-their-vote-following-summer-of-protest">securely</a>, only three of the city’s 20 electoral precincts allowed voters to use a blockchain-based mobile voting app to cast their ballot from anywhere with an internet connection.</p>
<p>Again, the evidence showed a boost in voter turnout: The city’s overall turnout rate was <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2019/09/08/russians-cast-their-vote-following-summer-of-protest">around 17%</a> of registered voters. That includes a <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/five-takeaways-moscow-elections-russia/30155264.html">90% turnout</a> among the voters who had registered to use the system. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/five-takeaways-moscow-elections-russia/30155264.html">technological complications</a> <a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2019/09/09/moscow-s-election-results">barred some people from voting</a>, which led at least one losing candidate to object that he would have won if everything had worked properly. That’s the sort of problem that is most worrying for people who hope using mathematical principles and computerized encryption will help the public have trust in election outcomes.</p>
<h2>Key challenges unsolved</h2>
<p>There are several obstacles in the way of blockchain ever becoming useful for large-scale, legally binding voting. </p>
<p>One is that most people have little understanding of how blockchain systems work. Another, equally vital, is that <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/blockchain-based-elections-would-be-a-disaster-for-democracy/">even experts don’t have a way to identify every possible irregularity</a> in online voting. Voting on paper, by contrast, is well studied and <a href="https://theconversation.com/paper-trails-and-random-audits-could-secure-all-elections-dont-save-them-just-for-recounts-in-close-races-94243">easily verified and audited</a>.</p>
<p>One crucial aspect of a blockchain voting system is the method by which the computer system verifies voters’ identities. When a verified voter establishes an account on the system, that process creates a digital key that identifies them securely when casting a ballot. A more complex key is harder to hack, but also <a href="https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Guide_to_Cryptography">takes more computing resources</a> to verify. It will be important to find a way to protect the integrity of the voting process, without exhausting government budgets buying advanced computing power. The computational power required may make blockchain systems inefficient for voting on a nationwide scale – or even statewide, in populous states like California and Texas.</p>
<p>The Moscow election system, for instance, <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/moscows-blockchain-voting-system-cracked-a-month-before-election/">initially assigned keys that were too easily hacked</a>. That opened the possibility of <a href="https://www.mobilepaymentstoday.com/news/french-researcher-cracks-moscows-blockchain-voting-system-2/">voter impersonation</a>, which is bad enough. But that weakness also violated the principle of a secret ballot by <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/moscow-blockchain-voting-system-completely-insecure-says-researcher">letting outsiders know how each person voted</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297208/original/file-20191015-98648-10qicrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297208/original/file-20191015-98648-10qicrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297208/original/file-20191015-98648-10qicrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297208/original/file-20191015-98648-10qicrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297208/original/file-20191015-98648-10qicrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297208/original/file-20191015-98648-10qicrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297208/original/file-20191015-98648-10qicrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297208/original/file-20191015-98648-10qicrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Voting on paper is still the gold standard for security and integrity of elections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/America-Votes-2018/9611b9348f394a639b924478f92bb822/125/0">AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Outside the blockchain itself</h2>
<p>Other problems with digital voting systems are separate from the underlying technologies. In some cases, government-issued IDs used to verify voters’ identities are many years old. </p>
<p>Even when dealing with current images, facial recognition systems, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/smartphone-voting-is-happening-west-virginia/">including the one used by Voatz</a>, have <a href="https://www.computerworld.com/article/3430697/why-blockchain-could-be-a-threat-to-democracy.html">high error rates</a>, especially for <a href="https://statescoop.com/west-virginia-denver-mobile-voting-app-voatz-increased-turnout/">non-white voters</a>. In addition, hackers may try to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/smartphone-voting-is-happening-west-virginia/">trick the system</a>. </p>
<p>The phone or computer a voter uses to cast a ballot <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/blockchain-isnt-answer-to-voting-system-woes/">may not be secure</a>, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/smartphone-voting-is-happening-west-virginia/">either</a> – and it’s not safe to assume that the computer networks they communicate over, and the servers the data is stored on, <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/west-virginia-blockchain-voting-voatz.html">are safe from manipulation</a> or even random errors.</p>
<h2>Trust, but verify</h2>
<p>Proprietary voting apps like Voatz <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-campaign-for-mobile-phone-voting-is-getting-a-midterm-test">offer the public no way to know</a> <a href="https://www.longhash.com/news/west-virginia-will-use-blockchain-voting-in-the-2020-presidential-election-why">whether voters’ choices</a> are <a href="https://fortune.com/2019/03/23/blockchain-vote-election-denver-west-virginia-voatz/">accurately recorded</a>, nor whether these apps <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611850/why-security-experts-hate-that-blockchain-voting-will-be-used-in-the-midterm-elections/">truthfully deliver their ballots’ encrypted copy to be counted by election officials</a>. </p>
<p>Voatz has claimed that its system <a href="https://cse.sc.edu/%7Ebuell/blockchain-papers/documents/WhatWeDontKnowAbouttheVoatz_Blockchain_.pdf">has been audited by third parties</a>, but has made <a href="https://voatz.com/faq.html#audit">few details of that process or its findings</a> available to the public. West Virginia officials who hired Voatz have also <a href="https://www.computerworld.com/article/3430697/why-blockchain-could-be-a-threat-to-democracy.html">refused to reveal information</a> about <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/west-virginia-blockchain-voting-voatz.html">how its security was evaluated</a>.</p>
<p>The company has said it <a href="https://cse.sc.edu/%7Ebuell/blockchain-papers/documents/WhatWeDontKnowAbouttheVoatz_Blockchain_.pdf">would not release that information</a> because it had a <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/west-virginia-blockchain-voting-voatz.html">nondisclosure agreement</a> with the auditors, and <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/west-virginia-blockchain-voting-voatz.html">for fear its proprietary system design might be discovered</a> by competitors.</p>
<p>It’s possible that blockchain-based voting could boost voter participation rates, but there’s no evidence yet that it is better at preventing election fraud. With plenty of potential trouble spots outside the system itself, and little public transparency within it, I have to conclude that blockchain voting is not yet safe or ready for service.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122521/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nir Kshetri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Blockchain technology can address some weaknesses in voting systems, but not all of them – and it opens new potential vulnerabilities, too.Nir Kshetri, Professor of Management, University of North Carolina – GreensboroLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1218312019-08-20T20:04:24Z2019-08-20T20:04:24ZBungled NZ census highlights need for multiple voting options to raise Māori participation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288416/original/file-20190817-192215-1qke3bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=81%2C376%2C4839%2C2877&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New Zealand's 2018 census was the first to be carried out online, but it captured only 83% of people, a response rate 9% lower than the previous census. Māori responses dropped by 20%. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New Zealand’s <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/396557/head-of-stats-nz-liz-macpherson-resigns-over-botched-census">government statistician resigned</a> last week, following the release of an <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/reports/report-of-the-independent-review-of-new-zealands-2018-census">independent review of the 2018 census</a>.</p>
<p>The census was the first to be carried out online, but its <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/396557/head-of-stats-nz-liz-macpherson-resigns-over-botched-census">83% response rate fell short of the 94% target</a> and was 9% lower than the previous census. Māori responses dropped 20% on the previous census. </p>
<p>While the census data won’t be released until next month, <a href="https://www.temanararaunga.maori.nz/">Te Mana Raraunga</a>, the Māori data sovereignty network has <a href="https://population.org.nz/app/uploads/2019/02/NZPR-Vol-44_Kukutai-and-Cormack.pdf">raised concerns</a> about how the “digital first” strategy might have contributed to an “unprecedented … low response rate” from Māori. </p>
<p>While taking part in a census takes more time than voting in an election, we argue that participation would increase if people had more than a digital option. Our analysis of voter participation in local iwi (tribal) elections shows that maintaining other voting options encourages participation. </p>
<h2>Census collection rate for Māori ‘appalling’</h2>
<p>Stats NZ <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/reports/overview-of-data-quality-ratings-interim-coverage-and-response-rates-and-data-sources-for-2018-census">announced</a> last month that the individual collection response rate for Māori was 68%. Te Mana Raraunga described this as “<a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58e9b10f9de4bb8d1fb5ebbc/t/5d31596b61de0e000140307a/1563515244657/Te+Mana+Raraunga+-+Statement+on+2018+Census+-Final.pdf">appalling</a>” and highlighted it was far lower than the 85.5% for the 2013 census. It is also lower than the total New Zealand population, at 83.3%. </p>
<p>The low response rate of Māori not only raises concerns about online-only voting approaches, but also has considerable constitutional implications, as census data is used to determine the number of Māori electorates.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-elections-maori-seats-once-again-focus-of-debate-83293">New Zealand elections: Māori seats once again focus of debate</a>
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<p>Internationally, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11158-017-9382-1">declining voter turnout</a> is of considerable concern in many liberal democracies. Various <a href="https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2004.00152.x">causes</a> are hypothesised, including electoral systems, age, ethnicity and costs. In New Zealand, Māori voter turnout is significantly lower than non-Māori in <a href="http://maorilawreview.co.nz/2017/11/ma-pango-ma-whero-maori-campaigning-and-voting-in-the-2017-general-election/">general</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032318716671765">local government</a> elections.</p>
<p>Over the past three years, we have investigated whether these trends can be discerned in the voter turnout for iwi governance entities. Hundreds of iwi entities have been established through settlements that have resulted from Crown breaches of the <a href="https://mch.govt.nz/treatyofwaitangi">Treaty of Waitangi</a>/Te Tiriti o Waitangi. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-significance-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi-110982">Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Voting options to increase participation</h2>
<p>Iwi governance entities represent their people politically. There is no central database of iwi election data and they are not under any obligation to share their data other than to their members. That responsibility varies according to iwi constitutions or trust deeds. The collection of data about iwi voter turnout is therefore a manual and challenging task.</p>
<p>Most iwi hold regular elections, usually every three years, and most follow a first past the post system where electors have one vote and the candidate with the most votes wins. There are a few variations where voters have as many votes as there are vacancies, but still the candidate with the most votes wins.</p>
<p>There are two main features influencing iwi elections from the data we have analysed. The first relates to location. Regionally based iwi tend to have a <a href="http://archive.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-census.aspx">high proportion of members living away from home</a>, and it is a challenge to keep members engaged in iwi voting. It is a common restriction on candidates to live within the areas they are standing in.</p>
<p>The next feature influencing iwi elections is the voting method. The conduct of iwi elections tends to be outsourced to private companies that specialise in election services. Most iwi use postal voting or a combination of postal and internet voting.</p>
<p>While local authorities and the New Zealand <a href="https://www.dia.govt.nz/">Department of Internal Affairs</a> continue to <a href="https://www.dia.govt.nz/online-voting">debate the benefits and risks of internet voting</a>, including to increase voter turnout, many Māori governance entities have been using a combination of postal and online voting for more than a decade. </p>
<p>The use of internet voting has been increasing as iwi see it as an option to reduce costs, particularly for large iwi and for those with a high portion of members living overseas. Many iwi don’t have the resources to manage their tribal registers, and out-of-date physical address details pose an issue when postal voting only is offered. But the results of trials internationally are mixed on whether internet voting increases turnout. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-how-we-can-get-more-people-to-vote-in-elections-112486">Here's how we can get more people to vote in elections</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Benefits and concerns about online voting</h2>
<p>Political scientists <a href="http://nicolejgoodman.com/">Nicole Goodman</a> and Leah Stokes <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2849167">argue</a> that in local elections in Ontario, Canada, results show that under particular conditions “internet voting can increase turnout by 3.5 percentage points”. Other <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Krimmer/publication/311101401_Proceedings_of_the_International_Conference_for_Electronic_Voting_E-Vote-ID_2016/links/583d933108ae61f75dc461de.pdf">research</a> suggests internet voting does not guarantee increased voter turnout, and may simply make voting more convenient for those who already tend to vote: older, wealthier, <a href="https://thepolicyobservatory.aut.ac.nz/publications/online-voting-working-paper">already engaged constituents</a>. </p>
<p>The other issue around online voting is whether it is more or less effective on its own or in combination with other options. A <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/poi3.168">Canadian study</a> recommends caution around online-only voting methods. Where the option for paper ballot voting has been removed, the research shows that a “digital divide” replicates societal inequalities. They argue that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Absent a paper option, there is evidence that some electors with poor access and digital literacy might be less likely to vote, though the effect is delayed until after the first election after paper is eliminated. … Our results suggest that the elimination of paper ballots may indeed be disenfranchising some electors on the basis of the digital divide. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Duenas-Cid/publication/327980266_Third_International_Joint_Conference_on_Electronic_Voting_E-Vote-ID_2018_TUT_Press_Proceedings/links/5bd99588299bf1124fafaba2/Third-International-Joint-Conference-on-Electronic-Voting-E-Vote-ID-2018-TUT-Press-Proceedings.pdf">Research</a> with First Nations communities in Canada has shown an appetite for internet voting. More than 80 First Nations now use online voting and see <a href="http://www.digitalimpactfn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/CJNS-article-1-1.pdf">benefits</a> to enhance local participation, self-determination and governance. </p>
<p>But while internet voting promises potential benefits, its implementation does not always yield the intended results in Canadian Indigenous communities. <a href="http://nicolejgoodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Indigenous-Adoption-of-Internet-Voting-IIPJ-2016.pdf">Concerns also exist</a> around internet access, security and the impact on culture. </p>
<p>Māori governance entities that have been using online voting for many years may feel the temptation, for cheaper costs, to move to online-only voting. They should resist the temptation and keep as many options as possible open for their people to support their participation. The challenge remains how to resource these multiple options.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Bargh received funding from the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Te Pūnaha Hihiko: Vision Mātauranga Capability Fund to research 'Voting in Iwi Organisations'. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arama Rata receives funding from MBIE and Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. She is affiliated with NZA (New Zealand Alternative), and MARRC (Migrant and Refugee Rights Campaign). </span></em></p>The failure of the 2018 census to get a good response rate highlights the need for multiple voting options to increase participation, particularly of Māori.Maria Bargh, Associate Professor, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonArama Rata, Senior Research Fellow, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1124862019-04-09T22:14:02Z2019-04-09T22:14:02ZHere’s how we can get more people to vote in elections<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267189/original/file-20190402-177187-2raeva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canadians are still forced to travel to polling stations and line up to vote. Online voting would save time and money.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/federal-budget-2019-everything-you-need-to-know">The year’s federal budget</a> included a slew of boutique policy promises suggesting the government is targeting specific groups of voters gearing up for the October election.</p>
