State of Alaska Election Security Project Phase 2 Report

A laska’s election system is among the most secure in the country, and it has a number of safeguards other states are now adopting. But the technology Alaska uses to record and count votes could be improved— and the state’s huge size, limited road system, and scattered communities also create special challenges for insuring the integrity of the vote. In this second phase of an ongoing study of Alaska’s election security, we recommend ways of strengthening the system—not only the technology but also the election procedures. The lieutenant governor and the Division of Elections asked the University of Alaska Anchorage to do this evaluation, which began in September 2007.Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell. State of Alaska Division of Elections.List of Appendices / Glossary / Study Team / Acknowledgments / Introduction / Summary of Recommendations / Part 1 Defense in Depth / Part 2 Fortification of Systems / Part 3 Confidence in Outcomes / Conclusions / Proposed Statement of Work for Phase 3: Implementation / Reference

Collaborative Public Audit of the November 2006 General Election

We hope that this Audit Report will assist the Ohio Secretary of State, all Ohio local Boards of Election, election reform organizations, and other election officials nationwide in seeing how an independent audit process can be created and function at the local level. Additionally, we hope the public will recognize that this Report contains the kind of information that all election administrative agencies need to better achieve the public charge for producing accurate election results and to facilitate sound improvements in election administrative practices

Collaborative Public Audit of the November 2006 General Election

We hope that this Audit Report will assist the Ohio Secretary of State, all Ohio local Boards of Election, election reform organizations, and other election officials nationwide in seeing how an independent audit process can be created and function at the local level. Additionally, we hope the public will recognize that this Report contains the kind of information that all election administrative agencies need to better achieve the public charge for producing accurate election results and to facilitate sound improvements in election administrative practices

Federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines: Summary and Analysis of Issues

This report begins with a discussion of the historical context of the VVSG, followed by a summary of the guidelines and a discussion of each of the issues identified above. However, there are many specific issues, such as whether wireless communications should be permitted, that are not covered here. The report also briefly summarizes relevant legislative proposals in the 109th Congres

The Past, Present, and Future of American Election Security: A Survey

The widespread adoption of computerized systems around the turn of the century as a means of more efficiently conducting elections introduced more issues than these computer systems were intended to address. Though many of these flaws were not considered for years or decades after the introduction of digital election infrastructure, it has recently become apparent that a minimal emphasis was placed on securing these systems. As a result, the election hardware on which America conducts its elections today is largely insecure and antiquated. This has sparked a series of recommendations for modern technological systems to take the place of older, insecure machines. Often, however, the novel approaches to election security neglect some of the most important attributes of a trustworthy election such as an authoritative paper trail and the requirement of voter privacy. As a result, many proposed solutions offer no more security or trustworthiness than the status quo. In this paper, we present the background for -- and security of -- the current state of US election technology. We use this background to consider propositions for futuristic election schemes, and examine these against the characteristics of a secure, trustworthy election.Key Words: US Elections, Election Security, End to End Verifiability, Blockchain Votin

E-Voting in an ubicomp world: trust, privacy, and social implications

The advances made in technology have unchained the user from the desktop into interactions where access is anywhere, anytime. In addition, the introduction of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) will see further changes in how we interact with technology and also socially. Ubicomp evokes a near future in which humans will be surrounded by “always-on,” unobtrusive, interconnected intelligent objects where information is exchanged seamlessly. This seamless exchange of information has vast social implications, in particular the protection and management of personal information. This research project investigates the concepts of trust and privacy issues specifically related to the exchange of e-voting information when using a ubicomp type system

The determinants of electronic voting adoption: Independent National Electoral Commission of Nigeria employees' perspective

The trend in the technological development has made the use of information technology and supporting devices mandatory in virtually all aspects of life. Yet the development of an Information system can be rejected by users due to several factors, that can be costly if left unsolved. This study investigates the determinant factors that can influence the successful adoption of electronic voting technology in the organisational context using the managerial and operational staff of the electoral commission for the data collection thorough a survey study. Based on previous studies on adoption of technology, four key determinants factors or variables i.e. Technological Readiness, Organisational Readiness, Environmental Factors, and Perceived Benefits were identified from theories of Diffusion of Innovations, Technology-Organisation-Environment framework, and Iacovou et al. (1995) model to develop a model of organisational adoption of electronic voting technology. Past studies in the area of technology adoption have equally identified other important factors that can influence adoption of technology such as user participation in system development and ICT training and Skills. The study extend the model with these two factors and tested for mediation and indirect effects in the model relationships using ICT training and Skills being a critical factors in the success of any information technology adoption, especially in the developing countries such as Nigeria as shown from previous studies. The proposed model consists of eleven hypothesized structural relationships-direct and indirect. A total of 500 questionnaires was distributed for this study between the two major categories, i.e. Managerial and operational staff. A Partial Least Structural Equation Modelling method of analysis was use to investigate the causal, mediating and moderating relationships between the latent variables. The results showed that all the determinants factors positively influence the electronic voting technology adoption success. Based on the results obtained, a model of information technology adoption known as E-voting adoption is proposed. The theoretical and practical implications were finally discussed, while necessary suggestions on future research were recommende

Final Report of the Cuyahoga County Election Review Panel

The Panel was charged with identifying the deficiencies in the May 2, 2006 Cuyahoga County election, ascertain the causes and contributing factors of those deficiencies and provide recommendations to remedy the deficiencies

Modeling and Analyzing Faults to Improve Election Process Robustness

This paper presents an approach for continuous process improvement and illustrates its application to improving the robustness of election processes. In this approach, the Little-JIL process definition language is used to create a precise and detailed model of an election process. Given this process model and a potential undesirable event, or hazard, a fault tree is automatically derived. Fault tree analysis is then used to automatically identify combinations of failures that might allow the selected potential hazard to occur. Once these combinations have been identified, we iteratively improve the process model to increase the robustness of the election process against those combinations that seem the most likely to occur. We demonstrate this approach for the Yolo County election process. We focus our analysis on the ballot counting process and what happens when a discrepancy is found during the count. We identify two single points of failure (SPFs) in this process and propose process modifications that we then show remove these SPFs