How the Transparent voting system works


What follows is a sample scenario of a voter using Transparent voting.

Voters spend most of their time at a polling place either making their selections or waiting in line for a machine where they can make their selections.  With Transparent voting, any personal computer can be used for this part of the process.  In a sense, this is no different from the process by which absentee ballots are completed today, except for the advantages of modern technology.  One such advantage is the ability to read more details about a choice by "click"ing on the choice as you would while browsing the web.

Using a personal computer for voting has been proven insecure, but the personal computer in Transparent voting is being used to prepare the ballot, not cast the vote.  The worst thing that malicious programs, hacking, viruses, or trojans can accomplish at this point is to spoil the voter's ballot.  The spoiled ballot is easily detected in subsequent steps of the process.

Naturally, personal computers must be provided at the polling place for voter's who do not have access to a personal computer.  It seems likely that voters will take advantage of the ability to prepare their ballot in the comfort of their homes if this is available to them.  Personal computers at the polling place will be more limited in nature to assure that viruses or other malicious programs can not be installed.

Once the voter makes their choices on a personal computer, these choices are saved to a device.  Nearly any device could be used for this.  A diskette, a printed page (UPC codes), or cards with a magnetic stripe are all possible ways to save the voter's choices to a portable media.  Now the voter is ready to visit their polling place to record (cast) their vote.

Many voting advocacy groups believe a printed copy of a voter's choices is key to conducting fair elections.  This would be the time to create such a printout.

Just as all voting processes in use require, a secure polling place is necessary in order to provide voting free from coercion.  For the same reason, personal computers must always be available at the polling place so that a voter can create a new ballot as desired.

Once the voter has saved their choices, a final check is performed on the secure machines of the polling place.  This machine cannot modify the choices made so far.  This step is only for the purpose of detecting any tampering with programs in the previous steps (resulting in a spoiled ballot).  If a problem is detected at this point, the voter is allowed to start over using the personal computers at the polling place and to create a new ballot.

Finally, the voter is ready to record (cast) their vote.  This is the step that corresponds to dropping your ballot into the ballot box in manual systems.  The voter is challenged for their identity, just the way voters are challenged in all voting systems to prevent voters from casting multiple ballots.

Assuming the voter is eligible to vote, an administrator will take their saved vote (in our example, a diskette) and place it in the recording computer.  The voter enters a Personal Identification Number (PIN) to allow for additional security.  The recording computer contacts the central computer (where all votes are stored) using a secure connection.  Secure connections are the method by which banks and other financial institutions communicate sensitive information.  A secure connection is necessary to prevent a form of computer hacking known as a "man in the middle" attack.

The central computer finds a random place to store the voter's vote or ballot.  The central computer then stores the ballot and returns a receipt so that the voter can later locate their ballot on the central computer.  The only person who gets this receipt is the voter, so only the voter can find their vote later on.

Because of concerns regarding coercion, the voter should be able to cast two ballots (only one of which is counted toward the election).  This preserves an important aspect of the secret ballot: that only the voter knows how they voted.  For some time now, most voting systems have relied on a secret ballot to prevent an employer, a neighborhood bully, or possibly someone closer to home from telling you how to vote.  With a secret ballot, there is no way for such a person to force you to vote in a particular way.  Since our system allows you to see your vote after it is cast, it is possible someone might attempt to tell you how to vote.  Our solution is to allow you to enter more than one ballot in the database.  Only your first ballot will be counted.  If you have someone in your life that insists on seeing how you voted, you can show him or her whatever it is that they want to see on a ballot that is not counted.  Only you will know how you actually voted.

The voter can look up their vote any time after their vote is cast by entering their PIN and receipt.  This could be available at the polling place on Election Day.  We believe the voter should be allowed to look up their vote online from any computer, and there may be reasons to restrict such access to secure locations.


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