<p>Likewise, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has been capitalizing on the SNC-Lavalin drama and the release of the federal carbon tax. <a href="http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/april-2019/andrew-scheers-climate-opportunity/">One recent analysis suggests that if Scheer wants to sway voters, climate is the way to do it</a>.</p>
<p>But regardless of party strategy, a more pressing question is: Will people come out and vote?</p>
<p>In the 2015 federal election, 68 percent of Canadians cast a ballot, meaning about one third of Canadians did not vote. This was an increase in turnout from the previous five elections where electoral participation <a href="https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?dir=turn&document=index&lang=e&section=ele">ranged between 59 per cent (in 2008, the lowest ever in Canada’s history) and 65 per cent.</a> </p>
<p>Electoral participation is often regarded as a key measure of democratic health that is important for representative policy-making, government legitimacy and a strong civic culture. Falling rates of voter turnout have been a <a href="https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=rec/part/tud&document=trends&lang=e">concern for a few decades</a>, prompting questions about why people do not vote and what can be done to engage them.</p>
<h2>Why people don’t vote</h2>
<p>Political scientists offer several explanations for the decision to vote.</p>
<p>One popular theory points to voters’ socio-demographic characteristics such as age, education and income as factors that explain whether or not they are likely to turn out. The older, more educated and higher income an elector, the more likely they are to cast a ballot.</p>
<p>This helps explain why young people vote less because as they age and encounter the responsibilities of adulthood such as marrying, buying a house and paying taxes, their perceived stake in politics grows and they become more likely to vote. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267177/original/file-20190402-177196-7m6egz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267177/original/file-20190402-177196-7m6egz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267177/original/file-20190402-177196-7m6egz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267177/original/file-20190402-177196-7m6egz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267177/original/file-20190402-177196-7m6egz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267177/original/file-20190402-177196-7m6egz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267177/original/file-20190402-177196-7m6egz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seniors are more likely to vote than any other age group, although the 2015 federal election saw a significant increase in younger voters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elections Canada</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another explanation points to party identification. The stronger someone identifies with a political party, the more likely they are to go to the polls. Likewise, weak or unstable ties with a party might mean an elector stays home.</p>
<p>Mobilization is another consideration. Political organizations, parties, family and friends create pressures that encourage people to get out and vote. <a href="http://irpp.org/research-studies/choices-vol9-no7/">Research examining the switch from enumeration to a permanent voters’ list</a> shows this change had a negative effect on participation because enumerators were no longer going door-to-door.</p>
<p>Finally, another way to think about voter participation is the “cost” of voting — the time and distance it takes to travel to a polling station, time spent waiting in line and inclement weather are all considerations that might cause an elector to stay home. </p>
<p>These costs are an increasingly popular justification among non-voters for not casting a ballot.</p>
<p>Data from <a href="https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=rec/eval/pes2011/elsvy&document=index&lang=e">Elections Canada’s Surveys of Electors</a>, for example, show that the proportion of non-voters who say they could not make it to the polls for “everyday life issues” such as being “too busy” or “out of town” has increased in recent years, occupying a larger group of responses than those who cite administrative reasons such as not being on voters’ list or being apathetic to the political process.</p>
<h2>What can be done to engage voters?</h2>
<p>Should we care that nearly one-third of Canadians aren’t voting? Or is it a sign of satisfaction? After all, <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/conrad-black-canada-hasnt-noticed-but-quebec-nationalism-is-coming-back">the 1995 Québec referendum</a>, which took place after turnout for elections had started to decline, had a participation rate of 93.4 per cent — suggesting when a vote is perceived as important, electors will make the trip to the polls.</p>
<p>In 2016, the <a href="http://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/ERRE">federal government considered three reforms</a>: system change, online voting and compulsory voting. They decided against electoral system reform because of a lack of consensus on a suitable alternative. The <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberals-mandatory-online-voting-1.4054412">other two were dismissed</a> because of debate over the benefits of compulsory voting and security concerns regarding online voting.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267190/original/file-20190402-177171-ff7c3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267190/original/file-20190402-177171-ff7c3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267190/original/file-20190402-177171-ff7c3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267190/original/file-20190402-177171-ff7c3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267190/original/file-20190402-177171-ff7c3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267190/original/file-20190402-177171-ff7c3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267190/original/file-20190402-177171-ff7c3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many Canadian voters in the 2015 federal election faced long lineups at the polling stations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Research suggests all of these reforms could improve voter participation to varying degrees.</p>
<p>However, while switching to a proportional system can increase turnout, in Canada the political costs of reform are steep. There have been numerous provincial attempts at reform in provinces such as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/electoral-reform-referendum-result-1.4955171">British Columbia</a>, Ontario, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island without success. </p>
<p>Compulsory and online voting are smaller changes to voting rules that are easier to implement. Both are contentious, albeit not to the degree of electoral system change. While both have been shown to increase turnout, neither is a panacea.</p>
<p>Australia, for example, where <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-07/why-do-we-have-compulsory-voting/7484390">compulsory voting is well-entrenched thanks to the passage of a private member’s bill in 1924</a>, is still considering other reforms such as online voting to further boost voter participation.</p>
<p>While compulsory voting imposes the vote, however, online voting can lower barriers and improve voting equality, especially for groups that face additional challenges when casting a ballot such as citizens or military overseas, persons with disabilities, remote and rural residents and students away at post-secondary school.</p>
<p>The added convenience and accessibility of online voting also has <a href="https://brocku.ca/brock-news/2018/10/brock-researcher-says-its-time-to-prepare-for-online-voting/">potential to counter reasons for not voting</a> such as “being too busy” or “out of town,” because electors can vote with the click of a button.</p>
<p>Not only is moving voting online synonymous with other changes to corporate and public services, it is also in line with recent trends that suggest voters want more choice and control at the ballot box such as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/advance-voting-ontario-1.4692174">increases in advance voting</a>.</p>
<p>If debates about voter turnout continue, which we can assume they will, eventually the federal government will need to modernize elections to meet changing societal expectations about service delivery.</p>
<p>This may not bring out new voters, but it could be the best way to counter further decline. We are probably more likely to return to the online voting debate than deliberations about compulsory voting or broader system change.</p>
<p><em>As part of <a href="http://thedemocracyproject.ca/">The Democracy Project</a>, CPAC will broadcast a live audience event on April 17 at Toronto’s Longboat Hall. Hosted by CPAC’s Peter Van Dusen and APTN’s Karyn Pugliese. This town hall will examine the state of democracy in Canada.</em></p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a story originally published on April 9, 2019. It clarifies voter turnout in recent elections.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Goodman receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Brock University. She is also Director at the Centre for e-Democracy and a Senior Associate at the Innovation Policy Lab in the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.</span></em></p>About one-third of Canadians don’t bother to vote in federal elections. Many people cite “everyday life issues,” like the time it takes to vote, as reasons why they don’t participate.Nicole Goodman, Assistant Professor, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1057642018-11-04T13:54:06Z2018-11-04T13:54:06ZProtecting online elections in Canada<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242972/original/file-20181030-76399-18pq98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The online voting glitches in Ontario's recent municipal elections show it's time to develop nationwide guidelines and standards for online voting in Canada.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A political scientist and a computer scientist walk into a polling place. </p>
<p>“Online voting is more convenient and accessible for many voters who face additional barriers when casting a ballot. It also increases voter turnout,” says the first. </p>
<p>“Compared to paper, online voting may be less transparent for voters and more risky for cities,” says the second. </p>
<p>Trouble is, they both have a point. And so the debate goes.</p>
<p>But here’s something we can agree on: Ontario municipalities must be able to make their own decisions about alternative voting methods. Why? </p>
<p>Because Ontario’s 444 municipalities are hugely diverse with respect to resources, capacity, demography and geography and they’re more attuned to what might work well for their communities than higher levels of government.</p>
<p>In short: A one-size-fits-all approach won’t work here. </p>
<p>At the same time, <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/ERRE/Brief/BR8610535/br-external/EssexAleksander-e.pdf">online voting is a uniquely difficult cybersecurity challenge</a>. In the 191 municipalities where online voting was available in the recent Ontario elections, voters saw delays of up to 90 minutes in 51 of them <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4583687/ontario-municipal-elections-voting-times-extended/">due to a technical issue in the network infrastructure of one of the top election technology providers</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/10/23/technical-problems-force-many-ontario-municipalities-to-extend-voting/">Voting was extended in more than 40 municipalities, with some calling states of emergency.</a></p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1055564322510909448"}"></div></p>
<p>The glitches have led some to question what kinds of operational and technical guidelines exist to help cities evaluate election technology during procurement and deployment. Many are surprised to discover that Canada has no such guidelines — despite having <a href="http://www.centreforedemocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IVP_Report.pdf">more online voting activity at the local level than any other country in the world</a>. </p>
<p>While the Ontario election should not prompt a call to remove municipal autonomy over elections, an opportunity has presented itself to have a wider discussion about devising a Canadian version of guidelines for online voting implementation.</p>
<h2>Learning from other countries</h2>
<p>So what do election technology standards look like elsewhere in the world? </p>
<p>Many international jurisdictions that use online or other electronic forms of voting have overarching standards or guidelines in place to guide the use of digital voting.</p>
<p>In Europe, for example, the Council of Europe, an international organization with 47 member countries, has had <a href="http://www.centreforedemocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IVP_Report.pdf">voluntary guidelines for the use of electronic voting in place since 2004</a>. They were recently updated in 2017.</p>
<p>In the United States, the Election Assistance Commission has <a href="https://www.eac.gov/voting-equipment/testing-standards/">standards</a> and <a href="https://www.eac.gov/voting-equipment/system-certification-process-s/">certification</a> processes for electronic voting systems.</p>
<p>While some countries have more entrenched systems of online voting and use it for federal elections, they have smaller populations. Estonia, for example, <a href="https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-governance/i-voting/">uses online voting for local, national and extra-parliamentary elections</a>, but has a population of 1.3 million, resulting in far fewer online voters than in Ontario, which has a population of 14.9 million and 10.2 million eligible voters.</p>
<p>The fact that municipalities make their own decisions about election technology has resulted in a <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7001134">patchwork of requirements and approaches</a> across the province and country. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243061/original/file-20181030-76405-1h0kdzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243061/original/file-20181030-76405-1h0kdzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243061/original/file-20181030-76405-1h0kdzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243061/original/file-20181030-76405-1h0kdzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243061/original/file-20181030-76405-1h0kdzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243061/original/file-20181030-76405-1h0kdzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243061/original/file-20181030-76405-1h0kdzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nova Scotia municipalities use online voting for their elections, as do many First Nations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rawpixel/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Municipalities in Nova Scotia also use online voting for their elections, and <a href="http://www.centreforedemocracy.com/impact-digital-technology-first-nations-participation-governance/">Indigenous communities across the country are increasingly drawing on online voting for their elections and votes</a>. </p>
<p>The diversity at the municipal level is great from a research perspective, as cities and towns serve as the laboratories of electoral modernization in Canada. At the same time, however, differing levels of capacity, resources and technical expertise have meant that some larger cities <a href="https://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/how-e-voting-is-taking-over-ontario-municipal-elections">can conduct additional research and other types of initiatives, such as risk assessments of voting channels and independent security assessments</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, the technical knowledge by which one municipality chooses to assess a potential voting vendor — an entity that provides online voting technology — may be different than another.</p>
<h2>A way forward</h2>
<p>So how do we provide municipalities with access to expertise on election operations and technology issues in a cost-effective manner? </p>
<p>As researchers on electoral technology, the approach we believe will be most successful for communities across Canada <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/essex-and-goodman-internet-voting-will-happen-lets-make-sure-the-research-into-how-it-happens-is-sound">is the development of voluntary standards.</a></p>
<p>Together, we are proposing guidelines similar to those found in the U.S. and Europe, but unique to the Canadian context. The guidelines would outline baseline principles for the use of online voting in elections and votes across three respects: Technical, operational and legal.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/electronic-voting-may-be-risky-but-what-about-vote-counting-62171">Electronic voting may be risky, but what about vote counting?</a>
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<p>They would be applicable to all elections and votes in Canada at all levels of government. This resource could be used by municipalities across the country as well as Indigenous communities.</p>
<p>We are working together to compose baseline guidelines for the use of online voting in elections and votes in Canada and we’d ask governments to reach out and join us.</p>
<p>If the Ontario election glitches don’t underscore the pressing need and importance of such a resource, growth in online voting should. Initially used by three per cent of municipalities in 2003, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/reducing-the-cost-of-voting-an-evaluation-of-internet-votings-effect-on-turnout/6FF8DA77C59806F0175656D66DE66907">online voting is now used in 44 per cent of Ontario’s cities and towns</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242974/original/file-20181030-76413-1ukiih4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242974/original/file-20181030-76413-1ukiih4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242974/original/file-20181030-76413-1ukiih4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242974/original/file-20181030-76413-1ukiih4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242974/original/file-20181030-76413-1ukiih4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242974/original/file-20181030-76413-1ukiih4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242974/original/file-20181030-76413-1ukiih4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242974/original/file-20181030-76413-1ukiih4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Toronto Mayor John Tory celebrates his re-election on Oct. 22, 2018. Toronto is not one of the 191 Ontario municipalities that offer online voting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However electoral modernization continues to take shape at the local level in Canada, it’s time to create voluntary, country-wide guidelines to balance the benefits and risks of online voting.</p>
