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5 \begin{document} |
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6 |
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7 \section*{Handout 2 (E-Voting)} |
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8 |
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9 In security there are many counter-intuitive phenomena: for |
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10 example I am happy (more or less) to use online banking every |
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11 day, where if something goes wrong, I can potentially loose a |
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12 lot of money, but I am staunchly against using electronic |
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13 voting (lets call it e-voting for short). E-voting is an idea |
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14 that is nowadays often promoted in order to counter low |
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15 turnouts in elections\footnote{In my last local election where |
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16 I was eligible to vote only 48\% of the population have cast |
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17 their ballot. I was, I shamefully admit, one of the |
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18 non-voters.} and generally sounds like a good idea. Right? |
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19 Voting from the comfort of your own home, or on your mobile on |
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20 the go, what could possibly go wrong? Even the UK's head of |
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21 the Electoral Commission, Jenny Watson, argued in 2014 in a |
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22 Guardian article that the UK should have e-voting. Her |
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23 plausible argument is that 76\% of pensioners in the UK vote |
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24 (in a general election?), but only 44\% of the under-25s. For |
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25 which constituency politicians might therefore make more |
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26 favourable (short-term) decisions is clear. So being not yet |
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27 pensioner, I should be in favour of e-voting, no? |
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28 |
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29 Well, it turns out there are many things that can go wrong |
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30 with e-voting, as I like to argue in this handout. E-voting in |
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31 a ``secure way'' seems to be one of the things in computer |
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32 science that are still very much unsolved. It is not on the |
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33 scale of Turing's halting problem, which is proved that it can |
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34 never be solved in general, but it is unsolved with current |
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35 technology. This is not just my opinion, but |
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36 from shared by Alex Alderman, who is the world-expert on this |
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37 subject and from whose course on Securing Digital Democracy |
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38 I have most of my information and inspiration. It is also |
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39 a controversial topic in many countries: |
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40 |
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41 \begin{itemize} |
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42 \item The Netherlands between 1997--2006 had electronic voting |
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43 machines, but ``hacktivists'' had found they can be |
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44 hacked and also emitted radio signals revealing how you |
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45 voted. |
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46 |
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47 \item Germany had used them in pilot studies, but in 2007 a |
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48 law suit has reached the highest court and it rejected |
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49 electronic voting on the grounds of not being |
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50 understandable by the general public. |
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51 |
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52 \item UK used optical scan voting systems in a few trail |
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53 polls, but to my knowledge does not use any e-voting in |
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54 elections. |
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55 |
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56 \item The US used mechanical machines since the 1930s, later |
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57 punch cards, now DREs and optical scan voting machines. |
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58 |
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59 \item Estonia used since 2007 the Internet for national |
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60 elections. There were earlier pilot studies for voting |
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61 via Internet in other countries. |
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62 |
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63 \item India uses e-voting devices since at least 2003. They |
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64 used ``keep-it-simple'' machines produced by a |
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65 government owned company. |
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66 |
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67 \item South Africa used software for its tallying in the 1993 |
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68 elections (when Nelson Mandela was elected) |
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69 and found that the tallying software was |
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70 rigged, but they were able to tally manually. |
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71 \end{itemize} |
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72 |
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73 |
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74 The reason that e-voting is such a hard problem is that we |
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75 have requirements about the voting process that conflict with |
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76 each other. The five main requirements are: |
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77 |
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78 \begin{itemize} |
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79 \item {\bf Integrity} |
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80 \begin{itemize} |
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81 \item The outcome of the vote matches with the voters' |
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82 intend. |
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83 \item There might be gigantic sums at stake and need to be defended against. |
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84 \end{itemize} |
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85 \item {\bf Ballot Secrecy} |
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86 \begin{itemize} |
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87 \item Nobody can find out how you voted. |
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88 \item (Stronger) Even if you try, you cannot prove how you voted. |
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89 \end{itemize} |
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90 \item {\bf Voter Authentication} |
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91 \begin{itemize} |
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92 \item Only authorised voters can vote up to the permitted number of votes. |
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93 \end{itemize} |
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94 \item {\bf Enfranchisement} |
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95 \begin{itemize} |
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96 \item Authorised voters should have the opportunity to vote. |
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97 \end{itemize} |
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98 \item {\bf Availability} |
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99 \begin{itemize} |
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100 \item The voting system should accept all authorised votes and produce results in a timely manner. |
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101 \end{itemize} |
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102 \end{itemize} |
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103 |
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104 To tackle the problem of e-voting, we must first have a look |
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105 into the history of voting and how paper-based ballots |
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106 evolved. We know for sure that elections were held in Athens |
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107 as early as 600 BC, but might even date to the time of |
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108 Mesopotamia and also in India some kind of ``republics'' might |
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109 have existed before the Alexander the Great invaded it. |
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110 Have a look at Wikipedia about the history of democracy for |
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111 more information. |
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112 |
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113 |
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114 |
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115 \subsubsection*{Questions} |
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116 |
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117 Coming back to the question of why I use online banking, but |
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118 prefer not to e-vote. |
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119 |
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120 Why do I use e-polling in lectures? |
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121 |
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122 \end{document} |
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