Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processes

Presentation at ESF TED WorkshopHelsinki, May, 20th 2004

Robert KrimmerUniversity of Linz,Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 2

How come Electronic Voting has become such a

big issue, when it‘s just about counting 1 and 1?

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 3

Overview

• What is E-Voting?

• Why is E-Voting interesting?

• How to preserve anonymity?

• The European experience

• Standardization efforts

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 4

E-Governance

E-DemocracyE-Government

E-Participation E-VotingE-Administration

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 5

Thin DemocracyThin Democracy(Information)

Strong Democracy(Feed Back & Consultation)

-

-

+

+Citizen Participation

IT Support

Quick DemocracyQuick Democracy

(Participation)

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 6

Instruments of E-Democracy

0 Technical Complexity

Political Process

(iii) Decision

(ii) Formation of an opinion

(i) Information acquisition

Infor- Uni- Bi- Trans- mation directional actional

Web-sites

E-Mail Chat

E-Voting

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 7

What is E-Voting?

Local Remote

Paper-based

Polling station Postal Voting

Electronic Voting

Electronic Voting Machines

Internet Voting (RVEM)

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 8

Why is E-Voting interesting?

• Elections are a major administrative work

require trained persons

• Election procedures are complex

counting may take multiple days

• More and more citizens are on the move

need for flexible registration schemes

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 9

Uneqivocal identification of the Voter

With absolute anonymity at the point of casting the

vote and

No possibility for the election administration to

change votes or to break the anonymity.

1

2

3

Basic Issues

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 10

Solutions

• Preserving anonymity by hiding the vote: Homomorphism

Voter Server

Ballot Sheet(yes/no):

101101001011010000111000....sum yes/no

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 11

Solutions

2. Preserving anonymity by hiding the voter: TAN

Voter ServerEnter TAN & Ballot sheet

Receives TAN by mail

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 12

Solutions

3. Preserving anonymity by hiding the voter: Blind signature

• One-step procedures

• Two-step procedures

Election Day

Identification &Vote casting

Election Dayx days beforehand

(1) Identification (2) Vote casting

Voting token

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 13

European Experience

• Switzerland – three pilots (referenda)

• Germany – pilots with public „non-political“ elections

• United Kingdom – large-scale pilots in 2002/03, none

in 2004

• France – CSFE, professional bodies etc.

• Spain – three tests (one from abroad)

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 14

European Experience

• Ireland – frozen/postponed

• Netherlands – EP elections, from abroad

• Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic – drafts

• Estonia – legally binding e-voting

for regional elections

• Austria:

• two tests, one road-map: private initiatives

• Min/Int working group on e-voting

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 15

Council of EuropeStandardization efforts

• started end of 2002

• 48 member countries

• aims: Council of Ministers Recommendation

legal, operational and technical standards

• more difficult than initially expected

• but: close co-operation / mutual understanding

between legal and technology experts

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 16

Council of EuropeStandardization efforts

• minimum standards for legislation and

product requirements

• for member states and third parties (industry)

• broad and clear definitions

• focus on e-voting specificities

• no recommendation on usefulness / introduction

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 17

Resume

• No unique trend towards electronic voting machines

or electronic voting via the Internet.

• Many experiments on local/institutional level

• Only few large-scale tests (UK, NL)

• Countries with frozen projects (B)

• Academic work with tests (D, A)

• CoE standardization efforts will drive development

Citizen participation using electronic voting for decision making processesSlide 18

Contact

• Robert Krimmer

• University of Linz

• Institute for Informatics in Business and Government

• Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration

• Institute for Information Processing, Information Economics and Process Management

• e-Mail: robert@krimmer.at