<p>Guidelines will help communities make better-informed procurement and deployment decisions legally, operationally and technically. </p>
<p>They will also help vendors looking to innovate in cybersecurity by creating a marketplace that values it. </p>
<p>Finally, such developments have the potential to enhance public confidence in voting technologies by sending the message that Canada is doing everything it can to be a social and technical leader in the age of digital democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105764/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Goodman receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Brock University. She is also Director at the Centre for e-Democracy and a Senior Associate at the Innovation Policy Lab in the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aleksander Essex receives funding from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Online voting glitches in Ontario’s recent municipal elections show that Canada needs to develop voluntary standards on online voting.Nicole Goodman, Assistant Professor, Brock UniversityAleksander Essex, Assistant professor, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1048302018-10-18T10:34:12Z2018-10-18T10:34:12ZBlockchains won’t fix internet voting security – and could make it worse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240662/original/file-20181015-165894-6jjdjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An e-ballot is less secure than one on paper.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/womans-hand-pressing-on-questionnaire-icon-1049383256">SvetaZi/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Looking to <a href="https://www.history.com/news/why-do-we-vote-on-a-tuesday-in-november">modernize voting practices</a>, speed <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/10/9/6951251/map-voting-time-by-state">waiting times at the polls</a>, <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2017/05/voting_in_america.html">increase voter turnout</a> and generally <a href="https://civicyouth.org/why-youth-dont-vote-differences-by-race-and-education/">make voting more convenient</a>, many government officials – and some companies hawking voting systems – are looking to an emerging technology called a “blockchain.” That’s what’s behind a West Virginia program in which some <a href="https://sos.wv.gov/elections/Pages/MobileVote.aspx">voters serving abroad in the military</a> will be able to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/10/west-virginia-pilots-mobile-blockchain-voting-app-overseas-voters-november-election/">cast their votes from their mobile devices</a>. Similar voting schemes have <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/japanese-city-trials-blockchain-to-replace-traditional-voting-booths/">been tried elsewhere</a> <a href="https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/crypto-valley-_-switzerland-s-first-municipal-blockchain-vote-hailed-a-success/44230928">in various places</a> <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-ripples-from-this-estonian-blockchain-experiment-may-be-felt-around-the-world/">around the world</a>.</p>
<p>As researchers in the <a href="https://www.initc3.org/">Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts</a>, we believe in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/blockchains-focusing-on-bitcoin-misses-the-real-revolution-in-digital-trust-58125">transformative potential of blockchain systems</a> in a number of industries. Best known as the technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, blockchains can do much more than allow anonymous strangers to send each other money without fear of fraud or tampering. They have created new ways for people to invest in technology ventures that have <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/ico-tracker/">attracted billions of dollars</a>, and may someday store records that make educational credentials, <a href="https://theconversation.com/blockchain-based-property-registries-may-help-lift-poor-people-out-of-poverty-98796">land ownership</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-safe-is-chicken-imported-from-china-5-questions-answered-80870">food origins</a> more transparent and harder to forge.</p>
<p>Blockchains might sound like an <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2015/10/31/the-trust-machine">ideal remedy for the trust problems</a> caused by internet voting. Data can only be added to a blockchain – not deleted or changed – because multiple copies are stored on computers owned by different people or organizations and perhaps spread across different countries. Strict controls can be placed on a blockchain’s contents, preventing unauthorized data from being added. And blockchains are designed to be transparent – with their contents often readable by anyone’s computing device anywhere in the world.</p>
<p>Yet as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=uf0D-uoAAAAJ&hl=en">scholars</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-cD_HsIAAAAJ&hl=en">who have</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1oUGY7cAAAAJ&hl=en">studied</a> traditional and blockchain-based voting, we believe that while blockchains may help with some specific issues, they can’t fix the basic problems with internet voting. In fact, they could make things worse.</p>
<h2>Computers can break, or be broken</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240663/original/file-20181015-165894-zrbshw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240663/original/file-20181015-165894-zrbshw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240663/original/file-20181015-165894-zrbshw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240663/original/file-20181015-165894-zrbshw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240663/original/file-20181015-165894-zrbshw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240663/original/file-20181015-165894-zrbshw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240663/original/file-20181015-165894-zrbshw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240663/original/file-20181015-165894-zrbshw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Best practices for internet voting are like best practices for drunk driving.’ -Ron Rivest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ronald_L_Rivest_photo.jpg">Ronald Rivest</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For years, experts on election security have warned that <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kb7py9/this-is-why-we-still-cant-vote-online">the internet is too dangerous</a> for such socially crucial and time-sensitive functions as voting. Renowned cryptographer Ronald Rivest, for instance, has remarked that “<a href="https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Kan10.pdf">Best practices for internet voting</a> are like best practices for drunk driving” – there’s no safe way to do either one.</p>
<p>The stakes are enormous. Democracy requires <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-legitimacy-at-risk-even-without-a-november-cyberattack-64418">widespread public trust</a> – not just that a declared winner actually received the largest number of votes, but in the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/trump-election-rigged-democracy/504338/">integrity of the system</a> as a whole. People need to trust that the votes they cast are the ones that are counted, that their neighbors’ votes are totaled accurately and not the result of bribery or coercion and that local tallies are communicated safely to state election officials.</p>
<p>Even advanced computing devices today cannot provide such assurances. Most hardware and software are <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-software-vulnerabilities-and-why-are-there-so-many-of-them-77930">rife with hidden security flaws</a>, and are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-petya-ransomware-attack-shows-how-many-people-still-dont-install-software-updates-77667">not regularly updated</a>. Devices are vulnerable, and so are networks. <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/12/botnet-broke-internet-isnt-going-away/">Internet outages</a> – even caused by trivialities like <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/mirai-botnet-minecraft-scam-brought-down-the-internet/">gamers trying to get a leg up</a> on their competitors – could prevent people from voting. Intentional, targeted attacks against internet traffic could cause <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia">major disruptions to democratic institutions on a national scale</a>. </p>
<p>The stability and integrity of democratic society itself are too important to be relegated to flawed computer systems. </p>
<h2>Adversaries are looking for opportunities</h2>
<p>Hackers – backed by <a href="https://theconversation.com/tracing-the-sources-of-todays-russian-cyberthreat-81593">foreign governments</a> or not – are always looking for new targets and fresh ways to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-russian-government-used-disinformation-and-cyber-warfare-in-2016-election-an-ethical-hacker-explains-99989">sow social discord</a>. They’ll find – and <a href="https://theconversation.com/weaponized-information-seeks-a-new-target-in-cyberspace-users-minds-100069">fully exploit</a> – any technical weaknesses available to them. Without a <a href="https://theconversation.com/paper-trails-and-random-audits-could-secure-all-elections-dont-save-them-just-for-recounts-in-close-races-94243">paper trail</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-legitimacy-at-risk-even-without-a-november-cyberattack-64418">very possibility</a> that someone could have secretly changed votes will <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-vulnerable-to-hacking-is-the-us-election-cyber-infrastructure-63241">further erode public trust</a> in <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-randomness-to-protect-election-integrity-74139">democratic elections</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/08/on-election-day-most-voters-use-electronic-or-optical-scan-ballots/ft_16-11-07_votingtechnology/"><img width="640" height="600" src="http://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology.png?w=640" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="http://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology.png 640w, http://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-300x281.png 300w, http://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-200x188.png 200w, http://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-260x244.png 260w, http://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-432x405.png 432w, http://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-50x47.png 50w, http://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-160x150.png 160w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px"></a></p>
<h2>Blockchains depend on computing devices</h2>
<p>A key method by which blockchain voting could worsen election integrity is by claiming to increase trustworthiness without actually doing so. </p>
<p>It’s easy to imagine a voting system in which only authorized voters could cast ballots, with those ballots indelibly recorded on a blockchain. The blockchain would act as a single authoritative election record that could not be erased or tampered with. For all intents and purposes, the record would be hack-proof.</p>
<p>However, tallying votes on a blockchain doesn’t magically make a voter’s phone or computer secure. A vote may be securely recorded, but that means nothing if the vote was cast incorrectly to begin with. If your phone is infected with malware that switches your vote from Candidate R to Candidate D, it doesn’t matter how secure the rest of the voting system is – the election has still been hacked. In some cases, blockchains may be able to <a href="https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.857/2016/files/2.pdf">help voters detect that sort of tampering</a> – but only if the hack-detection software itself hasn’t been hacked.</p>
<p>In addition, some companies’ business practices undermine the potential to trust their blockchain systems. The <a href="https://voatz.com/">manufacturer of the system West Virginia will use</a> in November – like many companies manufacturing physical voting machines – is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/opinion/open-source-software-hacker-voting.html">refusing to embrace the transparency</a> that is central to the security industry, the blockchain community, and democracy itself. They are not providing public access to the cryptographic protocols at the heart of their systems, leaving the public instead to rely on the manufacturer’s promises of security. There’s no way for an independent auditor to be truly certain that the systems are free of subtle bugs or security flaws – or even massive holes that would be obvious to experts. </p>
<h2>Vote buying becomes newly possible</h2>
<p>Another way blockchain voting could worsen existing voting problems is by increasing the likelihood of vote buying. Sometimes a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/selling-votes-is-common-type-of-election-fraud/2012/10/01/f8f5045a-071d-11e2-81ba-ffe35a7b6542_story.html">glass of beer</a> is all that’s needed to bribe a voter. Vote buying is happily rare in large-scale U.S. elections, in part because the secret ballot makes verifying a bought vote very difficult and because there are <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597">serious criminal penalties</a>. </p>
<p>Internet voting could completely negate both of these protections. Putting votes on blockchains eliminates the secrecy of the voting booth. Encryption doesn’t help: Software can prove mathematically to a vote buyer that a voter’s device encrypted the name of a particular candidate. In addition, foreigners who might try to influence people’s votes are very <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/mueller-indictment-russian-intelligence-hacking.html">hard to prosecute</a>.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://votem.com">voting companies contend</a> that their systems publicly identify voters only by random numerical identifiers, so they <a href="https://github.com/votem/proof-of-vote">aren’t subject to vote-buying or intimidation</a>. But in many of these systems, voting identities can be linked to accounts in cryptocurrency systems – where a voter could receive a bribe, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stealth-address-cryptocurrency.asp">potentially without revealing</a> who was paid, how much or by whom. </p>
<p>Officials and companies who promote online voting are creating a false sense of security – and putting the integrity of the election process at risk. In seeking to use blockchains as a protective element, they may in fact be introducing new threats into the crucial mechanics of democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Juels receives funding from the National Science Foundation, Army Research Lab, and the Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts (IC3), whose industry partners are listed at <a href="https://www.initc3.org/partners.html">https://www.initc3.org/partners.html</a>. He advises several blockchain-related companies, none of which is involved in voting. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ittay Eyal and Oded Naor do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The stability and integrity of democratic society are too important to be relegated to inherently flawed computer systems that are vulnerable to malfunctions and malicious attacks.Ari Juels, Professor of Computer Science, Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Cornell Tech, and Co-Director, Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts (IC3), Cornell UniversityIttay Eyal, Associate Director, Initiative For Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3); Assistant Prof. of Electrical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of TechnologyOded Naor, Member of the Initiative For Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3); Visiting researcher at Cornell-Tech; Graduate student in Electrical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1017652018-09-06T10:45:30Z2018-09-06T10:45:30Z4 ways to defend democracy and protect every voter’s ballot<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233981/original/file-20180828-86123-bdmwev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4297%2C3047&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How confident should voters be that their ballots will be counted accurately?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Florida-Primary/0b1cdb68c2b5403fb0b1884673e55b55/12/0">AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As voters prepare to cast their ballots in the November midterm elections, it’s clear that <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611830/hackers-are-out-to-jeopardize-your-vote/">U.S. voting is under electronic attack</a>. <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-russian-government-used-disinformation-and-cyber-warfare-in-2016-election-an-ethical-hacker-explains-99989">Russian government hackers</a> probed some states’ computer systems in the runup to the 2016 presidential election and are <a href="https://theconversation.com/securing-americas-voting-systems-against-spying-and-meddling-6-essential-reads-99986">likely to do so again</a> – as might <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/technology/facebook-political-influence-midterms.html">hackers from other countries</a> or nongovernmental groups interested in sowing discord in American politics.</p>
<p>Fortunately, there are <a href="http://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/%7Ejones/voting/">ways to defend elections</a>. Some of them will be new in some places, but these defenses are not particularly difficult nor expensive, especially when judged against the value of public confidence in democracy. I served on the Iowa board that examines voting machines from 1995 to 2004 and on the <a href="https://www.eac.gov/about/technical-guidelines-development-committee/">Technical Guidelines Development Committee</a> of the <a href="https://www.eac.gov/">United States Election Assistance Commission</a> from 2009 to 2012, and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/guardian-of-the-vote/544155/">Barbara Simons</a> and I coauthored the 2012 book “<a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/B/bo13383590.html">Broken Ballots</a>.”</p>
