TOWARDS OPEN VOTE VERIFICATION METHOD IN E-VOTING Ali Fawzi Najm Al-Shammari17’th July2012 Sec Vote 2012

Outline  Introduction  Vote Verification Technologies  Open Issues  Verifiability Through Open Standard  Approach  Contribution  Future Work Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

E-voting Technologies DRE (Direct Recording Electronics) Optical Scan Internet Voting Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

E-Voting  Some of the advantages include:  Speeding up vote casting and tallying  Assisting illiterate and disabled to cast vote independently  Reducing voter mistakes (e.g., over- or under voting) Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

Vote Verification  E-voting adoption still slow and criticized !! people need to trust the system.  Vote verification is a way to address this issue.  Validate vote during and/or after casting  Support an evidence to election participating entities Vote has been processed as intended Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

Vote Verification Techniques (in polling place)  Polling Place Verification  VVAATT (Voter Verified Audio Audit Transcript Trail) [T. Selker]  VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) [R. Mercuri]  Pynx.VM [Scytle]  End-to-End Verification  Votegrity [D. Chaum]  Prêt à Voter [P. Ryan] Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

Open Issues  Public verifiability is weakly supported.  No Common Standard for Verification.  E.g., vendor lock-in  Some of them, ‘Still’ may Exposed for Invasion  Weak in resisting different levels of attacks. Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

Problem Statement  How to design an open verification methodology for vote verification for specific class of e-voting technology, with the goal of achieving:  Standardization.  Independent verification by Third party. ? Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany. We select DRE…

DRE System Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany. Our approach…

Approach Open Vote Verification Protocol E-Voting Machine Voter Election Officials Public Observers VM Select Feed back Report Compare Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany. Cast AFTER CLOSING POLLING PLACE!

What public needs ? E-Voting Machine VM XML Ballot, XML Election Verification Software XML Ballot XML Election Voting Software XML Ballot Open Verification Protocol Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

What is the contents of XMLs ?  XML Elections  Election Name and Date  Precincts Names and locations  DRE Serials Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.  XML Ballot  Contests and Related Candidates  Referendum Options The structure of XML Election and Ballot File described by standard EML (Election Markup Language) Schemas

Election Markup Language (EML)  EML [OASIS]  XML-based standard to support end to end management of election processes  Support structured interchange of data among hardware, software, and service providers Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

Possible Contributions  Standardization gives the possibility for different firms to produce verification components  To avoid putting trust on a single vendor producer of voting components. Standardization, Independent Verification, Public Verifiability Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

Possible Contributions  Independent verification can facilitate attacks detection and feedback mechanism  Verify system against malicious actions and system fail Standardization, Independent Verification, Public Verifiability Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

Possible Contributions  Enhancing transparency through public verifiability  Improve public verifiability against (insider) attacks (e.g., electoral staffs) Standardization, Independent Verification, Public Verifiability Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

Future Work  Building Prototype  Using EVM2003 Open Source DRE (Python)  Build a VM compatible to work with EVM2003  Run virtual election process  Analyze the prototype Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.

Thank You for Your Attention

Approach Connect DRE, VM Election name, Date, Precinct Name and DRE Serial - Send voter Selection to VM - Voter Verify Selection -Voter Cast -Copy of vote stored in VM -Public get VM report (only Report) -DRE and VM Reports verified Sec Vote 2012 Summer School, July, 2012, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany.