SGER: A Performance Ratings Framework for the Evaluation of Electronic Voting Systems

计算机科学界(CS)见证了数十年来对银行或投票等常见交易的安全技术的研究。然而，强大的加密技术--例如用于投票的加密选票--还没有进入公共领域。很大一部分原因是，目前的电子投票标准是通过/不通过的，并没有为使用新技术提供激励。此外，虽然标准中提到了投票系统所需的属性(如计票完整性和投票保密性)，但它们没有明确定义，标准也没有以属性为中心。相反，该标准集中在15年前的投票系统的具体设计上。因此，除了通过/不通过标准掩盖了创新系统的优势外，由于不是以旧的设计为基础，创新系统也面临障碍。该项目旨在寻求一个重要的近期(2005年春季)机会，以改变评估电子投票系统的基础。根据《帮助美国投票法》(HAVA)，参议院任命的选举援助委员会(EAC)将于2005年春季向美国众议院提出技术建议。这组研究人员希望对这些建议做出贡献。特别是，该小组正在共同努力，根据投票保密、计票完整性、选民和公开可验证性、系统透明度、可靠性、可用性和残疾人无障碍等明确定义的属性，对投票系统的性能进行评级和比较。对这样一个框架的需求是迫切的，因为HAVA的最后期限很明确，另一个为美国大规模选举做出贡献的机会可能不会很快再次出现。该项目将通过与东非共同体的技术准则制定委员会(TGDC)和NIST的投票系统标准项目密切合作，为提交给参议院的建议的技术核心做出贡献。该项目将开发一种评级机制，以捕捉选民、投票机、汇总过程、计票和审计之间的信息流特性。调查人员希望根据所开发的绩效评级系统的一些关键维度来测试原型。该项目还将开发一个测试套件，以实现对大量选票的一些属性的测试。智力优势：该项目将通过定义针对特定属性的绩效评级的技术核心，帮助完善关于投票系统的辩论。它还将开发一个测试套件，并研究一种领先密码技术的可扩展性。该项目的成果将包括：(A)用于评价投票系统的技术核心的安全和隐私方面，以及(B)一个开放源码的投票系统原型。广泛影响：该项目将通过对选管会的技术建议的投入，促进确定新的投票标准的进程，并将向公共利益团体提供第一个具有选民可验证性的开放源码投票系统原型，以供分析和教育。该项目还将帮助培训安全领域的研究生，并将有助于发展计算机科学界与参与民主进程的公共利益团体之间的联系。

The Computer Science (CS) community has witnessed decades of research into security techniques for commonplace transactions such as banking or voting. Yet, powerful cryptographic techniques - such asencrypted ballots for voting - have not made their way into the public domain. A large part of the reason is that the current standard for electronic voting is pass/fail in nature, and provides no incentive for the use of novel techniques. Further, while desired properties of voting systems (such as count integrity and ballot secrecy) are mentioned in the standard, they are not well-defined, nor is the standard centered on the properties. Instead, the standard is centered on specific designs of voting systems from over fifteen years ago. As a result, innovative systems, in addition to having their advantages obscured by a pass/fail standard, also face hurdles for not being based on the old designs.This project is aimed at pursuing an important near-term (Spring 2005) opportunity to change the basis on which electronic voting systems are evaluated. Technical recommendations are to be made to the U.S. House of Representatives in Spring 2005 by the Senate-appointed Election Assistance Commission (EAC), under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). This group of researchers hope to contribute the recommendations. In particular, the group is working together to rate and compare voting systems on performance with respect to well-defined properties such as: ballot secrecy, count integrity, voter and public verifiability, system transparency, reliability, usability and accessibility for the handicapped. The requirement for such a framework is urgent, as the HAVA deadline is firm and another opportunity to contribute to the conduct of mass elections in the U.S. may not appear again soon. This project will contribute to the technical core of the recommendations to the Senate by working closely with the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) of the EAC and the Voting Systems Standards Project of NIST. The project will develop a rating mechanism that captures the properties of the flow of information among voters, voting machines, aggregation processes, counting and auditing. The investigators hope to test a prototype against some of the key dimensions of the performance rating system developed.The project will also develop a test suite to enable testing with respect to some of the properties for largenumbers of votes.Intellectual merit: The project will help refine the debate on voting systems by defining a technical corefor ratings of performance with respect to specific properties. It will also develop a test suite and studythe scalability of a leading cryptographic technique. Outcomes of this project will include (a) thesecurity and privacy aspects of the technical core used to evaluate voting systems and (b) an open-sourceprototype voting system.Broader impact: The project will contribute to the process of determining a new voting standard through input to the technical recommendations of the EAC and will make available to public interest groups for analysis and education the first open-source prototype of a voting system with voter verifiability. The project will also help train graduate students in the area of security, and will help develop ties between the computer science community and public interest groups engaged in democratic processes.