On September 28th, 2009, Halifax, Nova Scotia implemented online voting as a voting medium (in addition to telephone voting, paper ballots, or electronic voting at the polls). Although Dean Smith, the President of Intelivote Systems, does not shed light on security concerns regarding online voting in his news article "Online Voting Results in Record Number of Voters Participating in Halifax By Election," he attempts to elucidate that online voting can have a positive effect on access to the democratic process.
First, Smith argues that online voting is the most popular form of electronic voting that Halifax has currently implemented. His conclusion is evidenced by his statement, "Of voters who cast their ballot electronically, approximately 80% voted using the web and 20% used their cell or regular telephone to select the candidate of their choice." However, there are a few critical concerns regarding the presentation and acccuracy of the statistical evidence Smith provides. How did Halifax prevent its individual constituents from voting multiple times? Did Halifax ensure that online voters were over the legal voting age?
Second, Smith argues that online voting opens access to democratic procedure by providing exceptional conveniency to certain demographics of voters: "When you have thousands of voters who are comfortable using electronic voting and an event like this runs without any electoral concerns or incidents at all, and it affords disabled voters, military personnel, and students away at school an opportunity to cast their ballot; I'd say that's a very positive step for democracy." The accessibility provided by online voting poses two imperative questions regarding the democratic values and security of online voting. First, is it truly democratic to increase voting accessibility for certain groups (e.g. military personnel, disabled voters, and students) and not others (e.g. people in lower socioeconomic brackets who cannot afford computers, minority groups, senior citizens, etc.)? Second, Smith assumes that online voting "runs without any electoral concerns or incidents at all," but what steps did Halifax take in order to ensure that viruses, malware, and hackers could not interfere with online voting procedure?
Although Smith successfully demonstrates that online voting is both popular (statistically) and accessible among certain demographics (e.g. military personnel, senior citizens, and students), he fails to answer or consider central questions regarding the democratic nature and security of online voting procedure. Without answering these questions, how can citizens be confident that their votes count?
Citations:
Smith, Dean. "Online Voting Results in Record Number of Voters Participating in Halifax By Election." Market Wire. 28 September 2009. Intelivote Systems Inc. 4 October 2009.
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Intelivote-Systems-Inc-1050995.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Good example, and you bring up all the important points to consider. I really wonder if there was a discussion in Halifax about these, and people had good answers to them, or whether they just figured that they wouldn't worry. I wonder if there are articles that go beyond the surface here (or on other such elections).
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting question is how the issues differ as you go from more local contexts to larger, even national, elections.
Assume that online voting is somehow able to reach all socioeconomic classes (through public polling stations, etc). What other issues would be brought up, solely on the medium of the voting? Should we consider how people act differently using the internet than they do in reality? Will this different paradigm apply to online voting? I think the sociological view of how people act differently, and sometimes de-individuate, is central to this discussion.
ReplyDeleteAwesome topic Daniel. Check this out. In '04 72% were registered to vote and only 89% of them actually voted (http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/voting/004986.html). In 2004, more Americans were able to have access to the internet than to vote about 75% of us (http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_040318.pdf). It seems that if we enable Americans to vote online, we can maximize the amount of voters. However, I voted not to allow it for the 2012 election because I feel that it wouldn't be secure by then. The question is when can we do this? And how will people shift their voting perspective? How will U.S. elections evolve? There is my two cents. Just thought those facts were interesting.
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel
ReplyDeleteMy name is Dean Smith and I am the person quoted in the article you referenced in your current blog commentary. I read with interest your perspective and questions on the “anywhere” online voting that Halifax used in the recent by-election here in Nova Scotia. I thought I would reply to your issues and give you the benefit of the additional information you seemed to be missing in understanding how the election was conducted, and why the success of the event was so interesting to many of the municipal government election authorities here in Canada.
I’ll address your question in the order that you presented them in your commentary.
“However, there are a few critical concerns regarding the presentation and acccuracy of the statistical evidence Smith provides. How did Halifax prevent its individual constituents from voting multiple times? Did Halifax ensure that online voters were over the legal voting age?”
