Secure Electronic Voting

Pour ceux qui s'intéressent au "vote électronique", une
conférence de notre collègue Steve Schneider


BCS-FACS Evening Seminar Series

Secure Electronic Voting

Professor Steve Schneider

University of Surrey

3 March 2008

5.45pm

BCS London Offices
First Floor, The Davidson Building
5 Southampton Street
London WC2E 7HA

Elections need to be trustworthy, and
to be seen to be trustworthy, in
order for the electorate to have confidence
 in their outcomes.  The
introduction of technology into the electoral
 process brings potential
new benefits, but may also increase the
risk that accidental flaws
or security weaknesses in the equipment
eave an election open
to tampering.   Voting systems, whether
run manually or on machines,
should provide voters with the ability
to cast a private vote, and to have
confidence that their vote is really included
 in the final tally.

The Prêt à Voter electronic voting system
 is designed to provide these
properties, and some further ones known
as end-to-end verifiability, not
currently present in standard UK elections:
 a receipt for the voters so
that they can check their vote has been
included in the tally, and can
prove if it has not; and publication of
the votes so that the count can
be independently checked. This is achieved
 by making public all
the stages in the processing of the votes,
 enabling the election to be
audited independently. All this is possible
 while maintaining secrecy
of the vote.  Although electronic support
 for the election is necessary,
the electronic components do not themselves
 need to be trusted
because their outputs can be independently
audited. This talk
discusses the issues involved in electronic
 voting systems, describes
the Prêt à Voter approach to electronic
voting, and introduces the
implementation of the system developed
at the University of Surrey
in conjunction with the University of
Newcastle in 2007.

Refreshments will be served from 5.15pm.

The seminar is free of charge and open
 to everyone. If you would like
to attend, please email Paul Boca
 [Paul.Boca@googlemail.com] by
 >>> 28 February 2008 <<< .
Pre-registration is required, as the BCS
requires us to provide an attendance
list in advance of the seminar.


BCS-FACS Website: http://www.bcs-facs.org

BCS-FACS Evening Seminars:
http://www.bcs-facs.org/events/EveningSeminars

Location of venue:
http://www.epsg.org.uk/locations/bcsss-guide.html