laws, new voting culture, and new voting technologies without listening to the voices of scientists and other specialists. Decisions are all too often made by politicians, administrators, and industry alone, without properly attempting to understand the nature of the technological challenges, their vulnerabilities, and their effects on the trust of the voters and society as a whole. Scientists carry a large socio-technological responsibility and must be heard. Given the opportunity, they will act on behalf of the public, play the role of the independent auditor, keep an eye on the innovation and improvements of the democratic process, and increase public trust.

 

Defining a metric for success Denmark’s decision to pursue the legalization of electronic elections will to a large part depend on the implementation of the recommendations outlined in the report of the Danish Board of Technology and the success of the suggested trials. A few key groups will keep a close eye on these trials: The Ministry of the Interior and Health, which is responsible for their constitutionality; municipalities, who are responsible for a lawful, smooth, and efficient implementation; suppliers, who are responsible for the quality of the voting solution; and scientists who are responsible for ensuring the deployed technology serves the best interest of the public. Therefore, decision makers will be confronted with conflicting opinions about whether or not a trial was successful. It is thus prudent that all groups get together ahead of time and define a coherent metric for measuring success.

a Danish child submits her parent’s paper ballot for the european Parliament election.

cal solutions consist of many complex and communicating components that interface in various ways with election officials and voters. Scientists need to convince themselves that the system will always perform according to specification, even under the most obscure and unlikely circumstances including software bugs, malicious hacker attacks, or power outages. Furthermore, they must be sure the collective trust of the population is not negatively affected and that there are clear and accessible mechanisms to exercise public control. Electronic elections in controlled environments have thus a much better chance for success than elections in uncontrolled environments, such as Internet-based (remote) elections, for which there are still more open problems than solved ones. A modernized voting system does not need to be perfect, but it should implement a process that is at least as trustworthy as the one we know today.

Finally, the metric must reflect the operational aspects of carrying out the electronic election. Election observers follow new protocols, initialize new machines and read out final results, handle unfamiliar physical evidence, and respond to unknown and unforeseen problems, ranging from hardware and software failures to denial-of-service attacks. For the trials, election observers must be adequately prepared, and their reactions and experiences must be carefully documented and evaluated.

a modernized voting
system does not need
to be perfect, but it
should implement a
process that is at least
as trustworthy as the
one we know today.

It might seem like an obvious task to tackle, but it is not at all clear how to define this metric. Abstract concepts, such as trust, belief, and perception are difficult to model logically or mathematically; however, they need to be brought together with the formal aspects of hardware, software, and engineering in a meaningful way. Elections are cyber-social systems.

The usual indicators (such as voter turnout or opinion polls) are inadequate to measure success. Voter turnout, which is consistently above 85% in Denmark, is too infrequent a measure to be useful. Opinion polls that may be conducted more frequently are usually too volatile to be indicative. In February 2011, a poll conducted by the Danish newspaper Børsen showed that 63% (sample size 1,053) of Danish citizens of all ages would happily vote electronically even if it meant they must authenticate using a personal digital signature.

Instead, the metric must mirror the scientific evaluation of technical and social observations collected during the trial. It must measure the functional correctness of the voting infrastructure: how well the final result matches the voters’ intent, how well privacy and secrecy are secured, and to what extend Danish voting culture is preserved. This is where the real challenge lies. Even for simple election schemes, such as winner-take-all, technologi-

conclusion

With the right metric in place, Denmark will be in an excellent position to begin a rigorous scientific analysis of various voting schemes, technologies, and platforms. Politicians, administrators, and even suppliers have already signaled their willingness to cooperate and have promised scientists access to all parts of the election. If we do things right, Denmark will not repeat past mistakes of other nations, but its solution may serve as a guide for how to define future democratic processes.

 

Carsten Schürmann ( [e-mail]) is an associate professor at the it university of copenhagen, where he is leading the demtech research project that aims to modernize the danish democratic process. copyright held by author.