The 4th international conference on e-voting just started. Taking place in Castle Hofen, a small castle near Bregenz, This year’s meeting is co-organized by E-Voting.CC, the Council of Europe and the German Gesellschaft für Informatik. Around 70 international experts will discuss the latest developments in e-voting. The topics range from practical experience reports to certification and end-to-end verification. [a visiter’s report]
The official hashtag for the conference is #evote2010.

After the welcome speech of chairman Robert Krimmer and a big thank you to the sponsors and partners Michael Remmert gave an overview of the activities of the organisers and yesterdays workshop (on a draft on international guidelines on e-voting and transparency of e-voting systems. The Council of Europe has taken notice of the topic e-voting, e.g. with the Comittee of Ministers on e-democracy. Since 2005 a lot has been achieved and there are a number of tools that can be used. However, in the upcoming years the Council will change its focus and concentrate more on the governance of the internet following democratic principles.

KEYNOTE: DONETTA DAVIDSON (CHAIR U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION – EAC).

Davidson was nominatd by President Bush in 2005 and served at all levels of government (which is, according to her, somewhat unique for the U.S. ) As for the kind of equipment used for elections, the U.S. have a very decentralised system. Federal Elections are held every two years. This requires a lot of implements from the state, like voting systems that meet the requirements detailed in HAVA (Help America Vote Act from 2002), such as accessibility. (Help Amercia Vote Act from 2002). This act was based on the government funding an election reform for the first time. Davidson gave an overview on the systems currently tested and election guidelines. For instance, there has been an update to the 2005 guidelines (VVSG 2005). Goals included bringing along tests associated with the included 2.0 material. At the moment a complete rewrite of this guidelines is in the planning. The drafting of the „Pilot Standards“ was an iterative process that was made very transparent to the public. State Pilot Projects included the Arizona Democratic Primary (2000 with 41 % internet voters), the Michigan Democratic Caucus (2004), Project Bravo (2008 used in three different areas with a paper reord printed for each vote and used for verifying results) or Democrats Abroad (2008 with overseas citizens worldwide able to ast a ballot in the 2008 Democratic Primary).  Soe problems in the U.S. are that there are still over 30 states doing fax or the clarification of responsibilities.

More work on the EAC (including test series) to be found on www.eac.gov

CHARLES STEWART, R. MICHAEL ALVAREZ, THAD HALL: VOTING TECHNOLOGY AND THE ELECTION EXPERIENCE: THE 2009 GUBERNATORIAL RACES IN NEW JERSEY AND VIRGINIA.

Thad Hall presented a survey on peoples attitute on voting experiences. For the research framework, the context in which elections occur was important. The study was conducted in 2007, 2008 (2) and 2009 (4 times in total), including the experience of all voters (1.200 interviews in New Jersey, 1.300 in Virginia). The study looked at different aspects, e.g. the time people were waiting for elections or changes in voter confidence. Voter confidence was also put into relation with confidence with technology or the issue of privacy. Another big factor is whether people had problems with technology in the past. To sum up an interesting talk, we can draw the following conclusions:

• Voting technology implementation always occurs in a context (previous experiences, concerns about fraud)
• Developing summary measures of voting experiences is very important (confidence and evaluations of usability)
• Technology is important for information seeking – but not for all voters

Voter confidence was significantly related to race and former voting experiences. However, the number of people having problems was very low. Electronic voting in the U.S. context is often related to the „mother effect“: „I can do this, but I am not sure whether my mother can do this.“ If you then ask the mother, she would tell the same about here mother and so on.

