ATM use as a form of voting.
...translucent receipt with the votes in plain text. Once these layers are separated, each shows only a seemingly random pattern of tiny squares, yet contains the encoded vote. So as not to allow anybody to manipulate an election by tricking the printer, the voter can decide which of the two layers will be shredded by a poll worker and which will be the receipt to take home. The voting-machine keeps an electronic copy of this receipt and later sends it in for counting and posting on the official election website. If voters cannot find their receipt there, it is evidence that there is something wrong with the election. If this sounds complicated, the tabulating process proposed by Dr Chaum certainly is. The process of decrypting the receipts is split up into several steps, with each step performed by specialised computers called "trustees". By taking samples in a certain way, one can test whether these trustees have changed the votes--without compromising ballot secrecy (which is achieved by deleting the serial numbers from the receipts). Such receipts, says Dr Chaum, will not only increase voter confidence, but also eliminate the need for trusted voting-machines, such as DRE systems, which are costly because they are based on proprietary technology. In fact, he says, even PCs in libraries and schools could do the job. The only special-purpose piece of hardware needed would be a small printer capable of printing on both sides of the two-layer receipt. Yet despite its advantages, it is unlikely that Dr Chaum's approach will be used in an election any time soon--for the same reason that his digital cash has yet to take off. It is ahead of its time and demands too much of users. Even Dr Mercuri's simpler proposal has not made much headway. Adding a paper trail, vendors of DRE systems argue, would defeat the purpose of a touch-screen kiosk. To overcome such resistance, says Dr Mercuri, the Voting Rights Act, which continues to be debated in Washington, should dictate that all voting-machines have a "physical audit capacity". Yet even sophisticated systems will not improve the reliability of American elections if other problems are not fixed as well. Voter lists remain notoriously unreliable and gerrymandering is rampant. As Bruce Schneier, a noted cryptographer puts it: "There are no technological solutions to social problems." Many possible solutions have been discussed when it comes to electronic voting security. Some of them, such as retina scans, bring "Star Trek” and "Mission Impossible” to mind. But other forms of biometrics are already feasible: for instance, a digital photo could be taken of the voter, and software analysis would compare key features of that person’s face to an existing photo residing on a hard drive. 3) advantages • Electors are able to select from a pre-determined list, their language of preference, not disenfranchising non-English speaking voters. • No cost involved in printing ballot papers and rolls. • Sight impaired electors would be able to vote personally using a keypad and earpiece. Positive comments were received from disabled voters using similar systems in the US who claimed it was the first time they had actually cast their own vote. • It’s a presentation of screens that is very simple to people who are used to ATMs,” said Chris Klein, executive vice president of marketing for Mosaic Software, a company which provides software for EFT networks. “[People are] already used to that interface. It provides choices in an easy fashion, not too many selections at a time, and they just choose. I think that would work quite well • From a purely hardware point of view, the ATM network has some very desirable security properties: It is a private, national-scale network, unconnected to the Internet, and thus not subject to Internet-based attacks. The terminals are hardened, and are often equipped with cameras and other security devices for remote monitoring, and hence are resistant to tampering (as befits machines carrying tens of thousands of dollars in cash). They are very rugged and reliable. Many have touch-screens, which allows about the simplest possible human interface. • The system allows you to change your mind 4) disadvantages / Security • The cost of the computer hardware necessary to fit out polling places would be considerable. Based on one touch screen computer for each issuing table at a cost of $7,000 per computer, the cost, on a national basis, would be prohibitive. Even for small jurisdictions, the costs would be significant. There would also need to be a service contract for support to computer equipment at polling places on election day Political, cultural and social acceptance by electors and other stakeholders would need to be considered. • There would be no paper trail of the ballots. This may raise unacceptable risks especially if the system was being introduced on a broad scale. • our entire concept of voting is based on the notion that all votes are anonymous. Will it be possible for an electronic voting network to operate at a sufficient security level without keeping track of each voter and who they voted for? • There is currently online voting at ATM machines in South America, but that’s a different concept -- it’s one single ballot, a national ballot. If you look at the US, there are a billion different ballots. Where is the database going to reside?" • problem has to do with voter privacy, coercion, and vote selling. When a person votes in a private situation (i.e. other than a public polling place) there is opportunity either for the voter to be coerced, or to sell his/her vote. Although we live with this fact for absentee ballots, it is not a good idea to give up entirely on the strongest election security and privacy measure ever invented: the Australian secret ballot system in which people are required to vote alone in the privacy of the voting booth, with public observers to assure that no one accompanies them to influence them. This new-found voter satisfaction may not survive the real election day on November 5th. Replacing error-prone punch-card voting-machines with touch-screen kiosks, at least in their current form, seems in some ways like jumping from the frying pan to the fire. Most importantly, these direct-recording electronic (DRE) systems raise questions about whether elections should be digitised at all. At first sight, doing away with paper and letting computers register votes seems an attractive proposition. At least in theory, touch screens should be less confusing than the infamous "butterfly ballots". Computers are unlikely to produce anything like the "hanging" or "pregnant" chads that plagued Florida's 2000 presidential election. Electronic votes can be easily counted and recounted. At the mock election in Palm Beach, for instance, it took no more than an hour to tally all the votes. Ironically, it is computer scientists, not officials, who are counselling caution. There is no way to verify that ballots are recorded, transmitted and tabulated properly, argues Rebecca Mercuri, a computer-science professor at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, and the most outspoken critic of DRE. For one thing, vendors have yet to discover the virtues of independent peer review. Worse, it is theoretically impossible to determine whether computer systems are free from programming bugs or nefarious code. This is why, Dr Mercuri thinks, elections should not be paperless. She would like to see touch-screen systems connected direct to a printer to produce physical evidence of a voter's choice. Such a printout could be inspected by the voter and kept as back-up in case there were problems with the electronic voting system. Without such an external audit trail, votes would be lost forever if a DRE system were to crash. Studies show that certain demographic groups -- the elderly, for instance -- are more likely to shy away from what they perceive to be “intimidating” technology. These people might be less likely to vote if they had to do so at an ATM. Some geographical areas have low concentrations of ATMs. Would machines be brought in just for Election Day, or would voters be expected to travel? Plan B – if the power goes out at a conventional voting booth five minutes before the polls close, voters can still use pencil and paper. What if the power goes out -- as it invariably will, somewhere in the country -- on Election Day? An endless chain of lawsuits might follow. Integrity of the data – it’s one thing to collect the information, quite another to make sure that the information remains valid and unchanged. Some disheartening statistics from the Voting Integrity Project, an independent think-tank: 20 percent of organizations with external network access have been hacked, and 50 percent suffered “an information-security-related financial loss” during the past two years. What if electronic votes were lost in a hacker attack – what recourse would the losing party have? System compatibility – the network of machines that would be required to pull off national e-voting would be an elaborate one; software from one state or voting district would have to talk to software from another. Cost – who would be responsible for purchasing the new machines, or retrofitting older ones: the states, the federal government or each individual voting district? There’s another technological disadvantage,” said ...