EDUCATE
Challenges of Online Voting
And how they can be tackled.
Online voting in elections might seem like a logical step forward considering the many other daily activities, like banking and shopping, that we complete online. However, voting online does present unique challenges that usually don’t apply to other internet-based processes. These challenges are related to a variety of factors, including the security required for online voting, legal requirements and frameworks, public opinion, and investment.
Security
Voter Verification and Privacy
Elections always require a high level of security in order to protect voter privacy and the integrity of final results. Meeting the security needs of elections means that online voting technology must overcome barriers that don’t apply to other online-based processes.
For example, if you were trying to complete any number of online banking processes, you would want the bank to verify your identity so that only you can access your account. You would also want the bank to associate your identity with your online banking activity, so that you can be assured that only you are making changes to your account. This is typically done by verifying your identity through a username and password, and then tracking your activity once you are logged in.
When voting online, the online voting system also needs to verify your identity to ensure that you are eligible to vote in a given election. However, unlike in online banking, the system also needs to guarantee your anonymity by separating your identity from your online activity so that no one can link your ballot, which contains your voting choices, to your identity. Having to both verify your identity while also breaking ties between your identity and the ballot you cast is a unique challenge to online voting.
Challenges like this can be overcome with sophisticated cybersecurity measures like encryption and digital signatures. In this instance, a voter’s encrypted digital ballot would be signed with their digital signature so that the voting server can verify that the ballot was sent by an eligible voter. Once the voter’s eligibility is determined, the digital signature can be separated from the ballot before it is shuffled and decrypted, revealing its contents while preserving voter privacy.
Election Verifiability
An online voting system must also be able to provide verification that it has successfully maintained election integrity and that no manipulation had occurred during the voting or tallying processes. Achieving this level of verifiability is complicated by the need to verify the correctness and accuracy of the decrypting process without revealing sensitive information related to the private decryption key or voter identities.
In order to provide transparency and verifiability while still protecting voter privacy and election result integrity, many online voting systems use zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs). ZKPs provide evidence (in the form of mathematical calculations) which enables anybody to check that the election results have been accurately calculated from votes cast by eligible voters, and that these votes were not manipulated during the counting process
Legal Frameworks
Elections, like many other government processes, are carried out in accordance with a set of laws and statutes, typically dictated in a constitution or electoral code. Many of these legal frameworks contain explicit detail as to how ballots can be cast during an election, and what those ballots consist of and contain.
Online voting systems may meet two barriers when it comes to the electoral laws of a particular government. First, the laws may make no mention of the possible use of internet voting technology. Therefore, while an online voting system is not technically prohibited by the laws, it is also not explicitly allowed and no instructions as to the requirements of such a system are available. Second, the laws may directly prohibit the use of internet voting technology out right.
This second barrier is usually the result of political or public opinion regarding the security of online voting technology, and the imagined risks of implementing an internet voting system. While the integrity and security of an online voting solution can be proven through a handful of mechanisms, such as ZKPs, it typically takes a drastic shift in opinion for this hurdle to be passed.
The first barrier, however, is more readily overcome. Typically, electoral codes that don’t make mention of internet voting technology are not up to date with the modern technology. In fact, they may already contain guidelines for the use of various other kinds of electoral technology, such as online voter registration or voting machines and ballot scanners in polling stations, but not for transmitting ballots over the internet.
For more information the difference between online voting, internet voting and electronic voting, check out this article.
In these instances, amendments will still have to be made to the electoral code in order to make way for an online voting system, but these changes may face lower amounts of pushback. Still, it is important to consider the length of time needed to prepare for an election with online voting if guidelines for its use are not clearly stated in the election laws.
Trust and Transparency
Even with all of the proper legal frameworks in place, using an online voting system would be pointless if the government or general public were not confident in its security, integrity, and accuracy. For this reason, a number of transparency measures have been developed to help ensure the transparency of online voting technology, building trust in the final results.
As mentioned earlier, ZKPs are often used to prove that the final results provided by an online voting system were correctly calculated from ballots cast only by eligible voters. Although theoretically anyone can verify these ZKPs and be assured of the election’s integrity, a third-party auditor will often be contracted by governments to do the verification and to certify the results.
Voting receipts are another transparency measure that are often used in online voting solutions to help assure voters that their ballots have been received by the voting server. When a voter casts their ballot online, they will receive a voting receipt, which typically contains a unique and anonymous identifier for their ballot. At the end of the election, the voter can access a publicly available list of these identifiers and locate their ballot, verifying that it was received and counted in the finally tally.
Investment
Finally, the implementation of an online voting system does require a certain level of investment, and some governments may not be willing or able to front the cost when their electoral budget is already allocated for paper-based voting materials. While there are solutions on the market to meet a variety of budgets, it is important to remember that an increased price tag is often the result of elevated security and experience, vital aspects for any electoral solution.
Furthermore, while an online voting solution may seem to require a high initial investment, it is often a much cheaper alternative in the long run. For example, an online ballot does not require printing or distributing, both costs assumed by a typical paper ballot. In Estonia, where online voting has been used since 2015, researchers have found that an online ballot typically costs 2.32 euros, whereas a paper ballot on election day is nearly double that at 4.37 euros, and paper ballots for early voting are even most costly.
In short, while online voting solutions may appear to come at a significant investment, they can ultimately be more cost (and resource) effective than paper-based voting. On top of this, allocating the necessary resources for online voting is important to ensure both the security and integrity of our elections.
Although online voting technology does face unique barriers when it comes to its implementation, many of these can be met with advanced security and transparency measures that verify election integrity and result accuracy. Still, there is also a factor of public opinion and perceived risk that poses a hurdle for online voting. With continued advancements in technology, further educational outreach, and more online voting elections being held every year, though, these barriers should also erode with time.
This article was written by Jake Mahr, Marketing and Communications Specialist at Scytl.