ROBERT KRIMMER: THE USE OF E-VOTING IN THE FEDERATION OF STUDENTS ELECTIONS 2009

Krimmer raised the question why e-voting is a topic both interesting and of high dispute in Austria. The information society in Austria is based on a Central Citizen Register since 2001 and the Citizen Card. Therefore, identification is not the problem, but there are issues with ensuring privacy in the e-voting process. The first idea to talk about e-voting was for the Federation of Students. There were, as opposed to the plans of the Federal Chacellery, high tensions from the beginning: protests from the representatives of the students and a public discussion arount voter coercion and transparency. Even though data protection was guaranteed, people had fears about techology sucking out all their data and a secure voting process. In the election phase, 21 universities took part. Internet-voting was placed one week before the paper-based election (5 full days). In case the e-voting would have had problems people would have been requested to come to the polling stations. (On a side note, one of the major problems back then for the students (remembering the code for the ID card) is gone by now.)

After the election there were complaints in the newspapers that the eletronic voting system nearly destroyed the whole voting process (many people will know the discussion). There was a destruction of data (physical and thermal), 5 appeals to the constituional court and there is still tension going on. According to Krimmer many people felt left out in the implementation process and technology didn’t convince the voters in this case. Further developments like the usage of cellphones might help in the future as the smart card is part of the problem. However, it was a very neccesary experience and further serious discussions are needed.

Advantages that might convince the strong opposition might be found where there are similar intentions, like transparency and more engagement. If you’re interested in the discussions and happen to be looking for arguments against e-voting for a change (or media sources related to the topic), papierwahl.at is collecting critical or negative aspects of e-voting.

STEFAN POPOVENIUC (GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY): SCANTEGRITY MOCK ELECTION AT TAKOMA PARK

This is another e-voting case study. To keep my post short , I’ll just sum up the major points of criticism towards e-voting as I found them significant: This is too complicated, real voters won’t use it, don’t need it, don’t want it, you need to be a geek to use it, only the elite can use it (maybe we should add: my mother can’t use it ).

LETIZIA CAPORUSSO: THE ROLE OF TRUST, PARTICIPATION AND IDENTITY IN THE PROPENSITY TO E- & I-VOTE

Will e- or i-voting revolutionise democracy? Will it reduce costs, limit errors, be too easy, individualise democracy, appeal minorities? For instance, different researches address the lack of association between the ability to e-vote and socio-demographic characteristics. The data Caporusso is referring to came from a small area in Italy. She wanted to understand whether those people who trust the government would be more inclined to vote over the internet. Interestingly enough, the elderly, but also young people, are more skeptical toward electronic and internet voting (curvilinear effect). This finding is consistent with other research in advance. Not too surprisingly, people who tend to trust the generalised other are more likely to trust e-/i-voting. I-voting appeals slightly more to those who did not vote in the last general elections, but this is not a statistical significant result. E- and i-voting tend to attract the more politically engaged, but there is little evidence that it will allow more people to vote.

Today, June 15, the reduced early registration fee ends! (300€ including social events)
From June 16 the price will be 360€.

In order to get the discounted fee, register online today!
The 4. International Conference on Electronic Voting will be held from July 21 to 24 of 2010 in Bregenz, Austria. Please have a look at our internationally casted conference programme here.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the conference in July – so register now!

Daniel Botz – EVOTE2010 Conference Manager

Photo of Robert Krimmer

When Britons went to vote in the General Election on 6^th May, some of them were locked out of the polling booths and were not able to cast their votes. An article on the PublicTechnology website suggested that eVoting could be the answer to this problem, and should be given another chance.

I spoke to Robert Krimmer – Director and Founder of the Competence Center for Electronic Voting in Austria and a founding member of PEP-NET – to find out whether he agreed.

John Heaven: Hi Robert. What is E-Voting.cc, and what do you mean by eVoting?

Robert Krimmer: E-Voting.cc is an Austrian Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that fosters the development of eVoting. We deal with any type of eVoting – whether electronic machines in polling booths, internet voting, voting through cash machines, mobile phone voting. The important thing is that the act of casting a vote is done electronically.

JH: So does that include the punch-card system that is used in the United States?

RK: No, that is not included because the votes are counted electronically but not cast electronically. We use the Council of Europe’s definition of eVoting.

JH: You have heard about the problems that UK voters had last week: there were complaints about voters queuing for hours only to be turned away at 10pm. Could eVoting have solved this problem, as discussed in a recent PublicTechnology article?

