Electronic Voting

Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is voting using electronic means to either aid or take care of the chores of casting and counting votes. Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may encompass a range of Internet services, from basic data transmission to full-function online voting through common connectable household devices. Similarly, the degree of automation may vary from simple chores to a complete solution that includes voter registration & authentication, vote input, local or precinct tallying, vote data encryption and transmission to servers, vote consolidation and tabulation, and election administration. A worthy e-voting system must perform most of these tasks while complying with a set of standards established by regulatory bodies, and must also be capable to deal successfully with strong requirements associated with security, accuracy, integrity, swiftness, privacy, auditability, accessibility, cost-effectiveness, scalability and ecological sustainability.

Electronic voting technology can include punched cards, optical scan voting systems and specialized voting kiosks (including self-contained direct-recording electronic voting systems, or DRE). It can also involve transmission of ballots and votes via telephones, private computer networks, or the Internet.

In general, two main types of e-Voting can be identified:

Many insecurities have been found in commercial voting machines, such as using a default administration password. Cases have also been reported of machines making unpredictable, inconsistent errors. Key issues with electronic voting are therefore the openness of a system to public examination from outside experts, the creation of an authenticatable paper record of votes cast and a chain of custody for records.

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