[CAVO] Future of Internet Voting

[Lawrence Rosen]

Your thoughts on this <https://www.usvotefoundation.org/news/E2E-VIV-press>
? /Larry


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Consensus Reached on Recommendations Toward the Future of Internet Voting




 U.S. Vote Foundation Releases New System Requirements, Specifications,
Architecture and 
Cryptographic Foundations for End-to-End Verifiable Internet Voting 

PORTLAND, ME - July 10, 2015 - Today's release of The Future of Voting:
End-to-End Verifiable Internet Voting Specification and Feasibility
Assessment Study <https://www.usvotefoundation.org/e2e-viv/summary>  by U.S.
Vote Foundation establishes a new reference for the security, usability and
transparency requirements essential to the U.S. in any consideration of
Internet voting for public elections. The announcement was made at the
Annual Summer Conference of the National Association of Secretaries of
State, hosted this year in Portland, Maine.

Developed by a team of the nation's leading experts in election integrity,
election administration, high-assurance systems engineering, and
cryptography, the report starts from the premise that public elections in
the U.S. are a matter of national security. The authors assert that Internet
voting systems must be transparent and designed to run in a manner that
embraces the constructs of end-to-end verifiability - a property missing
from existing Internet voting systems. 

An end-to-end verifiable (E2E-V) voting system allows voters to 1) check
that the system recorded their votes correctly; 2) check that the system
included their votes in the final tally; 3) count the recorded votes and
double-check the announced outcome of the election.  An Internet voting
system that is end-to-end verifiable is an E2E-VIV system. The new set of
system specifications that could eventually lead to a model E2E-VIV system
includes an ideal cryptographic foundation, security, audit, and usability
considerations, as well as technical approaches to the system architecture. 

As election technology evolves and more states evaluate Internet voting,
caution on compromises to integrity and security is warranted, and according
to the report, should be particularly avoided by the premature deployment of
Internet voting. The report aims to list the security challenges that exist
with Internet voting and emphasizes that research should continue as the
threat landscape continues to shift. Existing proprietary systems that meet
only a subset of the requirements cannot be considered secure enough for use
in the U.S.

Key recommendations in the report to make Internet voting more secure and
transparent include: 

1.     Any public elections conducted over the Internet must be end-to-end
verifiable - The report asserts that the use of Internet voting systems
without end-to-end verifiability is irresponsible, and E2E-V is the only
publicly available technology that provides assurance an Internet voting
system is secure and transparent.

2.     End-to-End Verifiable systems must be in-person and supervised first
- It is critical to first enhance the security of in-person voting systems
with E2E-V, and learn from its deployment, before assuming the more complex
task of deploying E2E-VIV systems.

3.     End-to-End Verifiable Internet Voting systems must be high assurance
- E2E-VIV systems must be designed, constructed, verified, certified,
operated and supported according to the most rigorous engineering
requirements of mission- and safety-critical systems. A voting system
vulnerable to privacy violations, programming errors, and security issues
will undermine the trust of the electorate and validity of the results.

4.     End-to-End Verifiable Internet Voting systems must be usable and
accessible to all voters - E2E-VIV systems must ensure usability and
accessibility for all voters including those with disabilities.

5.     Maintain aggressive election R&D efforts - Formidable challenges in
usability, reliability and security remain for the development of E2E-VIV
systems and will require continued investment in peer-reviewed research and
development to overcome. 

 <https://www.usvotefoundation.org/e2e-viv/summary> See the Executive
Summary

 <https://www.usvotefoundation.org/E2E-VIV> Download the Full Report or
Sections

 

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