The following is the first progress report on the Evoting Project. In this report you will find the intended audience a brief description of the proposed work, the outline for the research plan, list of valuable resources, and our overall status on the project. The overall status can be determined by breaking up the project into seven major milestones and discussing what is complete and what remains to be done in each category. The seven major checkpoints are as follows:

5.2 Research Plan 

Audience

Description of the proposed work

Outline.  We have made a minor change to our title, replacing "internet voting" with "remote voting", which includes the internet.  As of 03/19/2006 06:48 PM , the following is the outline for the project:

1. Introduction 
2. Background research of current methodologies
   1. Absentee Ballots
   2. In-Person
      1. Types of Ballots being used
      2. State Approved Vendors
   3. Remote Voting
3. Narrowing the Search, Strengths & Weaknesses
   1. EVoting topics
      1. methods
      2. security and vulnerabilities
      3. verification
      4. storage
      5. education
   2. Assess Strength and Weakness
   3. Design or Evaluate
4. Design/Simulation
   1. Bootable Disk - Modem
   2. Shelving and trays
5. Testing
6. Generate Report
7. Generate Presentation

Additional and revisited resources. (also see the resources named on the main project page):

1. Vote Here  Vote here, a division of Dategrity Corp, offers Independent audit solutions for validation and verification of election results.  Vote Here touts an auditable tracking system for absentee ballots.  They offer downloads of their source code, not yet verified.  "Error: Language string failed to load: connect_host".  They claim you can have "confidence" , "VoteHere Proves every vote counted."  VoteHere offers a plethora of resources.
2. HP and Scytle A global agreement for the development of electronic voting systems.
3. Research on Voting Systems and Ballot Design Usability Professionals' Association, promoting usability concepts and techniques worldwide.  An mid-scale organized list of ballot design, internet voting, voting systems, voting system vendors, and research centers.

I. Introduction

II. Background and Research in Current Methodologies

• Physical Ballots

  • AIS, Optech, EES and Accuvote optical scan voting systems. With optical scan, voters mark their ballots by filling in ovals or connecting the halves of an arrow next to their choices.

  • Punch card. To vote a punch card ballot, the voter punches out small rectangles ("chads") in a paging device which lists the candidates’ names. After voting, the voter gives the ballot to an election worker who deposits it in a ballot container. If a jurisdiction uses the PBC-2100 punch card voting system, the voter deposits the ballot in a tabulator stationed in the precinct.

  • Unilect (touch-screen) and Micro Vote (touch-button) electronic voting systems. With these systems, voters touch a computer screen or push buttons to indicate their choices.

  • Mechanical lever machines. To vote using a mechanical lever machine, the voter pushes down levers to indicate his or her choices.

  • Paper ballot.

• Electronic Remote Ballots, and Trackable Audit Systems

  • Scytl Secure Electronic Voting (Pynx), VoteHere Mail-in Ballot Tracker, EVOX electronic voting, used in MIT campus-wide student elections (1999)

  • Touch Tone Telephone. 

  • Modem.

  • Network (via Internet).

   

• Work in progress (leading to item III). Assess and compare the current solutions, they're relevant shelf life, who is still active, and what solutions have fell by the wayside, and why. 

• In progress.  
  1. Compare our proposed system to traditional in-person voting systems and absentee ballot systems.
     
  2. We've narrowed our topic to identifying and eliminating security threats. We have selected a method of nullifying security problems in installed OSes (by using a boot CD and ignoring the hard drives) and "completely prevented" viruses from vote tampering, although DoS attacks are still possible against voting computers (disabling booting by affecting the BIOS). We observe the need for a system that makes DoS attacks detectable, and early enough for
     measures to be taken. However, we have not yet identified any code, protocols, algorithms, or authentication schemes.
  3. Brief evaluation/comparison of electronic and trackable solutions offered in item #2.

1. A specification with a few samples for proof of concept.
2. A bootable CD with network/modem support, to implement a system based on concepts including VoteHere, EVOX, and Pynx electronic voting systems.
   
   

Future challenges involve getting a program to run automatically (or at all) that we add to the disk, and get a modem working
with the boot disk. We need to identify or create an authentication protocol so that the voter knows the disks is
authentic (doesn't use a fake disk to vote to an imposter, who then uses the info to log in correctly and vote their own way
- at least not without detection), the machine connected to is not authentic, and the person using the disk is the correct
person (or make vote buying and/or multiple voting impractical).

03/19/2006 06:48:50 PM                                                                         Back to EVoting Home Page