Internet Voting Feasibility and Research Agenda

Internet Voting Feasibility and Research Agenda Digital Government Consortium March 15, 2001 David Cheney Internet Policy Institute About the Project • President Clinton (12/99) asked NSF to study the feasibility of online voting • NSF (7/00) awarded grant to IPI conduct workshop • Workshop held at Freedom Forum (10/00) • (11/2000 election) • Report released 3/01 Executive Committee • • • • • • • • • • C.D. Mote, Jr., University of Maryland (Chairman) Erich Bloch, Washington Advisory Group Lorrie Faith Cranor, AT&T Research Labs Jane Fountain, Harvard University Paul Herrnson, University of Maryland David Jefferson, Compaq Systems Research Center Thomas Mann, The Brookings Institution Raymond Miller, University of Maryland Adam C. Powell, III, The Freedom Forum Frederic Solop, Northern Arizona University Panelists • • • • • • • • • • Michael Alvarez, Caltech Penelope Bonsall, FEC David Brady, Stanford Polli Brunelli, U.S. Federal Voter Assistance Project Paul Craft, State of Florida Craig Donsanto, U.S. DoJ David Elliot, State of Washington Michael Fischer, Yale Dan Geer, @Stake, Inc. Lance Hoffman, GWU • • • • • • • • • • Patricia Hollarn, Okaloosa County, Florida Carl Landwehr, Mitretek Systems Richard Niemi, U of Rochester Ronald Rivest, MIT Aviel Rubin, AT&T Research Roy Saltman, Consultant Barbara Simons, ACM Sandra Steinbach, State of Iowa Mike Traugott, U of Michigan Raymond Wolfinger, UC Berkeley Internet Voting System From David Jefferson, Compaq, California Internet Voting Task Force Findings – Poll Site Internet Voting • Poll site Internet voting systems offer some benefits and could be responsibly fielded within the next several election cycles. – voting clients, environment are under control of election officials – votes can be stored at the voting machine – can use existing registration and authentication • Key issues: software errors, reliability, audit trail, transparency, cost • Experimentation appropriate • Expandable to allow voting from many places. Findings – Kiosk Voting • If poll site successful, next step is voting terminals in libraries, schools, malls, etc. • Key issues (+ all poll site issues) : – standards for electronically authenticating voters, e.g. digital signatures – monitoring kiosks Findings – Remote Voting • Remote Internet voting systems pose significant risk to the integrity of the voting process, and should not be fielded for use in public elections until substantial technical and social science issues are addressed. • Numerous and pervasive security issues: – – – – viruses Trojan horses denial of service attacks creation of spoof websites Findings – Remote Voting II • Platform compatibility/certification issues • Many social science issues: – digital divide – differences in access to Internet among demographic groups – effect on campaigns and electioneering laws – effect on civic participation – effect on direct versus representative democracy • Need to educate public officials about risks/challenges Findings – Voter Registration • Internet-based voter registration poses significant risk to the integrity of the voting process, and should not be implemented until an adequate authentication infrastructure is available and adopted. – high risk for automated fraud (i.e., registration of large numbers of fraudulent voters) – voter registration is already weak link in electoral process – need unique biometric (e.g., fingerprint or retinal scan) data and an existing database with which to verify the data • May use Internet to update info (e.g., addresses) Research Recommendations I • Large, critical research agenda – public officials need better knowledge to make informed decisions on new election systems – likely public and political pressures to adopt remote Internet voting in the near future • Needed research: – mix of short-term (FEC, states, vendors, NIST?) and long-term (NSF) research – technical, social science, and election systems topics. – interdisciplinary; involve election officials Critical Research Areas I • Approaches to security, secrecy & scalability – secure voting platforms – secure network architectures – methods to reduce the risk of insider fraud • Reliable poll site and kiosk Internet voting systems • Testing and certification procedures • Effects of open architecture and open source code on innovation, profitability, and public confidence • Authentication for kiosk and remote voting Critical Research Areas II • Human interfaces and electronic ballots, access for disabled • Protocols for preventing vote selling and reducing coercion • Economics of voting systems • Effects of Internet voting on – – – – voter participation, by demographic group the public confidence in the electoral process deliberative and representative democracy political campaigns Critical Research Areas III • Federal/state/local roles in elections • Legal issues: – vote fraud – liability for system failures – international law enforcement – electioneering laws Research Modes • Experimentation, modeling, and simulation of election systems • Survey research • Social Science SWAT teams to study election experiments Conclusion • Voting at the heart of democracy • Internet voting promises significant benefits, but poses great technical and social challenges • Rich research agenda with relevance to other e-govt, e-commerce