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*** All Rights Reserved - Alex Weir 2006, 2007,
2008, 2009 ***
SEEV – SMS external encrypted voting
http://www.cd3wd.com/SEEV/SeevPpsHtm.htm
- a single file htm version of power-point
presentation of the SEEV System – this is the best and quickest way to grasp
what SEEV is about!... – for all users
http://www.cd3wd.com/SEEV/SeevPPT.ppt - a power-point presentation of the SEEV
System – this is the best and quickest way to grasp what SEEV is
about!... – for windows users only
http://www.cd3wd.com/SEEV/SeevPPT.htm
- a htm version of power-point presentation of the
SEEV System – this is the best and quickest way to grasp what SEEV is
about!... – for windows and Internet Explorer users only
Press Release 23 July 2006 – version 18 - with
revisions and additions as of 7 March 2007 and 4 January 2009
Low-cost Tamper-proof
electronic voting for the 3rd world - SEEV
Elections
in the 3rd world are a major problem. SEEV is a new innovative concept which uses
entirely existing technologies (mobile phone sms and
TAN-envelopes) in conjunction with an external international processing center
to ensure that phantom voters, ballot-box stuffing, count fraud etc are a thing
of the past. And the cost of this
electronic voting should be less than present-day paper voting systems. SEEV
could hold its first election within 6 months of project go-ahead.
http://www.cd3wd.com/SEEV/SeevPPT.htm
- a power-point presentation of the SEEV System – this is the best
and quickest way to grasp what SEEV is about!...
Postscript 7 December 2008
After the
electoral fiascos of Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe, I had hoped that the
International Community, who love democracy so much, would
have fought their way to my doorstep bearing armfuls of money to fund this
project. But no….. Therefore I am requesting donations – http://www.cd3wd.com/donation/ - with
which this project can go forwards.
Without meaningful money, this thing will go nowhere….
UN
Declaration of Human Rights - http://www.un.org/rights/50/decla.htm
Article 21.
(1)
Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly
or through freely chosen representatives.
(2)
Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The
will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this
shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by
universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free
voting procedures. (my italics)
It is a
known but under-appreciated fact that corruption is a major obstacle to
economic, social and human development in the 3rd world. It is known also that most if not
all 3rd world elections are problematic, but Conventional Wisdom
dictates that the efforts of the Carter Center, EU and others in stationing external
election observers largely solves this problem;
It does NOT.
The only
way to ensure that 3rd world governments bow out when the will of
the people is against them is to make the election voting, vote counting and
vote count aggregation processes run wholly by external parties (e.g. a
UN-related or other independent Global Electoral Commission – GEC).
The problem
with that scenario is that the cost and logistics of a worldwide mobile caravan
could easily challenge the most organized organization and could break anyone’s
bank.
So why not
take advantage of modern technology to solve the problem, with the following
requirements:
-
the
national government must not have any idea of how any single individual voted
-
each
individual who voted must have some kind of confirmation that their vote for a
certain candidate was indeed processed as a vote for that candidate and not as
a vote for any other candidate
Of course
national governments will still try to cheat by not registering voters, by giving
their supporters multiple votes, by creating phantom voters, but even some of
these methods of cheating can probably be addressed by a high-tech, low-cost
solution.
A promising
technique is to use mobile phone SMS (text) messaging. My proposed system would work as follows:
-
each voter is issued a PIN- and TAN-number
envelope, with secret numbers inside which are valid for the impending election
only. On the outside of the sealed VE
(voters envelope) there is a unique voters ID number (e.g. for Zimbabwe it may
be like 263 999 999 999,
with 263 designating the country, and there being enough digits for about 200
times the actual number of registered voters).
Note that the VE has the UVN in normal number representation and also in
barcode format, so that it can be accurately read and logged at the time of VE
distribution.
-
the
candidates each have a 4-digit number, say 0001 through 9999 (in some elections
there may be that number of candidates; although in presidential elections the
candidates who matter are usually 2 in number).
The Candidate Number (CN) of each candidate is highly publicized and
cannot be changed by the sitting government at any time, and especially not
close to the election itself. Indeed the
CN will be prominently displayed on all election posters for that candidate.
-
On
the day of voting each voter uses his or her voter’s envelope (or better still,
a pen-and-paper copy of all or only part of that envelope’s contents). There is an encryption grid.
