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eVote Adds Elections to Mailing Lists

Issue 107

From Issue #107
March 2003

Mar 01, 2003  By Marilyn Davis
 in
Mailing lists are great for discussion, and now you can take a vote with your mailing list too.
Two Enhancements for Elections

As it is, the eVote/Clerk system is not designed for and is not suitable for presidential elections. With two major enhancements, however, it could be the most secure and accurate solution. The required enhancements are:

  1. A networking layer so networked Clerks manage the distributed data. The network would also facilitate a check on other Clerks' data and calculations. For example, if a voter votes with one Clerk and is sent a receipt from that Clerk, and later, a second receipt is sent to the voter from a different, randomly chosen Clerk, this process would ensure the integrity of all the Clerks.

  2. A secure encryption layer so only the software and the voter can see that voter's ballot.

With these enhancements, the Clerk could provide more security than generalized database servers because Clerks can redundantly and geographically distribute the votes to many small computers running a GNU system. In addition, the individual administrators have minimal responsibility and minimal power, and each administrator is watched by the network of Clerks. Finally, the Clerk involves voters in facilitating not only recounts and redundant checks but revotes as well. With a system such as this one, we can go confidently into our electro-democratic age.

Marilyn Davis (marilyn@deliberate.com) earned her PhD in Theoretical Radio Astronomy in the ancient past. Now she waits tables and teaches Python, C and the GNU development tools at UCSC Extension in Sunnyvale, California.

email: marilyn@deliberate.com

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