Technology, Trust and Elections

Critical Questions In recent times the proliferation of mobile application (app) ecosystems have influenced a stream of opinion pieces supporting the notion of ‘app based voting’. Often, terms such as ‘internet voting’, ‘mobile voting’ or ‘blockchain voting’ are also used. While they are not exactly used as synonyms, they do indicate the set of systems designed to enable remote voting over the in… more

Checkpoint for technology introduction We begin this section with a caveat that the list making up the checkpoint should be treated as a starting point from which to evaluate the introduction of technology intended for public service. It is understood, acknowledged and foreseen that this section will undergo substantial changes after contributions from experts and interdisciplinary academics1. more

Future Risks It is necessary to understand that systems by the very nature of their design will contain a set of risks. Deployment of such systems is based, in theory, on an evaluation of the risk i.e. the actual impact of the event along with the chances of that event occurring. It is becoming increasingly obvious that contests such as elections which are an integral part of the democratic proce… more

Conclusions The ever-increasing presence of ‘apps’ and growth in the number of participants in the mobile software application ecosystems have created a perception of “there is an app for that”. Smart mobile devices connected to high speed data networks have resulted in ease of transacting a subset of everyday activities. There are various classes of transactions where the convenience is compleme… more

As part of this project we have been hosting webinars and conversations to explore and discuss some of the key concepts related to better understanding of the elections. The complete set of talks including links to the videos are available at the Election Tech project. more

Analysis of the Design Requirements for Remote Internet-Based E-Voting Systems link more