Unique
Voter Number = 263 925 837 169 (repeated from the outside of the
envelope)
SEND
RECEIVE
|
1st
digit |
2nd digit |
3rd digit |
4th
digit |
1st
digit |
2nd digit |
3rd digit |
4th digit |
||
|
0 |
217 |
174 |
131 |
288 |
248 |
205 |
162 |
319 |
|
|
1 |
947 |
904 |
861 |
818 |
978 |
935 |
892 |
849 |
|
|
2 |
833 |
790 |
747 |
704 |
864 |
821 |
778 |
735 |
|
|
3 |
267 |
224 |
181 |
138 |
298 |
255 |
212 |
169 |
|
|
4 |
183 |
140 |
997 |
554 |
214 |
171 |
128 |
585 |
|
|
5 |
569 |
526 |
483 |
440 |
600 |
557 |
514 |
471 |
|
|
6 |
933 |
890 |
847 |
804 |
964 |
921 |
878 |
835 |
|
|
7 |
102 |
959 |
916 |
873 |
133 |
990 |
947 |
904 |
|
|
8 |
384 |
341 |
298 |
255 |
415 |
372 |
329 |
286 |
|
|
9 |
778 |
735 |
692 |
649 |
809 |
766 |
723 |
680 |
The above
grid is used as follows:
If you
choose the candidate 0001, then send a message as follows:
263 925 837
169*217 174 131 818
Soon after
sending, you should receive a confirmation message which reads:
263 925 837
169*248 205 162 849
Similarly,
the codes for candidate 9531 are:
263 925 837
169*778 526 181 818 (send)
and
263 925 837
169*809 557 212 849 (receive)
Note that every
grid for each one of the 5 million or 50 million or 500 million voter’s
envelopes is different, and that these number grids are effectively
one-time-pad encryption pads. The origin
of these printed envelopes is a computer database table, which is stored under
extremely high security at the IPC (and which is used to process the incoming
SMS messages at the time of voting).
You get
access to a mobile phone, you send an international SMS to the service center
number at the IPC (which is in Norway or Sweden – as a convention we will used
Sweden elsewhere in this document).
Since you chose candidate #1, you send 263 925 837 169*217 174 131 818
Note that
any and all erroneous, false or bogus sms’s are
logged and stored for later analysis by the Global Electoral Commission. 217 174 131 818
is the encrypted
vote, which is de-encrypted on the database server in Sweden to read candidate
#1.
Within some
minutes the phone you used should get a message back which reads:
263 925 837
169*248 205 162 849
This is
confirmation that the remote system received your vote and processed it for
candidate # 1 – if you don’t get any message in return or you don’t get the
message content 925 837 169*248 205 162 849, then something went wrong
somewhere – possibly due to your government fiddling with the process. You can resend several times, and hopefully
after 2 or 3 tries you get a successful confirmation.
OK – that
is an overview of how things will work.
Here follows some FAQ’s (frequently asked questions):
Q. In a typical 3rd world country, only 5% of the population has
a mobile phone. How do you get around that?
A. Sharing of one phone inside a family
and extended family, a neighbourhood, and the use of
mobile payphones and phone shops and kiosks..(these are widely prevalent in 3rd world
countries). In some remote rural areas,
international NGO’s may be kitted up to provide sufficient mobile phone service
for the voting period only. Satellite
phones provided by international NGO’s can be used in very remote areas.
Q. The question of getting that return/confirmation message could be a problem if
there are a lot of people queuing up to make their outward voting sms..
A. It is possible to have a virtual
phone number for receiving sms messages – checkout the
whole SAM concept at http://www.cd3wd.com/SAM/index.htm
. Additionally, all results could be
displayed on a website on a series of static webpages,
maintained by the IPC; these results could be reprinted by national newspapers
if they so wished.
Q. There are whole rural areas and remote regions of some 3rd world
countries with no mobile phone system or reception?
A. International development donors
could provide funds for the necessary infrastructure to rectify that situation;
and/or a paper vote could be necessary for those areas only. It should be possible for voters to travel
(typically walk) up to 10 km to get to a mobile phone reception zone. Additionally, national government regulation
of MPP’s could require that between them the various MPP’s inside the country
should effectively subsidise remote communities from
the proceeds of their urban operations, so as to install the necessary
infrastructure for nationwide coverage.
Q. How do you handle a country like Malawi, where only 1% or less have mobile
phones, and despite concentrated populations, then reception away from main
roads does not exist?
