Indisputable electronic elections at polling places

Introduction Stripped to its essence, the highest requirement of any election is that it produces an accurate published count of the eligible voters’ intended choices – that is, it must be “counted-as-intended.” Typically, this process is divided into two stages: casting and counting. To maintain the electorate’s belief and willingness to be bound by the outcome of an election, both voters and independent observers must verify these casting and counting stages. Voter Verification ensures that each vote is cast-as-intended. Results Verification ensures that all cast ballots are counted-as-cast. Taken together, Voter Verification and Results Verification provide total Election Verification – all voter choices are counted-as-intended. Casting is where you capture your choices on some media, encoded according to some publicly documented set of rules. This recorded, or captured, data is generally referred to as the voter’s voted ballot. Counting is where the collection of cast, voted ballots (i.e., “the ballot box”) is counted. The ballot box could be a stack of paper kept in a locked vault under constant watch – in which case one might argue that the ballot box is not publicly approved, but only approved by a set of election trustees who represent the public. The ballot box could also be published – in which case, one could argue, it is much closer to being publicly approved, since access to the ballot box is granted much more broadly. Voter Verification ensures that your voted ballot accurately captures your intent and is contained in the ballot box for counting – your ballot is cast-as-intended. Since only you (the voter) know your intent, only you can be responsible for Voter Verification. Specifically, it involves two distinct checks: