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Convened by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science
Main | Program | Participants
| Synopses
A fundamental problem with electronic voting is that the public, for the first
time in 25 years, has been persuaded by computer scientists that DRE machines
cannot be relied upon. A critical research agenda, therefore, is to develop sound
means by which the machines may be made trustworthy that are readily understandable
by the public.
Technologies to be investigated include:
- Auditing hardware and software to make an independent record of votes cast.
- Self-diagnosing systems built from observer chips to monitor system operation.
- Methods for detecting systems changes or demonstrating that no have been
made.
- Voter-verifiable audit trails not dependent on paper records.
- Separation of candidate names, parties and office titles from the vote-casting
and recording mechanism so no useful tampering is possible.
- Secure software distribution mechanisms so that uncertified software cannot
be installed in a voting machine.
- The role of open source software methodology in reducing errors and increasing
public trust.
- Cryptographic methods allowing universal post-election verifiability.
- Thoughtful investigation of Internet voting proposals, including Project
SERVE, to pave the way for what is an inevitable method of voting.
- A reliable system of reporting and investigating irregularities in DRE voting,
including thorough forensic examination.
The standards by which DRE machines are evaluated are inadequate and out-of-date.
What is needed is not a static set of standards or tests, but a process by which
such standards can be kept current.
The DRE debate has raised some fundamental computer science questions, about
which experts disagree, especially the question whether it is possible to tamper
with software in a way that is fundamentally undetectable. Essentially no research
has been done on this question or on methods for detecting changes to software.
A much more pressing problem than DRE security is the inability of millions
of voters to vote on election day because they are outside their home jurisdiction
and have not been able to comply with absentee procedures. The Federal Voting
Assistance Program (FVAP) estimates the number of voters so disenfranchised
at over 5 million for each Presidential election. Far more effort needs to be
devoted to developing a sound remote voting mechanism usable by all overseas
Americans.
There currently exists no field of "voting science," which would
encompass voting technology, policy studies, human-computer interaction, election
law, accessibility, computer security, voter identification methods and all
other aspects of the complex process of voting.
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