Internet voting in Russia: how?
In September 2019, for the first time, Russia will use Internet voting in legally binding elections. Although not so many countries nowadays are using Internet voting, the idea of Internet voting implementation in Russia has been on the agenda of election administration, at least, since as early as 2008 with multiple experiments conducted all around the country. Hence, while the implementation process is a bit hectic, overall, it seems like a logic step along this twisted road towards Internet voting in Russia.
This article summarizes all tiny pieces of information on the main features of this Internet voting system, available through the public sources. The list will be updated.
· The system will use blockchain. So far, that is the first binding elections in the world to use blockchain technology (apart from the small scale trials). From 2014, Moscow has been using blockchain for the e-participation platform “Активный Гражданин”. However, scholars and experts of new voting technologies are quite skeptical about overall applicability of blockchain to elections;
· The system is developed in-house by the Moscow Department of Information Technology. This theoretically lowers the risks of vendor dependency, but also lower transparency and might hinder trust, because the process of public procurement and cost-benefit analysis has never been implemented, hence, the public does not know what are requirements for the system, how much we pay for it, and whether this system is cost-efficient. Moreover, the system will use a private platform Ethereum. That is not the first time a public entity uses Ethereum in Russia. The Central Bank has already used Ethereum and even met with the original creator of the platform, Vitalik Buterin, a programmer of the Russian descent, in 2016. Already back then, the possibility of using Ethereum for voting was discussed. Such non-public selection of both private and public actors to implement Internet voting in Russia might raise serious concerns about political bias, which will only lower the level of public trust in the system;
· Target group: half a million of residents of Moscow, not limited to any particular group of voters. Anybody who eligible to vote in this election and has submitted an application to vote electronically not later than 3 day before the election day, would be allowed to vote electronically from anywhere in the world. That is quite unusual, as frequently the first usage of Internet voting in legally binding elections is limited to a particular voter group (expats, people with disabilities);
· Only on election day: Internet voting will be available only on the election day, the same time the paper voting at ordinary polling stations is conducted. That is now how elections with Internet voting is organized, mainly because in case something goes wrong with the system of Internet voting on the election day, most of the voters would not be able to cast a vote, because they have chosen this option for the reason that they could not attend a polling station on the election day, as they are not in the city or for any other reason;
· The system is device-independent: voters could cast a vote from any of their personal devices (laptops, as well as mobile phones). Such approach has been applied in some cantons of Switzerland (ones who used SwissPost solution), however, it is not universal. For instance, in Estonia, which is frequently referred to as an example in the Russian media, voters can cast their votes only via computers;
· Paper trail: as of the first public testing of the system (July, 2019), the system of Internet voting will produce paper trail of both, voters who cast their votes electronically, and their votes. In the testing, this was organized as follows: two ballot boxes were installed with printers; every time a voter casts a vote, one box gets a name of a voter printed, another separate box gets a vote cast printed. Keeping a paper trail of I-votes is considered to be a good practice, however, in a such design, it does not allow a voter to recast a vote;
· Re-voting is not possible. That might be regarded as a huge disadvantage, because unlike paper-based voting, Internet voting is held in a non-controlled environment. Hence, a possibility of re-voting is considered as a strong mechanism against vote buying and voter coercion;
· A verification mechanism will be available to voters. Generally, two types of verifiability could be provided in elections: “cast as intended” and “counted as cast”. When those two aspects of verifiability are fulfilled, we can speak about “end-to-end verifiability”. “Cast as intended” means that a voter could check that a vote cast still reflects the choice of a voter. In other words, this instrument checks that the system does not change a voter’s choice, so a voter picks Candidate A, but the system casts a vote for Candidate B. “Counted as cast” allows anyone to check that counted votes are the correct reflection of votes cast. Hence, the first type of verifiability provides individual verifiability, so it is available only to a voter, while the second type of verifiability— to the whole public. In Russia, it is planned to guarantee both individual verifiability and universal verifiability (due to transparency which bockchain technology brings).
· Public intrusion test: From July 17 until August 1, public is invited for testing the system. For this, one needs to file an application and accept the offer. Some codes are published at GitHub. However, the testing period itself is limited to only 12 hours for every group (as Internet voting will be available only for 12 hours during the election day) and only based on a scenario of an attack which the organizer distributes between the participants. Financial reward is promised for a successful hacker attack (1,5 mln rubles). However, while the test is organized by the Government of Moscow, the reward is promised by the unknown private actor.