RK: No. eVoting cannot solve non-technical problems, but should be seen as part of a wider picture. The UK voting system has a number of specific issues: weak identification because you don’t need to show photo ID to vote; self-registration rather than automatic registration, which can be a problem when people move house and affect data quality; non-anonymous voting (because in theory it is possible to find out who somebody voted for due to a number on their ballot paper).

In some cases, eVoting could have made the problem worse: the problem in the UK was lack of capacity to accommodate the number of people voting; using voting machines can take longer than the old-fashioned system of stuffing a piece of paper into a box.

The UK has lots of issues it needs to discuss about the electoral system generally, for example its attitude to coalition governments, which are accepted in the rest of Europe, and the so-called “fairness” of its voting system. eVoting should be part of that wider discussion because it needs to be part of an electoral system that is seen as fair.

Having said that, the eVoting readiness survey found that the UK would be a good place for eVoting to be introduced precisely because it has high public confidence in its voting sytem. It came first, above places like Switzerland, Russia and Venezuela.

JH: Where does eVoting fit in to eDemocracy?

RK: I see eVoting as just one – very important – part of eDemocracy. The second is eParticipation, which for me is a modern version of the Greek Agora: public deliberation, discussion and afterwards you have it followed by a vote. Without a reliable voting system, the agora is meaningless. If we are to have modern methods of deliberation, people will expect to have modern ways of voting too. Both together will lead to a new form of democracy.

JH: Apart from that, what are the concrete advantages of eVoting?

RK: It is easier for disabled people to vote electronically. You can increase the size of text on the screen on a voting machine, and can even have a system that uses audio to enable blind people to vote. For people with mobility problems, voting on the internet means they don’t have to leave the house. Votes are counted more quickly and accurately. And yes, it is easier to accommodate larger number of voters with internet voting.

JH: I heard that Estonia introduced eVoting in 2005, and the Austrian Students’ Federation conducted the first legally-binding election using eVoting recently. What is important for a successful eVoting exercise?

RK: You have to get the technology right and have the important stakeholders on board. It is crucial for the voters to have confidence in the system. As with any election, you have to get the basics right, such as anonymity.

People need to see eVoting as a welcome addition to the voting system and have confidence and trust in it.

JH: You just spoke about trustworthiness. Isn’t that a big problem with eVoting?

RK: Paper voting is more tangible because you can hold the paper ballot in your hand, and physically demonstrate that the system cannot be tampered with. People are more likely to trust that kind of system. With eVoting, you cannot hold the ballot paper in your hand.

Further, electronic systems are very complex. They use the kind of maths you learn at university, whereas paper-based systems use the maths you learn at high school.

JH: So are people right not to trust eVoting?

RK: As I said earlier, it has to be introduced into a trusted environment and cannot fix a broken voting system. It is important to offer people a choice between electronic and paper voting.

Let me explain the security issue with an analogy: it’s a bit like the risk of getting into a car versus getting into a plane. If something goes wrong with a car, the results are not necessarily disastrous. If something goes wrong with a plane most of the times everybody dies, but this is much less likely than something going wrong with a car because of the care that is taken to avoid errors.

Likewise, it’s easier to manipulate a paper voting system but the consequences are less catastrophic. To hack an online system, you need lots of expertise and insider knowledge, but you are then more able to sabotage the whole election. Whether you use paper based or electronic voting, you will always have these problems.

JH: I recently heard a discussion that raised the issue of the depth of eParticipation. If people can participate much more easily and without thinking, does this devalue eParticipation? Does eVoting make votes worthless?

RK: We should make voting as attractive as possible, and people should be able to use the easiest option for them.

People who travel a lot (like me) may have difficulty voting, but the internet makes it possible. Some people find voting on the internet is very difficult but it is much easier for them to go around the corner to a polling station because they are always at home.