<p>Election officials have an important role to play in protecting election integrity. Citizens, too, need to ensure their local voting processes are safe. There are two parts to any voting system: the computerized systems tracking voters’ registrations and the actual process of voting – from preparing ballots through results tallying and reporting.</p>
<h2>Attacking registrations</h2>
<p>Before the passage of the <a href="http://legislink.org/us/pl-107-252">Help America Vote Act of 2002</a>, voter registration in the U.S. was largely decentralized across 5,000 local jurisdictions, mostly county election offices. HAVA changed that, requiring states to have centralized online voter registration databases accessible to all election officials.</p>
<p>In 2016, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-12-russian-intelligence-officers-hacking-offenses-related-2016-election">Russian government agents</a> allegedly tried to access <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/23/what-we-know-about-the-21-states-targeted-by-russian-hackers/">voter registration systems in 21 states</a>. Illinois officials have <a href="http://www.govtech.com/security/Hacked-Voter-Records-in-Illinois-Soar-to-Half-a-Million.html">identified their state</a> as the only one whose databases were, in fact, breached – with <a href="http://www.govtech.com/security/Hacked-Voter-Records-in-Illinois-Soar-to-Half-a-Million.html">information on 500,000 voters</a> viewed and potentially copied by the hackers. </p>
<p>It’s not clear that any information was corrupted, changed or deleted. But that would certainly be one way to interfere with an election: either changing voters’ addresses to assign them to other precincts or simply deleting people’s registrations.</p>
<p>Another way this information could be misused would be to fraudulently request absentee ballots for real voters. Something like that happened on May 29, 2013, when Juan Pablo Baggini, an overzealous campaign worker in Miami, <a href="https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/After-Raid-at-Home-of-Campaign-Worker-Mayoral-Candidate-Francis-Suarez-Says-No-Election-Laws-Were-Violated-211516981.html">used his computer to file online absentee ballot requests</a> on behalf of 20 local voters. He apparently thought he had their permission, but <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article1952450.html">county officials noticed the large number of requests</a> coming from the same computer in a short period of time. Baggini and another campaign worker were <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article1954359.html">charged with misdemeanors and sentenced to probation</a>.</p>
<p>A more sophisticated attack could use voters’ registration information to select targets based on how likely they are to vote a particular way and use common hacking tools to file electronic absentee ballot requests for them – appearing to come from a variety of computers over the course of several weeks. On Election Day, when those voters went to the polls, they’d be told they already had an absentee ballot and would be prevented from voting normally.</p>
<h2>Two defenses for voter registration</h2>
<p>There are two important defenses against these and other types of attacks on voter registration systems: provisional ballots and same-day registration.</p>
<p>When there are questions about whether a voter is entitled to vote at a particular polling place, federal law requires the person be issued a <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/provisional-ballots.aspx">provisional ballot</a>. The rules vary by state, and some places require provisional voters to bring proof of identity to the county election office before their ballots will be counted – which many voters may not have time to do. But the goal is that no voter should be turned away from the polls without at least a chance their vote will count. If questions arise about the validity of the registration database, provisional ballots offer a way to ensure every voter’s intent is recorded for counting when things get sorted out.</p>
<p>Same-day voter registration offers an even stronger defense. <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/same-day-registration.aspx">Fifteen states</a> allow people to register to vote right at the polling place and then cast a normal ballot. <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/%7E/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2009/uwisconsin1pdf.pdf">Research on same-day registration</a> has focused on turnout, but it also allows recovery from an attack on voter registration records.</p>
<p>Both approaches do require extra paperwork. If large numbers of voters are affected, that could cause long lines at polling places, which <a href="https://www.eac.gov/documents/2017/02/24/waiting-in-line-to-vote-white-paper-stewart-ansolabehere/">disenfranchise voters who cannot afford to wait</a>. And like provisional voting, same-day registration may have more stringent identification requirements than for people whose voter registrations are already on the books. Some voters may have to go home to get additional documents and hope to make it back before the polls close.</p>
<p>Further, long lines, frustrated voters and frazzled election workers can create the appearance of chaos – which can play into the narratives of those who want to discredit the system even when things are actually working reasonably well.</p>
<h2>Paper ballots are vital</h2>
<p>Election integrity experts agree that <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/defcon-election-threat-funding/">voting machines can be hacked</a>, even if the devices themselves are <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/14/first_virus_elk_cloner_creator_interviewed/">not connected</a> <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/11/countdown-to-zero-day-stuxnet/">to the internet</a>. </p>
<p>Voting machine manufacturers say their <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tensions-flare-as-hackers-root-out-flaws-in-voting-machines-1534078801">devices have top-notch protections</a>, but the only truly safe assumption is that they have not yet found additional vulnerabilities. Properly defending voting integrity requires assuming a worst-case scenario, in which every computer involved – at election offices, vote-tallying software developers and machine makers – has been compromised.</p>
<p>The first line of defense is that in most of the U.S., <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/08/on-election-day-most-voters-use-electronic-or-optical-scan-ballots/">people vote on paper</a>. Hackers can’t alter a hand-marked paper ballot – though they could <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/2016-elections-russia-hack-how-to-hack-an-election-in-seven-minutes-214144">change how a computerized vote scanner counts</a> it, or what <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/an-11-year-old-changed-election-results-on-a-replica-florida-state-website-in-under-10-minutes">preliminary results are reported on official websites</a>. In the event of a controversy, paper ballots can be recounted, by hand if needed. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/08/on-election-day-most-voters-use-electronic-or-optical-scan-ballots/ft_16-11-07_votingtechnology/"><img width="640" height="600" src="http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2016/11/07164119/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology.png" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2016/11/07164119/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology.png 640w, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2016/11/07164119/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-300x281.png 300w, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2016/11/07164119/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-200x188.png 200w, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2016/11/07164119/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-260x244.png 260w, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2016/11/07164119/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-432x405.png 432w, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2016/11/07164119/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-50x47.png 50w, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2016/11/07164119/FT_16.11.07_votingTechnology-160x150.png 160w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px"></a></p>
<h2>Conduct post-election audits</h2>
<p>Without paper ballots, there is not a way to be completely sure voting system software hasn’t been hacked. With them, though, the process is clear.</p>
<p>In a growing number of states, paper ballots are subject to routine statistical audits. In California, post-election audits have been required <a href="https://www.eac.gov/assets/1/28/AUDIT%20PILOT%20FINAL%20REPORT%20TO%20EAC%20FINAL.pdf">since 1965</a>. Iowa allows <a href="https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/50.50.pdf">election officials who suspect irregularities</a> to initiate recounts even if the result appears decisive and no candidate asks for one; these are called <a href="https://www.eac.gov/assets/1/28/recounts.pdf">administrative recounts</a>. </p>
<p>Based on that experience, some election officials have told me that they suspect the current generation of scanners may be misinterpreting 1 vote in 100. That might seem like a small problem, but it’s really way too much opportunity for error. Voting simulations show that changing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/1022594.1022621">just one vote per voting machine</a> across the United States could be enough to allow an attacker to determine which party controls Congress.</p>
<p>Recounts are expensive and time-consuming, though, and can create illusions of disarray and chaos that reduce public confidence in the election’s outcome. A better method is called a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/MSP.2012.56">risk-limiting audit</a>. It’s a straightforward method of determining how many ballots should be randomly selected for auditing, based on the size of the election, the margin of the initial result and – crucially – the statistical confidence the public wants in the final outcome. There are even <a href="https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/%7Estark/Vote/auditTools.htm">free online tools</a> available to make the calculations needed.</p>
<p>Preliminary experiences with risk-limiting audits are <a href="https://www.eac.gov/assets/1/28/AUDIT%20PILOT%20FINAL%20REPORT%20TO%20EAC%20FINAL.pdf">quite promising</a>, but they could be made even more attractive by <a href="https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/evt07/tech/full_papers/calandrino/calandrino_html/">small changes to ballot-sheet scanners</a>. The main problem is that the method is based in math and statistics, which many people don’t understand or trust. However, I believe relying on verifiable principles that any person could learn is far better than believing the assurances of companies that make voting equipment and software, or <a href="https://triblive.com/news/allegheny/11013043-74/machines-election-county">election officials who don’t understand</a> how <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/40448876/how-hackers-are-teaching-election-officials-to-protect-their-voting-machines-learned-from-hackers-to-improve-security-for-future-elections">their machines</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/magazine/the-myth-of-the-hacker-proof-voting-machine.html">actually work</a>. </p>
<p>Elections must be as transparent and simple as possible. To paraphrase Dan Wallach at Rice University, <a href="https://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Edwallach/pub/texas-senate-state-affairs-15oct08.pdf">the job of an election is to convince the losers that they lost fair and square</a>. The declared winners will not ask questions and may seek to obstruct those who do ask. The losers will ask the hard questions, and election systems must be transparent enough that the partisan supporters of the losers can be convinced that they indeed lost. This sets a high standard, but it is a standard that every democracy must strive to meet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101765/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas W. Jones was a co-principal investigator in the National Science Foundation funded ACCURATE (A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable, and Transparent Elections) project. He was a co-founder of the Open Voting Consortium, but is not currently affiliated with that group, and he is a registered Democrat.</span></em></p>Ensuring the integrity of democratic elections from hackers and electronic tampering, and boosting public confidence in democracy, isn’t very difficult, nor expensive.Douglas W. Jones, Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of IowaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/894682017-12-21T12:02:05Z2017-12-21T12:02:05ZScotland eyes a youthquake with online voting: here are some tips from past pilots<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200246/original/file-20171220-4980-ctkntm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.paimages.co.uk/image-details/2.33230892">PA Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One achievement for 2017, as the year comes to an end, is that it has added a new word to the English language: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/15/youthquake-named-2017-word-of-the-year-by-oxford-dictionaries">youthquake</a>. The idea is that previously silent and apathetic young people have awoken to exert their democratic influence on the electoral process.</p>
<p>Despite a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/15/youthquake-named-2017-word-of-the-year-by-oxford-dictionaries">401% increase</a> in usage of the word, a real youthquake is yet to happen. Voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds at the 2017 general election saw an upswing from 2015, but still only half (<a href="https://www.slideshare.net/IpsosMORI/how-britain-voted-in-the-2017-election">54%</a>) voted. Participation in other types of elections remains much lower. Huge proportions of young people are also missing from the <a href="http://www.democraticaudit.com/2017/07/28/audit-2017-how-strong-is-the-democratic-integrity-of-uk-elections-are-turnout-candidacies-and-participation-maximised/">electoral register</a>. There is therefore still a major gap in levels of electoral participation in Britain.</p>
<p>Now the Scottish government has published <a href="http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0052/00529431.pdf">plans</a> to reform how Scottish parliamentary and Scottish local elections are run, including an idea that many think will bring in younger people – internet voting. </p>
<p>The Scottish parliament recently gained new powers over how Scottish parliamentary elections and electoral registration are run. In its consultation document it wants to “explore and trial the potential of electronic voting solutions to” increase voter participation. The proposals for changes are impressively ambitious and more wide-ranging than those currently being considered by the UK government.</p>
<p>Internet voting has many <a href="https://webrootsdemocracy.org/online-voting/">supporters</a>, who see enormous potential for improving voter participation among young people. It’s a sensible line of thought. There are many reasons why people don’t vote or engage with the electoral process, but a considerable amount comes down to basic convenience. We are busy. <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137035097">Registration and voting procedures</a> that fit snuggly with our everyday lifestyle will enable us to take part. Processes that are long-winded, archaic and bureaucratic will clink with routines, giving us just an extra reason not to vote. Young people are tech-savy and mobile phone ready. So why send them to the village hall to vote?</p>
<h2>What we already know</h2>
<p>The reality so far, however, is that internet voting hasn’t yet proved capable of bringing about a major awakening. Those with a long memory may remember that the UK actually piloted remote internet voting 2002, 2003 and 2007 at a local level. In some areas, citizens could cast their vote from any personal computer with an internet connection using personalised information provided on their polling card. </p>
<p>This was part of a broader set of pilots introduced by New Labour which also included postal voting, telephone voting, SMS voting, <a href="https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/journalist/electoral-commission-media-centre/news-releases-campaigns/britain-launches-largest-trial-of-electronic-voting-in-europe">digital TV voting</a> and even supermarket voting alongside good old fashioned polling stations which began in 2000. </p>
<p>One lesson from these pilots, drawn from my <a href="https://tobysjamesdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/james-2011.pdf">my evaluation</a>, was that it was actually all-postal elections that could have the biggest effect on turnout. This involved sending a postal vote to citizens automatically instead of asking them to go to the polling station. In the first year of pilots (2000), all-postal voting took place in wards in seven local authorities, and turnout rose in every instance on the previous year. In Gateshead, turnout jumped up from 26.4% in 1999 to 57.3% with all postal elections.</p>
<p>Drawing lessons about the the effects of internet voting were difficult because it was offered to citizens in pilots alongside many other ways of voting. This was a major design flaw with the pilots that shouldn’t be repeated in Scotland, if it goes ahead. Only one new voting method should be trialled in each pilot area so that we can see what effect it has.</p>
<p>A clear message, however, was that internet voting was much more frequently used when it was available up until the close of the poll – in many pilots it was unavailable on election day itself. This should therefore be made possible as part of any future pilot.</p>
<p>Subsequent international work doesn’t provide much evidence that internet voting considerably boosts voter turnout either. <a href="http://www.democraticaudit.com/2013/10/03/the-estonian-experience-shows-that-while-online-voting-is-faster-and-cheaper-it-hasnt-increased-turn-out/">Estonia</a> became the first country ever to use internet voting in binding national parliamentary elections in 2007. But again, there is no evidence of a major surge in youth turnout.</p>
<p>Concerns about cyber-security would probably make use at a UK-wide election a non-starter. But over ten years since the first UK pilots, there is a strong case for experimenting with new pilots of internet voting at the local level, where the motivations to hack an election are much lower, and the number of non-voters is much greater. Central and local governments have a responsibility to make voting as convenient as possible – and smart phones are much more widely available today than they were in 2003.</p>