As the Marketwire report states, each voter was issued a unique Voter ID (PIN) and each voter had to use both this PIN and a second credential, their date of birth, to enter the evoting application and cast their ballot. While the system allows voters to cast their ballot using the phone, or the internet, or attend a regular polling station, their ability to cast a ballot is predicated by the fact that each eligible elector has to have been enumerated and currently listed on the province’s Official List of Electors maintained by the election authorities here in Nova Scotia. If a voter participated electronically their PIN was “struck-off” the elector list, and they could not attend a polling station and get a paper ballot. The election authorities at the polling station had online access to the central voting system and each elector was checked as they entered the paper polling area to ensure they had not already participated electronically. As for the prospect of someone using their PIN and voting multiple times; it is not possible given the current security features of the system. This is obviously a basic tenet of any voting system.
Your second concern:
“The accessibility provided by online voting poses two imperative questions regarding the democratic values and security of online voting. First, is it truly democratic to increase voting accessibility for certain groups (e.g. military personnel, disabled voters, and students) and not others (e.g. people in lower socioeconomic brackets who cannot afford computers, minority groups, senior citizens, etc.)?”
Not really sure about your concern here. Are you suggesting that those voters who are categorically most disenfranchised from participating in elections, military personnel who cannot typically get absentee ballots returned and counted in time; disabled voters who cannot attend polls because of their disabilities or cannot vote in secrete because of their visual disability; and students, who are usually away in school and not able to vote without returning home to cast their ballots in person, are actually being favored in this type of event? The fact that everyone could opt to vote at the local polling station in person, or use the phone (your comment assumes they had to use web, they did not), or the web, offers the maximum flexibility and resulted in the record setting turnout. This type of event doesn’t restrict or disenfranchise voters, it offers them choice and convenience, resulting in increased flexibility in voting times (24 hours a day for 7 days, in this case), and increased opportunity for all voters irrespective of age, socioeconomic or geographic biases.
I have to continue this on a second post....
Continuation from my previous post...
ReplyDeleteYour third concern:
“Second, Smith assumes that online voting "runs without any electoral concerns or incidents at all," but what steps did Halifax take in order to ensure that viruses, malware, and hackers could not interfere with online voting procedure?”
You seem to have taken some literary license here in attributing the remark to me. To be accurate, this statement was not made by me but by the Chief Returning Officer, Linda Grant the head election official for the Municipality. She has conducted a vast number of elections here in the province, and her comfort that there were no electoral concerns in respect to the use of the technology in concert with the traditional paper polling, speaks volumes about the acceptance of the opportunity to vote electronically in this region.
To be clear, the system that manages the voting has a full repertoire of security services and encryption capabilities that address and enable secure voting. We do not manage the end device of the voter. If a voter has a PC in their home that has exhibited problems, is infected with viruses, or has malware attached to it; I expect they might become aware of that sometime in the lifespan of the machine. Our application doesn’t require anything special on the client end of the voting process, and operates in a very thin-client mode to deliver them to a specific website allowing them to participate in the election. Once again if they have any trepidation in terms of using the web they can pick up the phone or visit the polling location down the street.
Your final comment:
“Although Smith successfully demonstrates that online voting is both popular (statistically) and accessible among certain demographics (e.g. military personnel, senior citizens, and students), he fails to answer or consider central questions regarding the democratic nature and security of online voting procedure. Without answering these questions, how can citizens be confident that their votes count?”
Not only do we always consider the central question regarding the democratic nature and security of online voting procedures, we are one of the leading authorities on these issues.
Electoral authorities require that you can not only demonstrate the rigor and security of your application, ensuring voter anonymity and vote security, but that they, as legislated managers of the election event, are held accountable for their selection of technology partners or solution providers, who assist in the delivery of their event. To assume that the most basic questions about the legitimacy of their elections conducted using evoting, and all the serious consideration and testing that is methodically conducted, replete with third party event auditors, would not be asked or entertained, demonstrates that perhaps you don’t have a very detailed knowledge of the legislative requirements in this area.
I hope you find this information of additional value in your future commentaries regarding evoting, and I appreciate your thoughts and interest in this growing and important method of engaging Canadians in our electoral process.
Cheers.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHello Mr. Smith!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the good work you are doing for evoting!
Are you trying to line up anything in the US? If so, tell us about it. Maybe there is something we (Dan’s readers) can do to help.
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
InternetVoting@gmail.com
Thanks for sharing superb informations. Your web-site is very cool. I am impressed by the details that you have on this blog. It reveals how nicely you perceive this subject.....Halifax Ireland
ReplyDelete