A. This requires 2 parallel programs – Malawi
and similar countries require a ‘phone-aid’ program (similar to the 1985 BandAid) to donate ‘obsolete’ Nokia 3310 and 1100 phones
and similar from advanced countries like UK and Germany free of charge to rural
and urban communities and individuals.
This is a great cause for Bob Geldof and Bono,
especially when linked to democratic voting and to economic development. The other side is that donors and commercial
MPP’s must input funds to install infrastructure and mobile masts, which must
be network-independent – i.e. they must operate with all commercial networks… Note that the retail price of new handsets is
typically US$ 75 even for the most basic, whereas the cost of a mobile line SIM
card in most African countries is usually less than US$ 1; therefore the
handset cost is the bottleneck, not the line (SIM Card) cost.
Q. What about REALLY remote areas which cannot justify mast erection?
A. Use Thuraya, Iridium or other satellite or gsm/satellite
dual systems to effect the voting process – NGO trucks will turn up at voting
week with banks of these phones to allow the extremely remote areas to exercise
their democratic rights.. And here,
people must be prepared to walk 20 km (not the usual 10 km) in order to vote…
Q. What about the ability of old people to understand the grid concept to
do the ‘simple’ encryption?
A. Since voting will no longer be
location-dependent, and may be scheduled to take place over a 7-day period,
then it should be possible for the (grown-up) children and/or grandchildren to
travel to the grandparents to assist them in the voting process, even although
they are not in the same Constituency.
Alternatively, people from the rural areas can travel to their relatives
in the urban areas for the week of voting.
In any case, there will have to be some voter education prior to the
election (and maybe even a trial or pilot election with bogus candidates, in
order to determine the percentage of problems which would occur in the real
election).
Q. Why should we have the Norwegians or
Swedes run this system and not the
Americans or the British?
A. The Americans and British have a credibility
problem with some or even many 3rd world governments.
Q. Why is the encryption so simple? Can it
not be cracked by malicious governments?
A. It needs to be simple so that the codes can
be calculated by a person with low or zero education and low numeracy. It is uncrackable
because it is a ‘one-time-pad’ system.
Q. What happens if you do not after some time receive a returned code/ confirmation?
A. You should resubmit the same message again –
doing so may be logged as an error or a malicious action, but the system will
also send out a second confirmation message (identical to the first).
Q. What about the cost of all these SMS’s?
A. Sending all SMS to that IPC number will be
free of charge – that will be programmed into the national MPP (mobile phone
providers) systems… This will apply only for the day or the week of
voting. The GEC will of course fund all
confirmation SMS’s outgoing from the IPC.
Q. How
long should voting be allowed for?
A. If meddling and sabotage by the sitting
government is suspected/expected, then best to allow
several days or even one week for the process, with constant management of the
process by the GEC, mainly to make sure that enough people are seen to be
voting. If intimidation and vote-buying
is seen to be a serious threat then maybe allow voting to take place over a 3-6
month period (trickle-voting).
Q. Who
distributes the VE’s?
A. This could be a local operation of the GEC –
if the sitting government is judged hostile to a fair process, one of its tools
will be to make it difficult or impossible to get a VE, and/or they will mix-up
and/or sabotage the process of allocating VE against National ID Number. Therefore VE’s could be distributed
effectively by NGO’s against show of ID and against having the ID photo match
the person who presents it. When
National ID’s also have biometrics (e.g. fingerprint) then that could be used
by the VE issuing authority (VEIA) as a cross-check. I am planning that VE’s are distributed over
a 6-month period up to the election.
Ideally the staff who distribute the VE’s do not include even one
in-country national.
Q. What
about lost or compromised VE’s?
A. Cancel those on the computer and issue a
whole new VE (a different UVN - again against National ID Card). This should possibly be a chargeable process,
so as to discourage carelessness and time-wasting.
Q. What about intimidation to confiscate people’s VE’s, and attempts to buy
people’s VE’s?
A. We have excellent strategies for that, but
choose not to outline them at this point in time, so as to give the bad guys
more self-confidence (the strategy is actually outlined below towards the end
of this document).
Q. Technical
points regarding VE’s and UVN’s?
A. UVN’s do not become validated in the GEC
Computer System until they are linked to a National ID Card. Therefore there is less possibility of rogue
governments to grab wads of VE’s and submit them (probably electronically and
automatically) during the voting period.
For this reason, the scenario where VE’s are
distributed by the GEC or by GEC-related and GEC-vetted NGO’s is probably
critical to SEEV.
Q. What
about backward countries like the UK which
do not have National ID Cards?