<p>The lessons from internet voting experiments so far suggest that there are many other reasons why people don’t vote, however. These could be easily addressed with other measures, such as voter registration reform and civic education. Last year, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Democratic Participation proposed <a href="https://tobysjamesdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/getting-the-e28098missing-millions_-on-to-the-electoral-register-report-appg-on-democratic-participation-bite-the-ballot-dr-toby-james-clearview-research-2016-1.pdf">25 measures to improve voter registration</a> across the UK, such as the use of automatic voter registration. 2017 was also the year in which we discovered that electoral administrators had been <a href="https://tobysjamesdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/funding-elections-single-pages.pdf">cutting voter outreach work</a> to engage young people due to financial austerity. There are therefore many other less headline grabbing reforms which could help to generate a youthquake.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby’s research has been externally funded by the British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, AHRC, ESRC, Nuffield Foundation and the McDougall Trust. He has written commissioned policy reports for national and international organisations and given invited evidence to Parliamentary committees. He is currently a Fellow to the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Democratic Participation and Advisor to the Law Commission's Review of Electoral Law. He is also on the Scientific Board for Electoral Expert Review.</span></em></p>Can internet voting bring young people to the polls? Here’s the evidence so far.Toby James, Senior Lecturer in British & Comparative Politics, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/637342016-08-09T23:00:57Z2016-08-09T23:00:57ZCensus website cracks after ‘malicious’ attack by hackers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133588/original/image-20160809-9203-qsfbil.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This is the screen that greeted many Australians on Census night, 9 August 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many Australians were unable to complete the Census on August 9 due to the <a href="http://census.abs.gov.au">Census website</a> failing.</p>
<p>Australian Bureau of Statistics (<a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/">ABS</a>) chief statistician has <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/census-website-attacked-by-hackers-abs-claims-20160809-gqouum.html">blamed a deliberate</a> “denial of service attack” for the failure. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The first three [attacks] caused minor disruption, but more than two million forms were successfully submitted and safely stored.</p>
<p>After the fourth attack, which took place just after 7.30pm, the ABS took the precaution of closing down the system to ensure the integrity of the data.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like many government information systems, the Census site was <a href="http://www.itnews.com.au/news/ibm-wins-96m-to-host-ecensus-in-2016-397613">outsourced</a> to an external contractor: IBM. As well as writing the software required for the website, IBM was responsible for providing the computers that hosted it. </p>
<p>All of this is routine for IT projects, both government and commercial. And while reasonably large, the legitimate traffic generated by the Census is dwarfed by the traffic on websites like Google, Facebook and even the nonprofit Wikipedia.</p>
<h2>Denial-of-service attacks</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-015">Denial-of-service attacks</a> are deliberate attempts to render a computing service unavailable.</p>
<p>Such an attack can be performed in many ways, including interfering with physical infrastructure. However, the most common denial-of-service technique used against publicly available websites is to overwhelm it with huge numbers of requests, overloading the servers and crowding out legitimate users.</p>
<p>Typically, the requests come from “<a href="https://theconversation.com/zombie-computers-cyber-security-phishing-what-you-need-to-know-1671">botnets</a>”, which are large groups of computers – often home PCs or other poorly-defended devices – that have been taken over by hackers and are then misused for “distributed” denial-of-service attacks" (DDoS attacks). DDoS attacks have been used by activist hackers, cybercriminals and even state-sponsored hackers.</p>
<p>While the controversy surrounding the <a href="https://theconversation.com/censusfail-the-abs-hasnt-convinced-the-public-their-privacy-is-protected-63702">privacy implications</a> of the 2016 Census may not have been anticipated by the ABS, a denial-of-service attack against the Census infrastructure was always possible and should have been anticipated – especially a DDoS launched by privacy activists.</p>
<p>There are a number of ways in which the dangers of a DDoS can be mitigated. It is unknown at this point what measures the ABS and its contractors took to prepare for the possibility.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133589/original/image-20160809-18053-b9c3jk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133589/original/image-20160809-18053-b9c3jk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133589/original/image-20160809-18053-b9c3jk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=125&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133589/original/image-20160809-18053-b9c3jk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=125&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133589/original/image-20160809-18053-b9c3jk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=125&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133589/original/image-20160809-18053-b9c3jk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133589/original/image-20160809-18053-b9c3jk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133589/original/image-20160809-18053-b9c3jk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Poor capacity planning?</h2>
<p>From the perspective of the computers straining under the load, a DDoS attack is indistinguishable from a larger-than-expected number of users attempting to access the system at once.</p>
<p>The public statements of the ABS before Census night cast some doubt on whether the system was adequate to cope with even legitimate demand.</p>
<p>The head of the ABS, Chris Libreri, had earlier <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-09/abs-website-inaccessible-on-census-night/7711652">claimed</a> that its systems had been tested to cope with the load of actual Census submissions:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have load tested it at 150% of the number of people we think are going to be on it on Tuesday for eight hours straight and it didn’t look like flinching.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ABS stated that its website was designed to handle <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/census-2016-chaos-for-australians-ahead-of-august-9-20160802-gqizw5.html">1,000,000 form submissions per hour</a>. However, around 18 million Australians live in the eastern states, which equates to about 7 million households.</p>
<p>If even 50% of those households attempted to submit their census during the evening hours from 7pm to 9pm, that would equate to 1.75 million form submissions per hour, 75% more than the reported capacity of the site.</p>
<p>Furthermore, it’s unlikely that traffic would be uniform within that time period. “Spikes” in traffic – perhaps after popular television shows ended – could potentially have overloaded the infrastructure even further.</p>
<p>It seems almost incredible that the team responsible for the contracting would collectively make such an error in their capacity estimates. </p>
<p>Regardless of the details of the attack, and whether other aspects of planning were inadequate, the Census failure will go down as another example of a failed “Big Bang deployment”. </p>
<p>A Big Bang occurs when an IT system is deployed on a large scale, all at once, and is required to work first time. The US <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/obamacare-deadline/obamacare-website-fails-deadline-arrives-n67666">healthcare.gov website</a>, the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/worst-failure-of-public-administration-in-this-nation-payroll-system-20130806-hv1cw.html">Queensland Health payroll system</a> that failed so spectacularly in 2010, and even <a href="http://thenewdaily.com.au/sport/rio-olympics-2016/2016/08/08/rio-olympics-2016-channel-7/">Channel 7’s Olympics app</a> are examples of such all-at-once rollouts running into difficulty.</p>
<p>The lessons for proponents of online voting should be clear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63734/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert has donated to and volunteered for the Australian Greens.</span></em></p>Despite assuring Australians its systems were load tested and secure, the Census site went offline at a crucial time. Could the ABS have avoided such an embarrasing failure?Robert Merkel, Lecturer in Software Engineering, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/621712016-07-07T07:14:10Z2016-07-07T07:14:10ZElectronic voting may be risky, but what about vote counting?<p>Several advantages of online voting were identified in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-experts-fears-australia-should-be-moving-to-electronic-online-voting-61832">recent post</a> by Conversation columnist and software researcher David Glance who backed the introduction of such a scheme in Australia.</p>
<p>He is correct that an online voting system would be faster, more convenient and have fewer accidental informal votes. It would also reduce the donkey vote problem (though the “donkey vote” bias can also be dealt with by the use of <a href="http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/tpl/backg/HAElections.htm">Robson rotation</a> on printed ballots).</p>
<p>But in my view he dismisses the very real risks not only of actual election tampering, but something equally important – the confidence that Australian elections aren’t being tampered with.</p>
<p>A vote-counting system not only needs to be secure against threats to its integrity, it needs to be seen to be secure against such threats. </p>
<p>The right technologies, deployed in the right way, can assist with speeding up vote counts without putting the integrity of our voting system at risk. The place for that technology is not as a replacement for the paper ballot.</p>
<h2>Voting is not like paying your bills</h2>
<p>Most Australians conduct many financial transactions online, such as paying bills or online banking, with a reasonable degree of confidence.</p>
<p>But while these systems do work acceptably well most of the time, there is a steady stream of fraud committed against them. Some estimates put the cost of cybercrime in Australia at <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/CrimeAndCorruption/Cybercrime/Documents/national-plan-to-combat-cybercrime.pdf">around A$2 billion annually</a>.</p>
<p>Furthermore, there are some key differences between voting and financial transactions which will make electronic voting harder to secure.</p>
<p>For example, financial transactions are private, but not anonymous, and they are conducted on a continuous basis, not once every three years or so.</p>
<p>The two parties to a financial transaction can see how the transaction is interpreted by the financial institution involved, and can report any problems.</p>
<p>Any fraudulent financial transactions can often be reversed or compensated for on an individual basis. If an online election is found to be unsound, the only remedy may be to rerun the election.</p>
<p>Further concerns over online voting have been raised <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-explainer-why-cant-australians-vote-online-57738">elsewhere on The Conversation</a>.</p>
<h2>Confidence in elections is social, not just technical</h2>
<p>If we propose to radically change Australia’s vote-counting system, we should at least do so only after fully considering the nature of the existing system.</p>
<p>It’s pretty widely acknowledged that Australia’s vote counting system is <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-robust-voting-system-deserves-praise-not-criticism-18320">generally accurate</a> and not subject to widespread tampering. So let’s ask the question: why do we have confidence in Australian elections?</p>
<p>Partly, it’s by direct observation as voters: as we vote, we also observe the process. We see the ballots, we see them being placed in the ballot box. But it’s also through our network of relationships. </p>
<p>Many Australians would probably know one of the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-02/election-2016-3m-queenslanders-to-vote-and-gobble-down-snags/7562296">75,000 temporary poll workers</a>. Those more interested in politics are likely to know a scrutineer, a representative of a party on the ballot who directly observes the vote counting.</p>
<p>Confidence in Australian elections is therefore the result of the observations of a large fraction of the Australian population. The confidence that a conspiracy to rig a vote involving many ordinary Australians is beyond the realms of plausibility. </p>
<p>While all manner of other conspiracy theories circulate on social media, election-rigging conspiracy theories are almost unknown in Australia.</p>
<p>An online, or even an electronic voting system in polling booths, would shift the responsibility for electoral integrity to a tiny technical elite with the time and skills to audit the voting technology used.</p>
<p>We are supposed to trust both their personal incorruptibility, and their competence. Serious security flaws are often missed by such professionals until they have been systematically exploited by criminals.</p>
<h2>Automate the count, not the recording</h2>
<p>People with disabilities have been among the strongest advocates for electronically aided voting, for good reason. But that does not mean that paper ballots should be discarded to this end.</p>
<p>With the right technology, instructions expressed by voice commands, a touchscreen, or whatever interface the voter can use unaided can do the job of marking their ballots. That way voters with disabilities will be able to vote with the same level of privacy and autonomy that others take for granted.</p>
<p>Regardless of how they are marked, paper ballots do not necessarily need to be counted by hand. Senate ballot papers are <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/elections/candidates/files/counting/css-faqs.pdf">currently being counted</a> with the assistance of handwriting recognition systems similar to the ones used to read postcodes on hand-addressed envelopes.</p>
<p>The present system is only semi-automated, in that every ballot scan is then checked by a human operator.</p>
<p>In the future, it is likely that the system can be refined so as not to require every vote to be human-verified. For instance, using two or more independently implemented automated counting systems, combined with randomised spot checking by AEC staff and scrutineers, may be sufficient to ensure an accurate count. </p>
<p>This would allow much faster initial Senate counts but, if there is any doubt, a hand recount is always possible.</p>
<p>In the United States, which uses a wide variety of vote-counting technologies, the one most favoured by academic experts is <a href="http://www.eac.gov/eac_certifies_third_optical-scan_voting_system/">optical scanning ballots</a>. Many people would have come across these in multiple-choice tests such as driving tests: you fill in the box corresponding to your choice. </p>
<p>These work very well in the American context. They are fast, accurate and can be hand-counted in case of a technical problem or dispute. But American elections do not use the preferential voting system. </p>
<p>Designing a system and educating Australians to use this kind of ballot for preferential votes would present a significant challenge and would probably result in a high informal vote.</p>
<p>In any case, expert opinion is clear – no voting system that relies on electronics to record votes, including systems that produce some kind of human-readable audit trail, has any substantial advantages over paper and pencil (or, perhaps indelible pen).</p>
<p>Even the inventor of the “voter-verified paper audit trail”, Dr Rebecca Mercuri, has <a href="http://www.notablesoftware.com/RMstatement.html">concluded</a> that such systems are inferior to paper ballots marked by the voter.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Merkel has donated to and volunteered for the Australian Greens.</span></em></p>There’s something about seeing the ballot process take place – the vote, the count – that inspires confidence. That wouldn’t be the same with any electronic voting system.Robert Merkel, Lecturer in Software Engineering, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/577382016-06-23T01:04:13Z2016-06-23T01:04:13ZElection explainer: why can’t Australians vote online?<p>In 2015, more than 280,000 votes were received in the New South Wales election from a personal computer or mobile phone. This was the largest-ever binding election to use online voting.</p>
<p>But federally, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has ruled out allowing Australians to cast their vote online, <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/2013_General_Election/Second_Interim_Report/Preliminary_pages">arguing</a> it risks “catastrophically compromising our electoral integrity”.</p>
<p>Despite years of research, nobody knows how to provide evidence of an accurate result while keeping individual online votes private. </p>
<p>Internet voting is similar to online banking, except you’re not sent a receipt saying “this is how you voted” because then you could be coerced or bribed. Your vote should be private, even from the electoral commission.</p>
<p>There are three reasons why Australia shouldn’t move to an online voting system:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the system might not be secure;</p></li>
<li><p>the code might not be correct; and, most importantly,</p></li>
<li><p>if something goes wrong, we might never know.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>The system might not be secure</h2>
<p>Computer security researcher <a href="https://jhalderm.com/">Alex Halderman</a> and I (Vanessa) found a <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.05646">serious security vulnerability</a> in the NSW iVote system during March 2015 election. This was caused by some code imported into the secure voting session from an insecure third-party server. It meant an internet-based attacker could have exposed e-votes, changed them, and circumvented iVote’s verification process. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Read more:</strong></em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-nsw-election-online-votes-open-to-tampering-39164">Thousands of NSW election online votes open to tampering</a></p>
<hr>
<p>The vulnerability was repaired, but by that stage, 66,000 votes were cast. Just 3,000 votes determined the result of a disputed seat in the Legislative Council.
There is no evidence that the security hole was exploited, but also no evidence that it was not. </p>
<p>Some iVote returns differed notably from those cast by more secure channels. The ALP received about 30% of the votes on paper in the Legislative Council, for instance, but only 25% via iVote. The NSW Electoral Commission (NSWEC) blamed these differences on a <a href="http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/about_us/plans_and_reports/ivote_reports/response_from_the_nsw_electoral_commission_to_ivote_group_bias.pdf">user interface design problem</a>, but it might also have been a software error or a security breach.</p>
<h2>The code might not be correct</h2>
<p>The main use of computers in Australian elections is for counting complicated elections like the Senate and the upper houses of state parliaments. We’ve had the opportunity to inspect some of the code and some of the data. We’ve also found some bugs – which is a good thing, because then they can be fixed.</p>
<p>The vote-counting code used in the ACT is <a href="http://www.elections.act.gov.au/">available for scrutiny</a>. The Logic and Computation Group at the ANU <a href="http://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/%7Erpg/EVoting/evote_revacs.html">analysed the code in 2001, 2005 and 2012</a> and found three bugs. Luckily they could be corrected before they affected an election.</p>
<p>This wasn’t the case in the 2012 local government elections in Griffith, NSW. Last week, with Andrew Conway and others, <a href="http://electionwatch.unimelb.edu.au/articles/software-can-affect-election-results">we identified a software error</a>
leading to a <a href="http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/218681/PRCC_statement.pdf">mistake in the 2012 results</a> computed by the NSW Electoral Commission. The software error incorrectly distributed preferences, which meant candidate Rina Mercuri lost a spot on the Griffith council. Without the error, she would have won with a probability of about 91%. </p>
<p>The Australian Electoral Commission very recently <a href="https://www.tenders.gov.au/?event=public.advancedsearch.keyword&keyword=Scytl">purchased a new “Senate counting solution”</a>
from the same vendor that made iVote. But the code is unavailable to Australian public scrutiny, despite a <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/AATA/2015/956.html">Freedom of Information request</a>
and a Senate motion <a href="http://lee-rhiannon.greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/update-public-release-secret-senate-voting-system">ordering the commission to publish it</a>. The code should be made public, and the paper ballots should be available for auditing. </p>
<p>We’d expect a similar rate of error for internet voting code as counting code, but iVote’s code is not available for review. More importantly, there’s no simple way for an outsider to double-check the process. </p>
<h2>If something goes wrong, we might never know</h2>
<p>With no official account of the iVote run, and no public independent report, we cannot tell whether votes were changed or lost in the 2015 NSW election.</p>
<p>iVote had a limited verification mechanism: voters could ring a
special service, enter their receipt number and have their vote read back to them.</p>
<p>An attacker who changed the vote could change the receipt number too, so the voter couldn’t retrieve any vote from the verification service. But the same would happen if voters simply forgot their receipt numbers, or if votes were accidentally lost due to a software bug.</p>
<p>The NSWEC’s <a href="http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/about_us/plans_and_reports/ivote_reports/response_from_the_nsw_electoral_commission_to_ivote_security_allegations">online response to our analysis</a> claims: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some 1.7% of electors who voted using iVote® also used the verification service and none identified any anomalies with their vote.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But there must have been people who telephoned the verification service, but couldn’t retrieve any vote at all. The real question is: of those who tried to verify, what fraction failed?</p>
<h2>How electronic voting <em>can</em> work: in a polling place</h2>
<p>Secure electronic voting is possible – in a polling place. One simple method to check the accuracy of the process is to print a plain paper ballot that a voter can read and check.</p>
<p>Another method is an “end-to-end verifiable” election system. We worked with the <a href="https://www.vec.vic.gov.au/Voting/ElectronicVoting.html">Victorian Electoral Commission</a> to develop the the first such system to run at a state level anywhere in the world. </p>
<p>Under this system, voters cast their votes at polling places using a computer. The system provided evidence to each voter that their vote was recorded as they intended and properly included in the count. It also provided evidence to scrutineers that all the votes were properly processed, without revealing individual votes. </p>
<p>The processes allowed votes to be returned electronically from London with evidence that they were correct, rather than shipping the ballot papers.</p>
<p>Why was it restricted to a polling place? Partly because large-scale voter coercion and identity fraud are harder. Most importantly, because voters can get help to follow the complicated verification process.</p>
<h2>Lessons learnt</h2>
<p>Election commissions must produce verifiable evidence that the winning candidates were chosen fairly, based on reliable and secure vote-casting and correct vote-counting.</p>
<p>The lesson from the bugs in the ACT and NSWEC vote-counting code is clear: make the computer code available for public inspection so that we can scrutinise it for errors before the election.</p>
<p>Receiving votes from the internet is the easy part. Proving that you got the right result, while keeping votes private, is an unsolved problem.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was co-published with <a href="http://electionwatch.unimelb.edu.au/categories/policies">Election Watch</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vanessa Teague receives funding from the Australian Research Council and The University of Melbourne.
She is an advisory board member of Verified Voting (<a href="http://www.verifiedvoting.org/">http://www.verifiedvoting.org/</a>), which advocates for legislation and regulation that promotes accuracy, transparency and verifiability of elections </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Culnane receives funding from the Australian Research Council, and has previously received funding from The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK), The University of Surrey, The Higher Education Funding Council England, and InnovateUK. He was the Technical Lead for the University of Surrey on the vVote project, which designed, developed, and ran an open source end-to-end verifiable election system in the State of Victoria, Australia. Whilst at the University of Surrey he was part of the ICURe Innovation-to-Commercialisation programme that lead to the starting of Coasca Limited, but has no ongoing financial interest. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rajeev Gore receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian National University, and
the German-Australian Research Collaboration Scheme.</span></em></p>Despite years of research, nobody knows how to provide evidence of an accurate result while keeping individual e-votes private.Vanessa Teague, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computing and Information Systems, The University of MelbourneChris Culnane, Research Fellow, The University of MelbourneRajeev Gore, Professor, ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/545232016-04-04T09:52:44Z2016-04-04T09:52:44ZAging voting machines threaten election integrity<p>Imagine you went to your basement and dusted off the laptop or mobile phone that you used in 2002. What would happen if you tried to turn it on? We don’t have to guess. Around the country this election year, people are going into storage, pulling out computers that date back to 2002 and asking us to vote on them.</p>
<p>Following an <a href="http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,167906,00.html">election meltdown</a> of epic proportions in 2000, the federal government provided more than US$2 billion to update the nation’s voting infrastructure. More than a decade later, these voting machines are approaching the end of their expected lifespans. Experts estimate that a reasonable lifespan for electronic voting machines (which are computers, running mainly on laptop technology developed in the 1990s) is in the 10- to 15-year range.</p>
<p>To determine the state of voting machines across the country, we interviewed more than 100 election administrators in all 50 states. We also consulted scores of public records, spoke with independent technology experts and analyzed data collected by the Verified Voting Foundation. Based on this research, we project that in November <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/americas-voting-machines-risk">43 states</a> will use voting machines that are at least a decade old. </p>
<p>That’s a problem for three big reasons.</p>
<h2>Breakdowns lead to lines, and lost votes</h2>
<p>First, while no one thinks all the voting machines are going to break down simultaneously, using aging voting equipment on Election Day increases the likelihood of breakdowns. In fact, one New Mexico election official told us that before replacing her machines in 2014, as many as one in three needed to be taken out of service. </p>
<p>We saw the consequences in 2012. People <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/2012/1107/Voting-machine-glitches-How-bad-was-it-on-Election-Day-around-the-country">waited in line for hours</a>, which prevented <a href="http://vote.caltech.edu/content/waiting-line-vote">between 500,000 and 700,000 people</a> from casting a ballot. Voting machine problems this November could lead to more long waits and lost votes: in March, we saw <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/us/angry-arizona-voters-demand-why-such-long-lines-at-polling-sites.html?ref=politics">thousands of voters in Arizona</a> wait in line for hours.</p>
<p>Equally troubling is that aging machines can be difficult to maintain. In <a href="http://www.citylab.com/design/2015/09/mapping-the-nations-failing-voting-machines/405724/">more than 40 states</a>, jurisdictions use voting machines that are no longer manufactured. As these machines get older, <a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/09/dismal-state-americas-decade-old-voting-machines/">parts become scarcer</a> and election officials are increasingly forced to hoard rare parts needed to keep their equipment running. Neal Kelley, registrar in Orange County, California – the sixth-largest jurisdiction in the country – told us that he relies on a “back stock” of spare parts to keep his machines running. At some point, the inability to find replacement parts will mean more voters sharing fewer working machines.</p>
<p>Finally, there are security risks. Many older voting systems rely on outdated operating systems, like Windows XP and 2000, which are <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/WindowsForBusiness/end-of-xp-support">no longer supported</a>. Several election officials told us that they stockpile refurbished laptops that can run obsolete versions of Windows. Sherry Poland, director of elections in Hamilton County, Ohio, told us that she “stockpiled older PCs that will run Windows XP.” Other experts, like Merle King in Georgia, told us that his state hired a contractor to build custom hardware that will work with Windows 2000. <a href="http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/microsoft-sir-report-highlights-risks-of/">Unsupported software is riskier</a> from a security perspective, since it does not receive regular security updates and is vulnerable to new methods of attack.</p>
<h2>An enormous price tag</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115913/original/image-20160321-30921-1xpega1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115913/original/image-20160321-30921-1xpega1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115913/original/image-20160321-30921-1xpega1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115913/original/image-20160321-30921-1xpega1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115913/original/image-20160321-30921-1xpega1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115913/original/image-20160321-30921-1xpega1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115913/original/image-20160321-30921-1xpega1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115913/original/image-20160321-30921-1xpega1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A WinVote machine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/robpegoraro/20339783219/">Rob Pegoraro/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These anecdotes translate into real problems at polling places. The Virginia Department of Elections conducted a <a href="http://elections.virginia.gov/webdocs/VotingEquipReport/">review</a> after machines crashed during the 2014 election. Investigators easily hacked into several WinVote machines, which used decade-old Wi-Fi encryption standards, exposing serious security vulnerabilities. As a result of these findings, the <a href="http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/article_59c95e70-acdc-55ea-b8c3-50f83d147b65.html">Elections Board decertified the machine</a>, forcing 30 jurisdictions to replace their equipment, <a href="http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/article_9db0ed36-e4d6-52a8-84cb-b6bb5b1d9344.html">costing taxpayers millions</a>.</p>
<p>While most business offices upgrade their systems and update computers every few years, critical computing infrastructure for elections is treated differently. We do not expect our laptops or our desktops to last a decade – and this is the kind of technology that voting machines use. The easy answer is to replace the machines, but in much of the country, that is not happening.</p>
<p>Many election officials who believe they need new machines do not have sufficient funding. We identified jurisdictions in 31 states that will need new machines in the next few years. Election officials in 22 of those states told us they do not know how they will pay for them. </p>
<p>According to our estimates, the cost of new machines could exceed $1 billion. It is unlikely that the federal government will provide <a href="https://www.supportthevoter.gov/">another infusion of billions of dollars</a> to pay for new voting equipment. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars <a href="http://www.ned.org/">flowing abroad</a> to strengthen democratic institutions in other countries, <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/Documents/Elections/The_Canvass_NovemberDecember_2015_64.pdf">little to nothing</a> is provided for elections at home. </p>
<h2>Making systems more nimble for the future</h2>
<p>State and local policymakers have not had to pay for voting machines in the past because of federal funding for updated voting equipment in the wake of the <a href="http://www.eac.gov/about_the_eac/help_america_vote_act.aspx">2000 election debacle</a>. Faced with a new demand amid many competing budget priorities, they have been slow to respond to this important need.</p>
<p>While some states and counties will provide funding for new machines, others will not. Disparities in funding between and within states has the potential to create a two-tiered election system, where poorer (and often rural) counties are forced to use aging voting equipment far longer than they should, while wealthier jurisdictions can afford to replace their hardware.</p>
<p>In late 2014, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe proposed that the state invest $28 million in new voting equipment. Ultimately, Virginia legislators stripped the funding for voting equipment from the budget and the cost for new machines was left to localities. Virginia’s commissioner of elections, Edgardo Cortes, told us that that only some Virginia election jurisdictions can afford new machines: “Loudon and Fairfax counties – two of the largest and wealthiest counties in the state – have bought new equipment. Smaller, poorer and more rural counties around the state are going to have a tough time.”</p>
<p>Despite the challenges posed by the widespread aging out of voting machines, there is hope for the future. </p>
<p>Our report highlights advances in technology that could make voting systems more affordable and flexible over time. In <a href="http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2015/08/what-cities-are-doing-to-make-voting-not-suck/400637/">places like Los Angeles</a> and <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2014/07/09/travis-county-forges-new-territory-voting-machines/">Travis County, Texas</a> (where Austin is located), election officials are looking at using open source software and commercial off-the-shelf hardware to make systems that are more agile – making it possible to replace parts here and there, instead of replacing an entire voting system at the first signs of degradation. </p>
<p>While such advances will help us in future years, they will not resolve today’s crisis. There is no escaping the immediate need to plan and set aside sufficient funds to buy new machines.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54523/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Famighetti is affiliated with the Brennan Center for Justice.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lawrence Norden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Decade-old computer equipment underpins the country’s most important civic process. What happens when it breaks down?Lawrence Norden, Deputy Director, Democracy Program, Brennan Center for Justice, New York UniversityChristopher Famighetti, Voting Rights Researcher, Democracy Project, Brennan Center for Justice, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/412772015-05-14T05:08:06Z2015-05-14T05:08:06ZOnline voting is convenient, but if the results aren’t verifiable it’s not worth the risk<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81280/original/image-20150511-19528-svxcdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vote early, vote often - but if it's not secure people won't vote at all.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">vote by Feng Yu/shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In one of the most fiercely contested elections in years, the turnout of the 2015 British general election was still <a href="http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm">stubbornly low at 66.1%</a> – only a single percentage point more than in 2010, and still around 10 points lower than the ranges common before the 1990s. </p>
