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State-wide Elections, Optical Scan Voting Systems, and the Pursuit of Integrity (2008)
| Citations: | 4 - 1 self |
BibTeX
@MISC{Antonyan08state-wideelections,,
author = {Tigran Antonyan and Seda Davtyan and Sotirios Kentros and Aggelos Kiayias and Laurent Michel and Nicolas Nicolaou and Alexander Russell and Er A. Shvartsman},
title = { State-wide Elections, Optical Scan Voting Systems, and the Pursuit of Integrity},
year = {2008}
}
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Abstract
In recent years, two distinct electronic voting technologies have been introduced and extensively utilized in election procedures: direct recording electronic (DRE) systems and optical scanner (OS) systems. The latter are typically deemed safer, as they inherently provide a voter verifiable paper trail that enables hand-counted audits and recounts that rely on direct voter input. For this reason, optical scanner machines have been widely deployed in the United States. Despite the growing popularity of these machines, they are known to suffer from various security vulnerabilities that, if left unchecked, can compromise the integrity of elections in which the machines are used. This article studies general auditing procedures designed to enhance the integrity of elections conducted with optical scan equipment and, additionally, describes the specific auditing procedures currently in place in the State of Connecticut. We present an abstract view of a typical OS voting technology and its relationship to the general election process. With this in place, we lay down a “temporal-resource ” adversarial model, providing a simple language for describing the disruptive power of a potential adversary. Finally, we identify how audit procedures, injected at various critical stages before, during, and after an election, can frustrate such adversarial interference and so contribute to election integrity. We present the implementation of such auditing procedures for elections in the State of Connecticut utilizing the Premiere (Diebold) AccuVote optical scanner; these audits were conducted by the UConn VoTeR Center, at the University of Connecticut, on request of the Office of the Secretary of the State. We discuss the effectiveness of such procedures in every stage of the process and we present results and observations gathered from the analysis of past election data. Index Terms—Electronic voting, election, optical scan, audit.
Keyphrases
state-wide election optical scan voting system optical scanner temporal-resource adversarial model election integrity optical scanner machine disruptive power potential adversary various critical stage article study general auditing procedure distinct electronic voting technology present result election procedure simple language optical scan equipment general election process auditing procedure specific auditing procedure optical scan typical o voting technology index term electronic voting adversarial interference accuvote optical scanner direct voter input hand-counted audit abstract view recent year audit procedure various security vulnerability united state past election data uconn voter center voter verifiable paper trail
