CALTECH/MIT VOTING TECHNOLOGY PROJECT
A multi-disciplinary, collaborative project of the California Institute of Technology – Pasadena, California 91125 andthe Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
AUDITING TECHNOLOGY FOR ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES
Sharon B. CohenMIT
Key words:
DRE, voting machine security, electronic voting, electronic voting machines, auditing technology
VTP WORKING PAPER #46
May 2005
Auditing Technology for Electronic VotingMachines
bySharon B. Cohen
Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciencein Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degrees of Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineeringand Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Scienceat the Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMay 19, 2005Copyright 2005 Sharon B. Cohen. All rights reserved.The author hereby grants to M.I.T. permission to reproduce anddistribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesisand to grant others the right to do so.
Author_________________________________________________________________Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceMay 19, 2005Certified by___________________________________________________________Ted SelkerThesis SupervisorAccepted by____________________________________________________________Arthur C. SmithChairman, Department Committee on Graduate Theses
2
Auditing Technology for Electronic VotingMachines
bySharon B. Cohen
Submitted to theDepartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceMay 19, 2005In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineeringand Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
ABSTRACT
Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machine security has been a significanttopic of contention ever since Diebold voting machine code turned up on a public internetsite in 2003 and computer scientists at Johns Hopkins University declared the machine“unsuitable for use in a general election.” Since then, many people from computerscientists to politicians have begun to insist that DREs be equipped with a paper trail. Apaper trail provides a paper printout for the voter to approve at the end of each votingsession. Although there have been strong political efforts to place paper trails on DREmachines, there have not been any scientific studies to indicate that paper trails areeffective audits. This work describes a user study done to compare paper trails to audioaudits, a new proposal for DRE auditing. Participants in the study completed fourelections on a voting machine with a paper trail and four elections on a machine with anaudio trail. There were purposeful mistakes inserted into the audits on some of themachines. Results from the study indicated that participants were able to find almost 10times as many errors in the audio audit then they were able to find in the paper trail.Voters’ attitudes towards the paper audit were extremely apathetic, and voters did notspend much time reviewing their paper record. When asked which type of audit voterswould prefer for their own county elections, almost all voters preferred the VVPAT.These results indicate that newer alternative audit technology holds great promise indelivering a safe and accurate audit and further that paper trails have some significantdesign obstacles that need to be overcome before they will be effective audits.Thesis Supervisor: Ted SelkerTitle: Associate Professor, Program in Media Arts and Sciences
Search History:
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
p.
05-05-19 MIT-Caltech: Auditing Technology for Electronic Voting
ABSTRACT
Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machine security has been a significant
topic of contention ever since Diebold voting machine code turned up on a public internet
site in 2003 and computer scientists at Johns Hopkins… (More)
Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machine security has been a significant
topic of contention ever since Diebold voting machine code turned up on a public internet
site in 2003 and computer scientists at Johns Hopkins… (More)
1.7K
Reads
12
Readcasts
1
Embed Views
Recommended
More From This User
Notes
Load more