<p>There has been all manner of hand-wringing about how to improve voter engagement and turnout. Considering the huge range of things we now do online, why not voting too? A <a href="http://www.democraticaudit.com/?p=1499">Lodestone political survey</a> suggested that 60% of respondents said they would vote if they could do so online, and this rose to around 80% among those aged 18-35. As recently as this year, the speaker of the House of Commons called for a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30976610">secure online voting system by 2020</a>.</p>
<p>But designing a secure way to vote online is hard. An electronic voting system has to be transparent enough that the declared outcome is fully verifiable, yet still protect the anonymity of the secret ballot in order to prevent the possibility of voter coercion. </p>
<h2>End-to-end verifiability</h2>
<p>Any online voting system has to arrive at its conclusion in such a way that voters and observers can verify the count, independently of the software used – this is called end-to-end verifiability. This way voters can be assured that their votes were recorded as they were cast, and that all cast votes were counted correctly.</p>
<p>The vital nature of this can be explained by analogy to online banking. Bank customers can verify their own bank statements – and need not care about the software that produced them. But what if the banks provided no evidence of your transactions, just your remaining balance – how could you verify that the bank wasn’t cheating you?</p>
<p>The difficulty in respect of online voting is that how each voter cast their vote must be kept secret – we can’t just have a huge banking-like “statement” recording who voted which way. Instead, all the votes cast are gathered together and presented on a website in encrypted form, in order to ensure ballot secrecy. </p>
<p>The challenge is to design a way of using encryption that allows an independently-verifiable tallying of individual votes, without removing the secrecy it affords the ballots. Methods have been invented that allow the voting server to generate cryptographically-sound proofs that its count is correct. This means voters, observers and media organisations can perform the necessary checks to establish that the declared outcome really does match the votes cast in the elections.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81278/original/image-20150511-4460-zg4fph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81278/original/image-20150511-4460-zg4fph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81278/original/image-20150511-4460-zg4fph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81278/original/image-20150511-4460-zg4fph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81278/original/image-20150511-4460-zg4fph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81278/original/image-20150511-4460-zg4fph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81278/original/image-20150511-4460-zg4fph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paper ballots have worked well for centuries - any new methods must be at least as good.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Voting_at_Dutch_elections_1918.jpg">Cornelis Johan Hofker</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Electronic voting in the real world</h2>
<p>Online voting has been carried out eight times in Estonia, first in a local election in 2005 and, most recently, for its parliamentary elections in 2015. However the system Estonia uses <a href="https://estoniaevoting.org/findings/summary/">does not support end-to-end verifiability</a>. The tallying done by the server could be easily rigged, for example if someone has attacked the server with malware. </p>
<p>Norway also ran a <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/vote-early-vote-often-inside-norways-pioneering-open-source-e-voting-trials/">trial of internet voting</a> during local elections in 2011. The Norwegian system didn’t support end-to-end verifiability either – and in fact Norway has ended the project amid concern it could damage confidence in the electoral process. Nor has online voting in either country <a href="http://www.democraticaudit.com/?p=1499">boosted voter turnout</a>. There are benefits to electronic voting – verifiability, lower cost, speed – but on the real world evidence so far boosting turnout isn’t one of them.</p>
<p>We have recently seen researchers show how various attacks on existing electronic voting system are possible. Examples include iVote online voting system used in <a href="https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-nsw-election-online-votes-open-to-tampering-39164">NSW elections in Australia</a> or <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/15/virginia-hacking-voting-machines-security">AVS WinVote</a> machines used in three presidential elections in Virginia in the US. These attacks can affect the outcome of the election in an undetectable way, as there is no way for observers to verify independently the outcome of the election.</p>
<p>A system called <a href="http://www.scantegrity.org">Scantegrity</a> was used in Takoma Park city municipal elections in the US in 2009, and vVote (an adaptation of the <a href="http://www.pretavoter.com/">Prêt à Voter system</a>) was recently used in <a href="http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/Voting/ElectronicVoting.html">Australian state of Victoria elections</a>. These systems include mechanisms for end-to-end verifiability and so provide high assurance in the election results. But they are designed to be used in polling stations only, and so defeat the main perceived advantage of online voting by removing voters’ ability to vote from anywhere.</p>
<h2>The challenge of malware</h2>
<p>Another challenge to designing verifiability in online voting is the possibility of malware infection of voters’ computers. By some estimates between 30%-40% of all <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/report-48-of-22-million-scanned-computers-infected-with-malware/">home computers are infected</a>. It’s quite possible that determined attackers could produce and distribute malware specifically designed to thwart or alter the outcome of a national election – for example undetectably changing the way a user votes and then covering its tracks by faking how the vote appears to have been cast to the voter. Whatever verifability mechanisms there are could also be thwarted by the malware.</p>
<p>One way to try to prevent this kind of attack is to make voters use several computers during the voting process. Although this is hardly convenient, the idea is to make it more difficult for an attacker to launch a co-ordinated attack across several computers at once.</p>
<p>Online voting is attractive because it promises convenience. But providing true end-to-end verifiability remains an enormous challenge. Governments and politicians should be aware of the risks, and the possible loss of confidence in the voting system if whatever system introduced is found to be flawed. Democracy is important – if voting is to be done online it must be done properly, or not at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors receive funding from EPSRC for computer security research, including the security of online voting mechanisms.</span></em></p>Online voting could boost turnout, but a flawed system could destroy faith in the voting process.Mark D. Ryan, Professor of Computer Security, University of BirminghamGurchetan S. Grewal, PhD student in Computer Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/396892015-04-08T20:06:40Z2015-04-08T20:06:40ZEarly voting hits new highs in NSW and Australia, but is it a good idea?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77287/original/image-20150408-26515-ujbvqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">About one in four Australians are skipping the polling day queues and voting early.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sunanda Creagh</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ultimate result of the New South Wales election is still waiting on the resolution of the upper house where <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/nsw-election-2015/results/lc/">counting continues</a>. A <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/mike-baird-better-off-sacrificing-seat-than-face-re-run/story-e6frg6n6-1227294795925">possible court challenge</a> could lead to a fresh upper house poll being called. That leaves the re-elected Baird government’s plans hanging in the balance.</p>
<p>Unlike the narrow Labor wins at the recent <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-01/queensland-election-2015-kap-ready-to-cut-deal-with-labor/6060296">Queensland</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bushtelegraph/vic-election/5931224">Victorian</a> elections, which caught many pollsters off-guard, the comfortable NSW Liberal National victory on <a href="https://theconversation.com/nsw-voters-set-to-back-baird-but-upper-house-is-too-close-to-call-38034">March 28</a> was widely predicted. </p>
<p>But the elections did all have one thing in common: they showed that the old notion of “polling day” is increasingly outdated. Early voting is rising rapidly across Australia, including in the latest NSW election.</p>
<p>In 1995, only <a href="http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/about_elections/electoral_statistics">4% of NSW electors</a> voted early. By the 2011 election, it was <a href="http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/about_elections/electoral_statistics">15%</a>. The early figures indicate that could climb to <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-state-election-2015/prepoll-results-for-nsw-election-2015-electoral-commission-says-increasing-numbers-voting-before-election-day-20150331-1mb8ii.html">about 25%</a> in 2015. (That includes about 640,000 prepoll votes and 284,000 online votes via the iVote system, while the final number of postal votes is still to be confirmed.)</p>
<p>According to the company operating iVote at this election, <a href="http://www.scytl.com/en/">Scytl</a>, NSW <a href="http://www.scytl.com/en/news/new-south-wales-leads-the-way-in-internet-voting-and-edemocracy-innovation/">set a record</a> for the most online votes in any government election worldwide, beating the previous record of more than 240,000 online votes set by <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/documents/speaker/digital-democracy/FR_Successcase.pdf">France</a>, as well as recent online votes in <a href="https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-nsw-election-online-votes-open-to-tampering-39164">Estonia and Norway</a>. It also represented a sixfold increase from the <a href="http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/96297/SGE_2010-2011_Amended.pdf">46,864 iVotes</a> at the 2011 NSW election. That’s entirely in line with Australians being early adopters of technology, such as <a href="http://landing.deloitte.com.au/rs/deloitteaus/images/Deloitte_Mobile_Consumer_Survey_2014.pdf">smartphones</a>.</p>
<p>Overall, the high early vote in NSW mirrors a trend seen <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-more-and-more-australians-are-voting-before-election-day-37159">in other state</a> and federal elections. For instance, at the 2013 federal election, more than 26% of voters voted early. That was more than double the rate of a decade earlier.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76850/original/image-20150402-31287-1ko0v8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76850/original/image-20150402-31287-1ko0v8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76850/original/image-20150402-31287-1ko0v8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76850/original/image-20150402-31287-1ko0v8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76850/original/image-20150402-31287-1ko0v8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76850/original/image-20150402-31287-1ko0v8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76850/original/image-20150402-31287-1ko0v8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76850/original/image-20150402-31287-1ko0v8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Early voting in Australian federal elections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2440075">Australian Electoral Commission, 2014</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76849/original/image-20150402-31312-ae42vl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76849/original/image-20150402-31312-ae42vl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76849/original/image-20150402-31312-ae42vl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=70&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76849/original/image-20150402-31312-ae42vl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=70&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76849/original/image-20150402-31312-ae42vl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=70&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76849/original/image-20150402-31312-ae42vl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=89&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76849/original/image-20150402-31312-ae42vl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=89&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76849/original/image-20150402-31312-ae42vl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=89&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Electoral Commission.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2440075">Early Voting in Australian Federal Elections: Causes and Consequences, 2014</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But is it good for democracy to have so many people voting before polling day? And how are Australia’s political parties likely to change their campaign strategies to woo early voters?</p>
<h2>Electoral commissions offering more options</h2>
<p>Australian election commissions like to be thought of as custodians of their electoral system and tend to see themselves as the most <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/%7E/%7E/link.aspx?_id=AE1A1EC4416D423A94F9BFAB52215FD2&_z=z">independent parts of the public service</a>. With a limited role in policing candidates’ political behaviour (with the exception of South Australia, where the commission <a href="http://www.eca.gov.au/systems/australia/by_area/sa.htm">regulates truth in political advertising</a>), their focus is on protecting the integrity of the electoral administrative process and expanding participation.</p>
<p>While the former is most visible in the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/wa-senate-2014/">breach rather than the observance</a>, the latter is seen in voter awareness campaigns, personalised reminder services, electoral reminder mail, easier voter enrolment (such as <a href="http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/enrol_to_vote/smartroll">automatic enrolment in NSW</a>) and an increased range of options for early voting.</p>
<p>In NSW, those options include pre-poll voting at physical voting locations, postal ballots and the predominantly online <a href="http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/voting/ivote">iVote</a> electronic voting system.</p>
<p>iVote is not without its <a href="https://theconversation.com/nsws-online-gamble-why-internet-and-phone-voting-is-too-risky-37465">critics</a> – and in this election a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-state-election-2015/nsw-election-2015-19000-electronic-votes-considered-valid-despite-error-on-ballot-paper-20150318-1m21pi.html">human error</a> meant 19,000 votes were cast online while two minor parties (the Outdoor Recreation Party and the Animal Justice Party) were not listed above the line on the upper house ballot paper. The Animal Justice Party is still in the race against the Coalition for the final upper house seat. If it narrowly misses out, there is a strong chance of a <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/mike-baird-better-off-sacrificing-seat-than-face-re-run/story-e6frg6n6-1227294795925">legal challenge</a>.</p>
<p>But even amid widespread media coverage of that error and other <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4202723.htm">potential security concerns</a>, the popularity of online voting in this election beat even the state electoral commission’s <a href="http://www.cio.com.au/article/545546/nsw_electoral_commission_cio_says_ivote_system_will_ensure_counting_accuracy/">forecasts</a> of 200,000 to 250,000 iVotes.</p>
<h2>Convenience vs cohesion: the pros and cons of early voting</h2>
<p>It is generally agreed why electors vote early: <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2440075">convenience</a>. Rather than lining up on a Saturday, what many people see as a chore can now be completed at leisure. </p>
<p>Swinburne’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-more-and-more-australians-are-voting-before-election-day-37159">Nathan Reader</a> has previously pointed out that that this matches a changing tempo of life: more Australians work on weekends, are busier than ever before and are less tolerant of what they perceive as inflexible compliance with government.</p>
<p>So the real question is whether the early voting trend in Australia is significant, or just another part of the larger change that has come with the rise of the convenience economy.</p>
<p>The most prevalent argument against early voting is that it undermines the “function” of elections: that in a representative democracy, citizens who are largely absent from the day-to-day governmental process should stop once every few years and have a good, hard think before voting.</p>
<p>This is a “republican” (as in Rome) model of citizenship that places emphasis on the individuals adherence to the civic duties to be <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/early-voting-the-case-against-102748.html#.VSHPZOThlC0">engaged, informed and participative</a>. In this context, then, elections should be “focusing events” filled with information-rich political discourse: from candidates to electors in the form of policy ideas; from electors to candidates in the form of questions; and between electors, debating the key issues. </p>
<p>This allows citizens to make informed decisions they can feel committed to. It also gives governments legitimacy for their programs and allows political elites to accurately gauge popular opinion.</p>
<p>The idea is that the contest of ideas runs right runs up to polling day. And the electronic media blackout just before the poll gives us all time to retire to our homes unmolested to reflect, weigh up what policies matter most to us and consider all the pros and cons, opportunity costs, risks and trade-offs.</p>
<p>There is another argument against early voting: that it undermines an important <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/dft/publications/electoral-simultaneity-expressing-equal-respect">social cohesion process</a>, emphasising collectivity and equality, which is the point of having elections in the first place. Some people feel that by removing the “gathering together” aspect of elections, pre-poll, postal and online voting also undermine a key civil ritual.</p>
