PM Network - August 2016

Challenge: Security Vulnerabilities

For online voting to be truly secure and reli-
able, election o;cials must build an end-to-end
veri;able system, according to the U.S. Vote
Foundation. Such a system (often abbreviated
E2E-VIV) would allow voters to check that the
system recorded their votes correctly and counted
their votes in the ;nal tally, as well as audit the
announced outcome of
the election.

Plan: Robust Testing and Risk Mitigation Online voting built on an E2E-VIV system might be ;ve or 15 years away depending on the scope of the project, says Joseph Kiniry, PhD, principal investigator at IT security R&D ;rm Galois, Portland, Oregon, USA. But project leaders agree that in the here and now, robust risk management is the best rampart against vote manipulation.

For projects launched
recently in Chile and the
U.S., Tartu, Estonia-based Smartmatic-Cybernetica
Centre of Excellence for Internet Voting (SCCEIV)
is running tests on a variety of fronts: internal code
reviews, peer-to-peer code reviews, penetration
tests and third-party breach attempts. “You can’t
test and monitor enough in these project environ-
ments,” says Mike Summers, program manager,
SCCEIV, London, England. “Our team of project
managers approaches every decision and every test
result with a risk-based framework. Our risk miti-
gation strategy is incredibly robust.” PM

To Vote, Click Here A look at online voting projects around the world:

Estonia

The world leader in internet voting, Estonia’s government rolled out online voting at the national level in 2005.

Last year, Smartmatic-Cybernetica Centre of Excellence for Internet Voting led a project to develop a voter verification system, which allows online voters to scan a QR code to confirm a vote is correctly recorded by the government’s server.

New Zealand

Looking to boost recent historically low voter-turnout rates, eight New Zealand local government councils were hoping to deliver online voting options to residents in an election later this year. In April, however, the national government postponed the online voting trials to allow more time for security testing.

United States

In March, 59,000 of approximately 200,000 Republicans in the state of Utah registered to vote online for the presidential caucus. The state Republican Party paid Smartmatic US$80,000 to build the system and spent US$150,000 to promote it— costs the competing Democratic Party declined to bear. It was one of the largest-ever online elections in the country—but many voters experienced technical difficulties.

India

The state of Gujarat rolled out online voting in 2010, but the system didn’t meet user expectations. To boost online turnout, the State Election Commission sponsored a project to build an Android mobile phone application. The app launched in November 2015 for use in municipal elections throughout Gujarat that month.