COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ELECTRONIC VOTING MODELS

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ELECTRONIC VOTING MODELS

Abstract

Currently, in Mauritius, elections are still being carried out through traditional voting methods (paper ballots) compared to other developing countries which are already using E-voting systems. With the rapid evolution of technologies in today's world, Mauritius, one of the emerging African countries, shall as well be progressing towards the modern era. However, prior to the implementation of E-voting models, one of the most important issues that should be addressed is the system security aspect. The importance of security has been recognised for some time now, but providing complete security functions have proved difficult. The purpose of this study is to propose one such e-voting model which will provide a secure framework for its implementation. To be able to make a good choice, several e-voting models are discussed, but two models are being considered after an analysis and a comparative study of these two is conducted. The best existing system is enhanced so that it could integrate into the Nigerian context successfully.

Chapter One

Introduction

1.1  Background of the study

Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or take care of casting and counting votes. Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may use standalone electronic voting machines (also called EVM) or computers connected to the Internet. It may encompass a range of Internet services, from basic transmission of tabulated results to full-function online voting through common connectable household devices. The degree of automation may be limited to marking a paper ballot, or may be a comprehensive system of vote input, vote recording, data encryption and transmission to servers, and consolidation and tabulation of election results. A worthy e-voting system must perform most of these tasks while complying with a set of standards established by regulatory bodies, and must also be capable to deal successfully with strong requirements associated with security, accuracy, integrity, swiftness, privacy, auditability, accessibility, cost-effectiveness, scalability and ecological sustainability.

Electronic voting technology can include punched cards, optical scan voting systems and specialized voting kiosks (including self-contained direct-recording electronic voting systems, or DRE). It can also involve transmission of ballots and votes via telephones, private computer networks, or the Internet.

In general, two main types of e-voting can be identified:

e-voting which is physically supervised by representatives of governmental or independent electoral authorities (e.g. electronic voting machines located at polling stations);

remote e-voting via the Internet (also called i-voting) where the voter submits their votes electronically to the election authorities, from any location

Electronic voting technology intends to speed the counting of ballots, reduce the cost of paying staff to count votes manually and can provide improved accessibility for disabled voters. Also in the long term, expenses are expected to decrease.[6] Results can be reported and published faster.[7] Voters save time and cost by being able to vote independently from their location. This may increase overall voter turnout. The citizen groups benefitiing most from electronic elections are the ones living abroad, citizens living in rural areas far away from polling stations and the disabled with mobility impairments.[8][6] For the country, electronic voting may improve the country's image and serve as promotion. It has been demonstrated that as voting systems become more complex and include software, different methods of election fraud become possible. Others also challenge the use of electronic voting from a theoretical point of view, arguing that humans are not equipped for verifying operations occurring within an electronic machine and that because people cannot verify these operations, the operations cannot be trusted.[9] Furthermore, some computing experts have argued for the broader notion that people cannot trust any programming they did not author.

Critics of electronic voting, including security analyst Bruce Schneier, note that "computer security experts are unanimous on what to do (some voting experts disagree, but it is the computer security experts who need to be listened to; the problems here are with the computer, not with the fact that the computer is being used in a voting application)... DRE machines must have a voter-verifiable paper audit trails... Software used on DRE machines must be open to public scrutiny"[11] to ensure the accuracy of the voting system. Verifiable ballots are necessary because computers can and do malfunction, and because voting machines can be compromised. Many insecurities have been found in commercial voting machines, such as using a default administration password.[12][13] Cases have also been reported of machines making unpredictable, inconsistent errors. Key issues with electronic voting are therefore the openness of a system to public examination from outside experts, the creation of an authenticatable paper record of votes cast and a chain of custody for records.[14][15] And, there is a risk that commercial voting machines results are changed by the company providing the machine. There is no guarantee that results are collected and reported accurately.[6]

There has been contention, especially in the United States, that electronic voting, especially DRE voting, could facilitate electoral fraud and may not be fully auditable. In addition, electronic voting has been criticised as unnecessary and expensive to introduce. While countries like India continue to use electronic voting, several countries have cancelled e-voting systems or decided against a large-scale rollout, notably the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany and the United Kingdom due to issues in reliability of EVMs.[16][17] Moreover, people without internet access and/or the skills to use it are excluded from the service. The so called digital divide describes the gap between those who have access to the internet and those who do not. Depending on the country or even regions in a country the gap differs. This concern is expected to become less important in future since the number of internet users tends to increase.[18] The main psychological issue is trust. Voters fear that their vote could be changed by a virus on their PC or during transmision to governmental servers.[19] Expenses for the installation of an electronic voting system are high. For some governments they may be too high so that they do not invest. This aspect is even more important if it is not sure whether electronic voting is a long-term solution.[6]

Chapters: 1 - 5

Delivery: Email

Number of Pages: 70

Price: NGN 5000

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