<p>These perspectives do have merit, but they overstate the significance of elections. Indeed, these views make elections synonymous with democracy itself: a formalistic view of a complex concept. Elections can be important civic rituals, but they can also be ritualistic. Elections are often not competitive, but simply serve to re-endorse an existing government. </p>
<h2>The battle for swinging voters</h2>
<p>Concerns that early voting will significantly change exactly “when” people make a vote decision also appears unfounded. As the figure below shows – drawing from <a href="http://aes.anu.edu.au/">Australian Electoral Study</a> data – the majority of Australian voters have already made a decision on how to vote before a federal election is called.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77079/original/image-20150406-26481-7irnu2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77079/original/image-20150406-26481-7irnu2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77079/original/image-20150406-26481-7irnu2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77079/original/image-20150406-26481-7irnu2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77079/original/image-20150406-26481-7irnu2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77079/original/image-20150406-26481-7irnu2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77079/original/image-20150406-26481-7irnu2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77079/original/image-20150406-26481-7irnu2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Drawn using data from the 2013 Australian Electoral Study.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://aes.anu.edu.au">aes.anu.edu.au</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Swinging voters who decide how to vote late in the campaign are often disparaged as uninformed, “soft” and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-11/throsby-swinging-voters/4950200">under-engaged</a>. </p>
<p>Whether that is true or not, our political parties have tended to respond as if it is. Electoral messages are simplistic and put on high rotation, following a model of audiences that assumes low levels of attention, interest, recall and cognitive processing. The rise of early voting in Australia does not appear to have significantly changed this jaundiced view of the public.</p>
<p>However, one way that increased early voting is changing elections campaigns is that parties know that electors may “defect” from the campaign and vote early. </p>
<p>Traditional election campaigns have four distinct time periods: frame (the campaign); defame (the opponent); explain (the policy); and acclaim (move to a positive commitment decision close to polling day).</p>
<p>The increased availability of early voting options will mean there is a stronger incentive for parties to “win” the political communication game in each day of the campaign.</p>
<p>Early voting options also means that campaign communications will try to be more persuasive: don’t just vote for me, but vote for me <em>right now</em>. Opposition parties will need to have higher visibility between elections, so will need to campaign rather than attempt small-target strategies. Governments, as always, will need to perform because elections are theirs to lose, not to win.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John Chen is a bad republican citizen and has voted early.</span></em></p>More than 280,000 votes were cast online at the NSW election, which has been claimed as a new world record. The state’s early vote also looks set to hit a new high, mirroring a trend across Australia.Peter John Chen, Senior Lecturer, Department of Government and International Relations, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/391642015-03-22T19:17:35Z2015-03-22T19:17:35ZThousands of NSW election online votes open to tampering<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76115/original/image-20150326-8716-1igpufe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Security experts discovered that the iVote practice server was vulnerable to tampering; after checking that the same weakness affected the real voting server, they alerted the authorities.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vanessa Teague and Alex Halderman</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>UPDATED 3:20PM AEDT: The NSW Electoral Commission has now <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-23/ivote-security-hack-allowed-change-of-vote-security-expert-says/6340168">publicly commented</a> on the security flaw uncovered by Dr Vanessa Teague and J. Professor Alex Halderman. But as the authors explain below, “we are concerned that the NSW Electoral Commission does not seem to understand the serious implications of this attack”. Read the rest of their response at the end of this article.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>If you’re one of the 66,000 people from New South Wales who voted in the state election using iVote between Monday March 16 and midday on Saturday March 21, your vote could have been exposed or changed without you knowing. </p>
<p>How do we know that? Because we uncovered a security flaw in the popular <a href="http://www.ivote.nsw.gov.au/">iVote</a> system that would have let us do exactly that, if we’d chosen to. That’s despite <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-04/computer-voting-may-feature-in-march-nsw-election/6068290">repeated assurances</a> from the New South Wales Electoral Commission that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People’s vote is completely secret. It’s fully encrypted and safeguarded, it can’t be tampered with</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As we’ve been able to show, that’s not true. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75571/original/image-20150322-14627-1p3f6v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75571/original/image-20150322-14627-1p3f6v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75571/original/image-20150322-14627-1p3f6v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75571/original/image-20150322-14627-1p3f6v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75571/original/image-20150322-14627-1p3f6v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75571/original/image-20150322-14627-1p3f6v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75571/original/image-20150322-14627-1p3f6v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75571/original/image-20150322-14627-1p3f6v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A screenshot demonstrating how a security flaw could have allowed two online security experts to intercept and change votes using the NSW iVote system.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vanessa Teague and Alex Halderman</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We should stress that rather than do anything illegal or disrupt the <a href="http://www.votensw.info/">March 28 state election</a> result, we tested this security weakness only on our own practice vote at the iVote practice server. After checking that the same weakness affected the real voting server, we alerted the authorities late last week. We also waited until we could see the problem had been fixed before talking publicly about it.</p>
<h2>Less than a week to expose iVote’s vulnerability</h2>
<p>The problem we found was that the voting server had loaded some code from a third-party site vulnerable to the FREAK attack, a major security flaw that left Apple and Google devices vulnerable to hacking (you can read a recent Washington Post article <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/03/03/freak-flaw-undermines-security-for-apple-and-google-users-researchers-discover/">explaining the FREAK flaw</a>).</p>
<p>How did that global security problem affect iVote? For a longer, more technical explanation of what we did and found, <a href="https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/teaguehalderman/ivote-vulnerability/">read more here</a>.</p>
<p>The shorter version is that with less than a week of concerted effort, the two of us discovered that the FREAK flaw allowed us – or potentially anyone with the right technical knowledge – to intercept a NSW voter’s internet traffic, and insert different code into vulnerable web browsers. Many, but not all, browsers have been appropriately patched over the last week – <a href="https://freakattack.com/">this site</a> lets you check whether yours is still vulnerable.</p>
<p>We demonstrated that we could make the voter’s web browser display what the voter wanted, but secretly send a different vote to the iVote voting server.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75572/original/image-20150322-14639-1es63fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75572/original/image-20150322-14639-1es63fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75572/original/image-20150322-14639-1es63fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75572/original/image-20150322-14639-1es63fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75572/original/image-20150322-14639-1es63fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75572/original/image-20150322-14639-1es63fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75572/original/image-20150322-14639-1es63fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75572/original/image-20150322-14639-1es63fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Real hackers rarely leave such obvious clues – but online security experts testing the NSW iVote system used this Ned Kelly symbol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vanessa Teague and Alex Halderman</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The iVote system does include a <a href="http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/voting/ivote/overview">vote verification process</a> for people who choose to vote online or by phone, where they can subsequently call an automated interactive phone line to double-check what vote the system holds for them. </p>
<p>However, that verification system could have errors or security vulnerabilities; we can’t tell you with any certainty either way, since there’s no publicly-available source code or system details. </p>
<p>Given the supposedly “fully encrypted and safeguarded” iVote system proved so vulnerable to attack, we certainly would not recommend people take any chances by voting online in the NSW election.</p>
<h2>The NSW online vote is globally significant</h2>
<p>The 2015 NSW election is Australia’s biggest-ever test of electronic voting, which has largely been limited to small trials in the past. The official predictions have been that <a href="http://www.governmentnews.com.au/2015/03/nsw-elections-ivote-set-for-six-fold-jump/">200,000</a> to <a href="http://www.cio.com.au/article/545546/nsw_electoral_commission_cio_says_ivote_system_will_ensure_counting_accuracy/">250,000</a> people would vote using iVote in this election.</p>
<p>And this NSW election already ranks as one of the world’s biggest online votes to date, on track to exceed the <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/upload/kmd/komm/rapporter/isf_internettvalg.pdf">70,090 Norwegians who voted electronically in 2013</a>, and perhaps even beat the <a href="http://news.err.ee/v/elections/953ac902-eb86-411a-92ce-ea2960c8c6d1">176,491 people who voted online in the 2015 Estonian election</a>. </p>
<p>In just its first week, even apart from our discovery things haven’t run smoothly. </p>
<p>Early voting using iVote opened at 8am on Monday March 16, and it will close at 6pm on election night, Saturday March 28.</p>
<p>On Tuesday March 17, the NSW Electoral Commission <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-17/nsw-election-online-voting-suspended-due-to-ballot-paper-error/6326106">suspended voting for six hours</a> after it turned out that two minor parties had been left off the “above the line” section of the NSW upper house online ballot paper. That problem, blamed on human error, was fixed – but not before <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-state-election-2015/nsw-election-2015-19000-electronic-votes-considered-valid-despite-error-on-ballot-paper-20150318-1m21pi.html">19,000 votes</a> had already been cast.</p>
<p>Serious human errors do sometimes happen in elections, and they can affect <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/probe-launched-into-lost-wa-senate-ballot-papers/story-fn59niix-1226750519018">paper ballots</a> too. </p>
<p>Our concern about online voting – and specifically about the NSW iVote system – is that security flaws like the one we found last week are still too <a href="http://techpresident.com/news/wegov/25066/estonia-online-voting-system-not-secure">prevalent</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/nsws-online-gamble-why-internet-and-phone-voting-is-too-risky-37465">predictable</a>. </p>
<h2>NSW vs Washington DC’s approach</h2>
<p>Less than a fortnight ago, one of us (Dr Teague) wrote in The Conversation about the potential <a href="https://theconversation.com/nsws-online-gamble-why-internet-and-phone-voting-is-too-risky-37465">privacy and vote tampering</a> problems with iVote. That article reflected concerns expressed in a letter to the NSW Electoral Commission in 2013. Yet the commission has never responded meaningfully to those concerns, and also chose not to <a href="http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/abc-news-nsw/NC1501H069S00#playing">publicly comment</a> on the FREAK security flaw that we exposed. </p>
<p>However, that’s not the approach taken by electoral authorities elsewhere wanting to deliver trustworthy election results.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/rise-of-e-voting-is-inevitable-as-is-risk-of-hacking/article21311244/">in 2010</a>, the Washington D.C.
Board of Elections and Ethics invited a <a href="https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/dcvoting-fc12.pdf">team of experts</a> from University of Michigan (led by Professor Halderman) to try to hack the district’s new online voting system. </p>
<p><a href="https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/dcvoting-fc12.pdf">Within 48 hours</a>, the University of Michigan team had broken in, taken over the election server, added fictional movie and TV characters as candidates (including for mayor and the member of congress), changed every vote, and revealed almost every secret ballot. </p>
<p>The election officials didn’t realise their system had been hacked for nearly two business days. When they did, it was only because the hacking team left behind a musical “calling card”, changing the Thank You page that appeared at the end of the voting process so that it played the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF--ldYIBnM">University of Michigan fight song</a>.</p>
<h2>A note for NSW voters</h2>
<p>We hope there are no more exploitable security problems in iVote and that the rest of the NSW election runs more smoothly. </p>
<p>But since we’ve had no opportunity to inspect the server side code or systems, there’s no way to be sure. When you’re working on the internet, new vulnerabilities emerge all the time.</p>
<p>That’s why, if you want to be sure your vote counts in the NSW election, we recommend you stick with an old-fashioned paper ballot.</p>
<h2>An update from the authors</h2>
<p><em>3:20PM UPDATE:</em> Since publishing this article, this issue has been widely covered in by other news outlets, including on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4202723.htm">ABC radio</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-23/ivote-security-hack-allowed-change-of-vote-security-expert-says/6340168">online</a>.</p>
<p>The NSW Electoral Commission’s chief information officer Ian Brightwell <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-23/ivote-security-hack-allowed-change-of-vote-security-expert-says/6340168">told the ABC</a> that there was a problem, but it had been fixed and the system was safe.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are confident however that the system is yielding the outcome that we actually initially set out to yield, and that is that the verification process is not telling us any faults are in the system.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While we are pleased that the NSW Electoral Commission rapidly made changes to iVote in response to our findings, we are concerned that it does not seem to understand the serious implications of this attack.</p>
<p>Before the commission patched the system, the problem could be exploited under realistic and widespread conditions, and the iVote system cannot prove that this did not occur.</p>
<p>The problem was a direct consequence of faulty design in the iVote system, particularly the decision to include code from an external source. Its effect was to allow an attacker to modify votes, which shows the NSW Electoral Commission’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-04/computer-voting-may-feature-in-march-nsw-election/6068290">past claim</a> that the vote was “fully encrypted and safeguarded [and] can’t be tampered with” to be false.</p>
<p>We had to demonstrate a breach with the practice system because breaching the actual iVote process carries a penalty of three years in gaol, according to the electoral commission’s website. Since the real system uses identical code, the real system would have been susceptible to the same attack.</p>
<p>The integrity of this NSW election now relies on iVote’s verification and auditing processes – but these provide only limited defence, at best. </p>
<p>The electoral commission’s security testing failed to expose the vulnerability we found, and may have also missed flaws in the server software, verification protocol, and auditing process. The commission has so far declined to make these critical components available for public scrutiny.</p>
<p><em>* You can listen to the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4202677.htm">ABC World Today program’s</a> coverage of this issue on March 23, which includes the NSW Electoral Commission response. Or read more of The Conversation’s coverage of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/nsw-election-2015">2015 NSW election</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39164/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Vanessa Teague receives funding from the Australian Research Council for work in electronic voting privacy. She is on the advisory board of Verifiedvoting.org. She worked on a voluntary basis for the Victorian Electoral Commission's electronic voting project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prof. J. Alex Halderman receives funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the New America Foundation, and the University of Michigan. He serves on the advisory board of Verifiedvoting.org.</span></em></p>UPDATED 3PM: The NSW Electoral Commission has now publicly commented on the security flaw we uncovered. But we’re concerned that it does not seem to understand the serious implications of this attack.Vanessa Teague, Research Fellow in the Department of Computing and Information Systems, The University of MelbourneJ. Alex Halderman, Director, University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society; Morris Wellman Faculty Development Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.