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The Report of the National Workshop on Internet Voting was published
in March of 2001. The workshop was held at the request of then-President,
Bill Clinton. This report was put forth by the Internet Policy Institute
and sponsored by the National Science Foundation. A panel of national
experts attending the workshop identified 12 vital criteria that any
successful election system must meet.
Here we list those criteria, and tell you how CollegeVote.com meets
each and every one.
- Eligibility and Authentication - only authorized voters
should be able to vote.
It is safe to say that almost every college & university
in the nation provides their students with an e-mail address.
We simply take advantage of this fact, and realize that this is
our validation. We send out an e-mail to each student who can
vote in a specific election, and give him or her instructions
on how to do so at our web site. We have other security
features to ensure that once an individual reaches our site,
they will be confirmed as a student of the appropriate institution.
- Uniqueness - no voter should be able to have their vote
counted more than once.
This is an obvious need, to prevent any individual from simply
logging in and voting several hundred times for their candidate.
We designed our system with two possible options for a Student
Government to choose. 1) We can set up the election so that an
individual may only vote one time, and never again. 2) We can
set up the election so that a voter may log in and vote several
times, but, only the most recent votes will count. For example,
John Smith could vote once, hear something that alters his opinion,
and go vote again on our site. His first votes would be erased,
and only the second time would register with our tally.
- Accuracy - election systems should record the votes correctly.
One of the benefits of having a computer do most of the work
for us is the reduction of human error. There is no hand-counting
here, and no room for such mistakes. The computer simply calculates
the total number of votes for us.
- Integrity - votes should not be able to be modified.
This is in reference to a person's vote being modified by someone
other than the voter. In our system, the only person who can modify
a vote, is the person who made that vote. In January of 2003,
twenty private programmers tested our system, and they were unable
to modify the vote of another person. We also challenged the entire
University at Buffalo Campus to try and hack our system. Not one
of them was able to modify another's vote once it had been cast.
- Verifiability and Audibility - it should be possible
to verify that all votes have been correctly accounted for in
the final election tally, and there should be reliable and authentic
election records. Our site keeps log files of every vote.
Our site keeps log files of every vote, that are backed up on
a second server. To verify that our system's final tabulation
is correct, we can print out the log files of all the votes, and
compare this to the final tally.
- Reliability - election systems should work robustly,
without loss of any votes, even in the face of numerous failures,
including failures of voting machines, and total loss of Internet
communication.
As students vote, their vote is recorded on our server. Each vote
is also backed up on a second server. This way, if either server
crashes, we can access the votes from the other. In addition to
surge protectors, our servers have redundant power systems and
back up generators to ensure that most disasters will not compromise
the election.
- Secrecy and Non-Coercibility - no one should be able
to determine how any individual voted, and voters should not be
able to prove how they voted (which would facilitate vote selling
or coercion).
The only human beings who can access this information are the
members of our programming team. Our programmers, just like the
rest of the CollegeVote.com staff, has the benefit as being an
impartial 3rd party. Nobody at your school will ever be able to
access information on how a certain person voted. Our security
testing with private programmers and the Hacker Challenge at the
University at Buffalo proved this.
- Flexibility - election equipment should allow for a
variety of ballot question formats, be compatible with a variety
of standard platforms and technologies, and be accessible to people
with disabilities.
Our site can allow for multiple styles of election question formats.
We can work using radio buttons, checkboxes, party affiliations,
etc. Our staff works with your student government to ensure that
we format the page how you want it to be. To ensure that anyone
can vote, our system will work on all versions of Windows, Linux,
and Unix. [Mac users need to be running Mac OS version 10 or higher.]
- Convenience - voters should be able to cast votes quickly
with minimal equipment or skills.
We are in an age where basic Internet skills are as much a requirement
as basic reading skills. Our voters only need to know how to use
a computer, read e-mail, and use a web browser. It is nearly impossible
to be a successful college student without these skills, and we
have confidence that students across the nation will be able to
vote with our system.
- Certifiability - election systems should be testable
so that election officials have confidence that they meet the
necessary criteria.
Our election system is testable, and has been tested both
in the private and public sectors. Before any election was ever
run on our site, we were tested by 20 independent programmers,
and we ran the UB Hacker Challenge. This was a mock election,
where students were challenged to hack our site and cause problems.
- Transparency - voters should be able to possess a general
knowledge and understanding of the voting process.
In the e-mail that potential voters receive, we describe what
they have to do in a simple, step-by-step fashion. Every student
who can read, and is web literate can understand our system.
- Cost-effectiveness - election systems should be affordable
and efficient.
In our initial survey, we asked Student Governments across the
country what they paid to run their elections, and how large of
a voting population they had. Based on this information, we calculated
an average cost per potential voter. Our pricing system is based
on this average, and the final cost for running an election on
CollegeVote.com should be LESS than most schools currently pay!
More Information
- More on our online elections
- Information on security at CollegeVote.com
- Contact us with your questions
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