European online voting
experiences
Andreu Riera, PhD
Chairman
Scytl Online World Security S.A.
DIMACS Voting Workshop
Rutgers University
26-27 May 2004
Contents
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About Scytl
Scytl’s approach to Internet voting security
Internet voting in Europe
Example 1: The Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel
Example 2: 2003 Elections to the Parliament of
Catalonia
• Example 3: Madrid Participa
• Concluding remarks
Contents
•
•
•
•
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About Scytl
Scytl’s approach to Internet voting security
Internet voting in Europe
Example 1: The Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel
Example 2: 2003 Elections to the Parliament of
Catalonia
• Example 3: Madrid Participa
• Concluding remarks
The origin of Scytl
1994
2001 2002 2003 2004
1994: The academic research on e-voting cryptography was initiated at the Universitat Autònoma
de Barcelona, with the main goal to balance security and practical feasibility
1996: Completion of the PhD Thesis “Design and Development of a Cryptographic Scheme to
Perform Secure Elections over a LAN”
1997: First Internet binding election in Europe (Presidency of the IEEE IT Spanish Chapter)
1999: Completion of the PhD Thesis “Design of Implementable Solutions for Large Scale
Electronic Voting Schemes”
2001: Scytl Online World Security is spun-off from the research lab
2001 - 2003: The company receives support and acknowledgement from the Spanish Ministry of
Science and Technology, the Catalan Government, the European Commission, …
Scytl’s research team account for more than 20 international scientific
publications on e-voting security
Contents
•
•
•
•
•
About Scytl
Scytl’s approach to Internet voting security
Internet voting in Europe
Example 1: The Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel
Example 2: 2003 Elections to the Parliament of
Catalonia
• Example 3: Madrid Participa
• Concluding remarks
Internet voting security
Auditing
Physical
Security
measures
Technical
security
measures
Procedural
Security
measures
What’s Pnyx?
• Pnyx is a patent-pending (priority date December
2001) security software for e-voting systems
• Pnyx implements a mixing-based application-level
cryptographic protocol, in which the mix-net has
been substituted by a cryptographic secret sharing
scheme
• The main goal of Pnyx is to tunnel the vote casting procedure from
the voter all the way to the members of the electoral board through all
the technical systems and privileged personnel sitting in between
(therefore addressing the “black box” issue)
• Pnyx supports different voter authentication mechanisms, but in any
case it assumes an underlying PKI for the electoral roll
• Pnyx provides individual verifiability by voters, and auditability by third
parties
• Next version of Pnyx addresses the “virus problem”
in the client device (as denounced for example in
the SERVE Security Report)
Pnyx protocol overview
Contents
•
•
•
•
•
About Scytl
Scytl’s approach to Internet voting security
Internet voting in Europe
Example 1: The Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel
Example 2: 2003 Elections to the Parliament of
Catalonia
• Example 3: Madrid Participa
• Concluding remarks
European approach to Internet
voting
• The European Commission is working towards the
implementation of Internet voting at the European
level
• The Council of Europe is drafting a set of
recommendations that will be issued to all Member
States
• Some countries are actively testing Internet voting
and/or have defined a complete roadmap to deploy
Internet voting
• Some countries have run Internet voting experiences
and are in the phase of defining an strategy to deploy
Internet voting
• In general Internet voting is seen as a way
– to modernize electoral processes
– to try to increase voter turnout, and
– to engage citizens in participatory activities
Contents
•
•
•
•
•
About Scytl
Scytl’s approach to Internet voting security
Internet voting in Europe
Example 1: The Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel
Example 2: 2003 Elections to the Parliament of
Catalonia
• Example 3: Madrid Participa
• Concluding remarks
Canton of Neuchâtel
• The perfect example of participatory democracy:
– 500 people out of almost 200.000 citizens can request a referendum
– 6/8 binding elections/referenda per year
• 90% of people vote by mail (the voting period lasts approximately one
month –one single day in the case of poll-site voting–)
• Internet voting system fully integrated into the Canton’s e-government
portal (Guichet Unique Sécurisé)
• One of the very few permanent and binding Internet voting systems in
the World
• The project initiated in 2003 as a pilot Canton for the Swiss Federal
Government, with the aim of complementing/substituing postal voting
• 20.000 electors in the first phase, who have to
collect their voting credentials at their City Hall
Contents
•
•
•
•
•
About Scytl
Scytl’s approach to Internet voting security
Internet voting in Europe
Example 1: The Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel
Example 2: 2003 Elections to the Parliament
of Catalonia
• Example 3: Madrid Participa
• Concluding remarks
Generalitat de Catalunya (1)
• First Internet voting experience in Spain run in parallel to actual public elections
• Approved (for the first time) by the Central Electoral Commission
• 23.234 citizens were allowed to participate from Argentina, Belgium, Chile, USA
and Mexico (“CERA” electoral roll)
• Voting allowed during three days:
• Opening: 10:00 November 14th 2003
• Closing: 20:00 November 16th 2003
• Voting kiosks were installed at several Casals Catalans,
but also any computer connected to the Internet could
be used to cast a vote
• The process was done in front of more than 20 national
and international observers, along with several
representatives from the Spanish Senate
Generalitat de Catalunya (2)
• The electorate was totally satisfied with the experience and demanded
the introduction of binding Internet voting
• In the USA: almost 40% participation rate on real voter participation
• In Mexico: more than 220% of participation rate on real voter participation
• 563 surveys were filled by voters, with 216 free-text comments
• 97% expressed satisfaction with the experience
• 96% felt confident with the e-voting system
• 98% considered the e-voting process as easy to use
• 98% said they would had used the system to cast binding votes
Contents
•
•
•
•
•
About Scytl
Scytl’s approach to Internet voting security
Internet voting in Europe
Example 1: The Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel
Example 2: 2003 Elections to the Parliament of
Catalonia
• Example 3: Madrid Participa
• Concluding remarks
Madrid municipality (1)
• Up to date, the most significant e-participation project in
Europe
• All citizens (regardless of their nationality) older than 16
of the central district of Madrid (totalling 120.000
persons) will be asked 3 questions about the municipal
priorities for the district
• Multi channel: Internet, kiosks and mobile phones
• Official webpage: www.madridparticipa.org
Madrid municipality (2)
Partners
Dates
Introducing the preliminary
report of the event
Voting
June 28-30th
Starting the promotion
June 14th
Presenting the project
May 21st
July
Contents
•
•
•
•
•
About Scytl
Scytl’s approach to Internet voting security
Internet voting in Europe
Example 1: The Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel
Example 2: 2003 Elections to the Parliament of
Catalonia
• Example 3: Madrid Participa
• Concluding remarks
Conclusions
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A number of successful Internet voting experiments have already taken
place in several European countries
The possibility of increasing democratic participation, and of achieving more
efficiency in democracy, is taken very seriously; e-democracy is seen as an
enabling tool
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The European Union, and every country (at its own pace) are working
towards implementing Internet voting in elections and/or in consultations
The leadership of the European Union could be a definitive step to join
individual efforts and speed up the entire process
A number of countries will deploy Internet voting –for certain segments of
the electorate such as citizens living abroad– while poll-site voting will still
be completely based on paper (no use of DREs at all)
Security is a primary concern, but it is seen as something achievable
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E-participation could be the incontestable winner in the short term
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