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Online Voting

Online Voting. Good or Bad?. 2000 Presidential Election . One of the closest contests in US history Florida was the pivotal state Neither Democrat Al Gore nor Republican George W. Bush had a majority of votes in the Electorial College. After a Florida recount the vote was: Bush: 2,912,790

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Online Voting

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  1. Online Voting Good or Bad?

  2. 2000 Presidential Election • One of the closest contests in US history • Florida was the pivotal state • Neither Democrat Al Gore nor Republican George W. Bush had a majority of votes in the Electorial College. • After a Florida recount the vote was: • Bush: 2,912,790 • Gore: 2,912,253 • Difference of 437 votes

  3. Problems with the Florida Popular vote • Hanging chad • Butterfly ballot

  4. Hanging Chad • Stylus used to punch a hole in the ballot next to the candidate’s name • Sometimes the stylus didn’t punch the hole cleanly, leaving a tiny piece of the card hanging on the ballot • This was referred to as the “hanging chad” • The automatic vote tabulators typically would not count the ballots with hanging chad • A manual recount had to identify ballots with hanging chad that should have been counted

  5. Butterfly Ballot • Votes may have mistakenly punched a hole for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of for Democratic candidate Al Gore • This confusion may have cost Al Gore the election

  6. Action Taken as a Result of Problems in Florida Vote • Many states replaced paper-based systems with direct recording electronic voting machines. These systems were not connected to a network • Others have suggested that voting be conducted via the Internet • Used in 2000 Alaska Republican Presidential preference poll • Used in 2000 Arizona Democratic Presidential primary • United Kingdom has used on-line voting in local elections since 2001. • Estonia is first country to vote online in local and national elections

  7. Analysis of Online Voting • Let’s weigh the benefits vs. risks of online voting in a presidential election

  8. Benefits of Online Voting • People who can’t get to the polls could vote from home • Votes could be counted more quickly • No issues with hanging chad or erasures • Cost less • Eliminate risk of having physical votes tampered with • Over voting for too many candidates could easily be prevented

  9. Risks of Online Voting • Gives an unfair advantage to those who are financially better off. What about the Digital Divide? • The system that authenticates the the voter also records the ballot. Some fear loss of privacy. • Chance of vote selling is increased since the person selling their vote can now be monitored.

  10. Network Issues in Online Voting • A server hosing an election would be an obvious target of a DDoS attack. • Security depends upon the security of the home computers • Virus could change a person’s vote • Backdoor Trojan could allow a person’s vote to be observed by an outsider • Attacker could fool voter into connecting to a phony site to vote and steal the voter’s credentials

  11. Analysis of Online Voting • Utilitarian analysis adds up the positive and negative outcomes to determine whether online voting is a good action or not • Consider the possible outcome, the value of the outcome on each affected person, and the number of people affected • One benefit – people would not have to travel to polling place and wait in line. Estimate that about one hour is spent in voting • Average salary in US is $18 per hour • About 50% of adult Americans vote • Time savings would be worth about $9 for every adult • DDoS may prevent voters from casting their votes • There is potential for great harm if will of voters is not followed • This potential harm is reduced because a) probability of DDoS attack is low, b) probability of DDoS attack being successful is low, and c) probability of a DDoS attack changing the outcome of an election is low. • These probabilities may vary considerably from one expert to another, so this evaluation can tip one way or the other

  12. Kantian Analysis • Focus is on the importance in the will of each voter being reflected in that voter’s ballot • Integrity of each ballot is paramount • Eliminating paper records in order to save time and money or boosting voter turnout is wrong from this perspective

  13. Conclusions • A web-based system would make it much easier for hacker to taint the process on a wide scale • A web-based system would have no paper record to verify the intent of the voter • Online elections have already been tampered with • Any election system that relies on the security of personal computers managed by ordinary citizens will be vulnerable to fraud • Lots of interest on Internet for OnLine Voting. See http://eballot.votenet.com/

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