Paper Trail for Electronic Voting

Electronic Voting A ‘Paper Trail’ for Electronic Voting

Introduction to Paper Trail for Electronic Voting

This lack of an independent proof, or audit trail, for the vote data collected by DREs led numerous computer scientists to consider the requirement that all electronic election equipment should provide a printed version of the ballot that the voter could review for accuracy. During 1986 researchers discussed the mechanisms and process for producing, reviewing, securing, and auditing such printouts. Researcher Thomas W. Benson of Pennsylvania State University described what later was often referred to as the “paper ballot behind glass” method that could provide a secure paper audit receipt for electronic voting.

During the early 1990s the author of this article elaborated on this method by arguing that the printouts reviewed and validated by voters be impounded and considered the “ballots of record” rather than any electronic data. DRE-printed ballots are currently known as voter verified paper ballots (VVPB) or voter verified paper audit trails (VVPAT). VVPBs or VVPATs can also be produced by equipment that does not electronically record the ballot image or vote data, such as devices used by disabled citizens that print or prepare a ballot to be optically scanned.

In 2003 computer scientist David Dill posted a petition about e-voting on his Web site at Stanford University that was eventually signed by more than 10,000 people, including about 2,000 technologists. This petition stated that “deployment of new voting machines that do not provide a voter-verifiable audit trail should be halted, and existing machines should be replaced or modified to produce ballots that can be checked independently by the voter before being submitted, and cannot be altered after submission. These ballots would count as the actual votes, taking precedence over any electronic counts.”

The petition, which was endorsed by Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, encouraged most states to enact VVPAT laws. However, a number of the VVPAT systems deployed in U.S. elections during 2004 and 2006 were implemented with continuous (reel-to-reel) paper ballots, instead of individual ballot papers. Many electronic voting experts considered this method problematic because of printer paper jams and the potential for violations of voter privacy.

The phrase “voter-verifiable” (rather than “voter-verified”) used in Dill’s petition was intended to include cryptographic methods that do not involve paper (see Cryptography). Cryptographic methods are intended to ensure the secret ballot. This is important to prevent vote selling or coercion in which a voter might be required or induced to present a receipt of how they voted to anyone who would try to intimidate or bribe them for their vote. To prevent this from happening, computer scientist David Chaum proposed a method for encrypting a paper receipt. As he described it in a 2004 article: “In the voting booth, the voter can see his or her choices clearly printed on the receipt. After taking it out of the booth, the voter can use it to ensure that the votes it contains are included correctly in the final tally. But, because the choices are safely encrypted before it is removed from the booth, the receipt cannot be used to show others how the voter voted.”

Experts continue to debate whether paperless cryptographic voting systems can adequately secure ballot data while being sufficiently transparent for voter verification. Although not yet perfected, this technology may eventually show promise, as a number of experimental hybrid systems that apply cryptographic techniques to paper ballots have been developed. Computer scientists and other researchers also continue to debate whether electronic voting (with or without VVPBs or VVPATs) is vulnerable to fraud and denial-of-service attacks, such as those used by computer hackers to prevent or disrupt access to Internet sites. Such methods could be used to disenfranchise voters and alter the outcome of elections.” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about Paper Trail for Electronic Voting in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to Paper Trail for Electronic Voting

In this Section

Election, Voter Registration, Electoral Systems, Election Types, How Voters Decide, Electoral Realignments, Electorate (including Electorate Historical, Electorate Gender, Electorate Race and Social Position, Electorate Property and Poll Tax and Residence) and Electronic Voting (including Electronic Voting Origins and Electronic Voting Problems)