I agree that people need to take voting seriously enough that they are “returning customers” who don’t vote on something once and never take an interest again. Perhaps eVoting shouldn’t be as easy as clicking “Like” on Facebook, but that is an easy problem to solve. For example, you can introduce smart cards that people need to vote.

So in short: no, this is not a problem that we need to worry about.

JH: Finally, what is the future of eVoting. Will there always be doubts about its security, or will it get better?

RK: There will always be problems, but that applies to any voting system. However, we will overcome these issues because we have to: we will need eVoting in the future whether we  like it or not because voting needs to keep up with the rest of eParticipation.

eVoting is the logical next step in the electronic revolution on the way to a modern democracy!

JH: That was a really interesting chat. Many thanks for your time!

RK: You’re welcome. Don’t forget to register for the 4^th International E-Voting Conference from 21^st to 24^th July!

The implementation of e-voting for the elections to the Austrian Federation of students was one of the most sophisticated e-government projects in 2009. It’s aim was to complement the paper based voting with an electronic voting channel. Together with the implementation of e-voting the legal basis was adapted to include an electronic election administration.

This first of a kind implementation of e-voting in Austria was technically successful. Almost 1% (2.161) of the eligible students cast their votes electronically between 18th and 22nd of May 2009. For identification and authentication, they used the citizen card (the Austrian model of a smart card with digital signature) and a suitable smartcard-reader device, which was handed out for free. The anonymity was performed by using a cryptographic protocol in the post-electoral phase, similar to a paper based postal voting procedure. The e-voting servers were placed in two data centers of the Federal Computing Centre to allow for fail-safe operation.

The use of the citizen card was appropriate because of its associated high safety and powerful legal standing. However the penetration of the citizen card is rather low at present. Therefore, the federal ministry of science and research started the initiative studi.gv.at with the purpose to raise awareness and penetration of the citizen card amongst students. While over 14.000 students made use of this opportunity, only a small portion of them used e-voting. Main reason to this is the general limited number of applications aimed at students which make use of this card. The general acceptance and with it the penetration numbers for this smart card will only be reached when a wide range and a large number of additional services are provided with appropriate functionality, especially for students.

The discussion around e-voting was rather controversial with clear pro and contra positions. On the one side the federal ministry of science and research and on the other side selected representatives of the federation of students. The discussion dominated the electoral campaigns and hurt the institution of the elections.

For future uses of e-voting in Austria the penetration of identification and authentication means has to be raised as well as a more positive atmosphere amongst the stakeholders has to be reached.

by E-Voting.CC

We are looking forward to another highly international and very interesting event!

Daniel Botz – E-Voting.CC

Please find further information, templates and the call for papers here.

I hope this helps to finish your papers in time!

Daniel Botz, E-Voting.CC

The E-Voting system required the students to authenticate themselves using a citizen card. In Austria this “citizen card function” is included in the social security card, which is called e-card. The e-card was launched in March 2005 in order to modernize the old fashioned system of legitimizing the citizen’s status in front of doctors via the paper version of the “Krankenschein”.

The e-card has since then been issued 8.5 million times according to the official website. 11.151 partners accept the e-card in doctor’s practices all over Austria and it has been used 405 million times for this purpose. But the e-card is much more than a tool for more efficient social security administration. It can be activated and hence provide citizen card function for its holder. The benefit of this is to ensure secure web access to online banking, to file one’s income tax statement online, to request a character reference and many more. You could buy a car using the activated e-card, a card reader and your PINs.

Although this system itself is quite well established, security is granted and the usability is good, the citizen card function wasn’t as distributed and commonly used as it could have been. One of the main reasons for this is, that the real killer application is still missing. The second reason could be the absence of proactive campaigns to distribute the cards and the necessary card reader and to communicate this benefit to the citizens.

In the fore field of the mentioned E-Voting project, a campaign, named studi.gv.at, has been started. It was aiming at building up some of the necessary infrastructure. Especially the second objection of lacking campaigns has now been debilitated. The studi.gv.at-campaign really arose awareness for E-Voting and the citizen card amongst the Austrian students. More than 11.500 citizen cards and free card readers have been distributed (before this campaign only about 15.000 citizen cards on the new version of the e-card have been activated throughout Austria).

