[pp.int.general] Towards a secure eDemocracy platform based on Web service standards

[Eduardo Robles Elvira]

Hello people:

Both kind of systems, traditional paper ballots and Internet voting
have strengths and shortcomings. Some interesting points:

Traditional paper ballots:
 * The whole process is much simpler, thus less error prone and it can
be understood by a layman. Though most people don't really know
exactly how seats are given using D'Hondt system, etc.
 * The initial part of the process is distributed and transparent:
lots of people keep an eye on the process so that it's not fixed.
 * At least in Spain the last part of the counting is done in a
computerised manner, even though results are still signed and sent in
paper for later processing.
 * The voting process is only verifiable on the day voting/tallying
happens, afterwards votes cannot be verified (they are usually
destroyed and even if they were not, they have been anonymized).

Internet electronic secret ballots:
 * The process is much more complicated, only experts in the field can
really understand the math behind it.
 * The security chain is much larger because it depends on lots of
technology (both software and hardware elements), and thus it's more
easily breakable. Computers connected to Internet run millions of
lines code, and if there's a security issue on only one of those the
security of the whole system could be compromised.
 * If one assumes the hardware is not compromised and the emitted
votes are valid, then thanks to the math behinds these kind of system
(like ADDER or verificatum [1] which we use in Agora Ciudada liquid
democracy system [2]) provide UNIVERSAL VERIFIABILITY, which means
anyone can mathematically prove that the votes were processed
correctly and the result is correct.

Regards,
   Eduardo.
--
[1] http://www.verificatum.org
[2] http://www.agoraciudadana.org/