How was this achieved?

The concept was simple but effective. The campaign focused on active students to ensure word of mouth to colleagues. For this reason countless info stands were arranged in the universities’ assemblies, the dates were printed on large posters. Student union functionaries were used as multipliers. The appearance focused on the time-saving aspect, social participation and being an early adopter. Scientific expertise has been provided to communicate credibility and trustworthiness. Another key strategy was to use the network of the involved players to further encourage the campaign. 30 Tutors were selected and trained with the ability to educate students so they could activate citizen cards by themselves for friends, colleagues or family members.

Communication for studi.gv.at was facilitated by the website, a regular newsletter, banners on partner websites and press releases at predefined milestone events. A raffle was also organized giving away trendy i-pods to the lucky winners. Forum threads and “advertorials” on universities’ media rounded the concept.

Another lesson learned is the fact, that the numbers of activated e-cards were steadily increasing, but only by relatively and equally small amounts for the first five months of the campaign. From October 2008 until February 2009 “only” 4.800 citicen cards were activated. The rest of the 6.700 cards have been activated in the last three moonths, which is astonishing!
This was achieved by various factors. First of all by the tremendous effort of the engaged promotion partners, which would elsehow wouldn’t have been possible. Second by the medial awareness created and gained by the emotional discussion around E-Voting in Austria. And thirdly by the fact, that such campaigns seem to need some time to build up momentum. People take a while until they get interested, until they care for something new. Getting attention is hard in the beginning, but if you dive through the hard time, it really pays.

All in all the studi.gv.at campaign is a real success story almost doubling the number activated citizen cards in Austria within months with manageable cost and reasonable effort. It truly boosted Austria’s “e-Governability”.

by Daniel Botz – E-Voting.CC

The organization has now again, as in previous years, made an effort to research its members’ needs. From the beginning of March until April 20th an anonymous online survey has been conducted to find a better understanding for these needs and to communicate them to the Austrian Foreign Ministry.

The Austrian Federal Computing Centre (BRZ) was in charge of designing, setting up and implementing the online platform. The survey consisted of ten themes related to which e-Government and e-Participation services expats want from Austria. Three of them were to be picked as a choice, an own suggestion could also be added. The answers were weighted, points were given according to the relative importance. The themes were:

• Citizenship related issues
• Employment Services
• Education in Austria, specially for youth
• Institutionalized representation of expatriates in the Austrian parliament
• General information about Austria
• Heritage related questions
• Participation in elections
• Pension related questions
• Returning to Austria
• Social- and insurance related questions

2.779 citizens have participated, 350 have added own suggestions and 1.245 have requested to keep informed via email about further polls.

The outcome was quite clear:

Citizenship related issues was the most important topic with 3.002 points, closely followed by
Pension related questions with 2.961 points and on the astonishing 3rd place is the need for
participation in national elections with 2.538 points. This third issue is in particular interesting as it shows, that expats are interested on politics in their home country and they wish to actively participate, which seems to contrast the situation created by poor voter turnout in Austrian elections. Since the introduction of postal voting in 2007 this is already a possibility.

The following three priorities were quite a bit behind the first. Returning to Austria with 1.632, Social- and insurance related questions with 1.619 and General information about Austria with 1.552 points.

Finally there was a cluster of the trailing four issues Heritage related questions with 967 points, Education in Austria, 843 points, Institutionalized representation with 831 and finally Employment Services with only 729.

Of the 350 people who have added their own thoughts it was remarkable that the most mentioned was the will to recieve Austrian television (not because it’s so bad!), culture, questions of taxes and legal issues and many others, which I’ll not name here in detail. Should you be interested in further information you cna dpwnload a pdf here (in german).

The final findings will be published in more detail during a conference in the beginning of September of this year.

by Daniel Botz – E-Voting.CC