A. Such countries might use their postal system
to distribute the VE’s.
Q. What
about the Privacy of the Vote?
A. The SEEV concept is flexible. It should be possible to organize polling
stations with polling booths, each with its captive (tied-down) mobile phone,
where voters can choose to go to vote ‘in secrecy’. But one must realize that in many countries,
and especially outside the main cities and towns, such a system would be abused
by the sitting government and their local representatives to force people to
vote for them. Note that this is only a
possibility, which should be decided against in any and every country where the
remotest whiff of electoral fraud hangs in the air.
Q. What
about the timing of the distribution of
the Voters Envelopes?
A. In theory (and once again, this is a sop to
the conservative elections experts), the VE’s could be distributed at the
polling stations by the ‘Independent’ National Electoral Commission. But I maintain that this opens the public yet
again to abuse by the sitting government; SEEV is designed specifically to
remove such abuses.
Q. How do we counter deliberate mistakes regarding constituency perpetrated by
the sitting government to disenfranchise voters?
A. We make it possible for voters to vote either
for a party or for a candidate. The parties standing will each have a virtual
candidate number, and these numbers will not be allocated to candidates as
such. Anyone voting for one of these
party numbers will then automatically have their vote allocated to the
candidate in the constituency to which the electoral register allocates
them. This will ensure that trickery and
voter movement by the electoral commission does not disenfranchise the
voter. Additionally, the electoral
register will be frozen and published several weeks before the election. Possibly an SMS-based enquiry and response
service should be set up and operated during those last few weeks after the ER
Freeze so that people can confirm the candidates for whom they are entitled to
vote.
Q. What other
measures should be taken by the GEC to ensure fairer elections?
A. Mass issue of free low-cost short-wave
transistor radios some weeks or months before the election; external broadcasts
by opposition candidates on short-wave radio; commandeering of the local radio
and/or TV network at certain week and daytimes by the GEC in the run-up to the
election; close scrutiny of the voters roll for months before the election;
putting the voters roll on the internet from Sweden; political radio and/or TV
phone-in programs, etc etc etc
Q. Can
SEEV handle spoiled votes?
A.
There can be one of the candidate numbers which is allocated to be a
‘virtual spoiled vote’ (VSV) – i.e. persons voting for that number will be
‘wasting’ their vote, but those VSV’s will be counted by the system and issued
with the election results. Similarly, in
the event that a popular candidate is disqualified for whatever reason (e.g.
imprisoned on charges of fraud or homosexuality, or killed by state agents or
unknown assailants), then the GEC will probably allocate a ‘virtual candidate
number’ (VCN) to that would-be candidate, and voters can vote for that person,
although their vote will once again be effectively ‘wasted’; however that candidates total of VCN
Votes (VCNV) will be announced by the
GEC with the election results. In
technical terms, all VCNV’s will be subsets of VSV’s.
Q. Who
processes the election results?
A. All processing is done at the GEC, with zero involvement
of any and all persons with nationality and/or other connections to the country
whose election is being processed.
Results are announced from the GEC through internet, television and
radio linkup to the subject country.
Probably a live televised press conference is run for every election
result announcement. Only enough
aggregate information is released to the government and to the people of the
subject country as is deemed necessary and/or reasonable (so as to avoid
revenge and/or attacks on certain towns and regions by a deposed government /
political party and their militias).
Q. Is the
vote processing auditable?
A. Yes –
the initial data file which corresponds to the numbers on the Voters’ Envelopes
can be copied and stored under high security with the chosen auditors (e.g. one
of the major international auditing companies such as Price Waterhouse
Coopers). The program(s) which processes
the data can also be copied onto CD or DVD or external hard drive and stored
similarly. Then, the file which is the
result of the distribution of the Voters’ Envelopes is also stored. Finally, the incoming sms
voting messages are stored in a giant text file, which can also be copied and
given to the auditors. The auditors can
then set up the program to run the incoming sms
voting messages against the Voters’ Envelope file, which should produce an
exact copy of the result as announced by the Data Processing Center of the
GEC. The program(s) can also be analysed by the Auditors to ensure that there is no false
code which favours any candidate or party over any
other.
Q. Does SEEV have advantages for conflict
areas?
A. Most definitely – in many conflict areas,
there are armed groups who are out to kill and/or maim those who dare to
vote. The act of physically going to a
paper-based voting center can be literally taking one’s life in one’s
hands. SEEV eliminates that process.
Q. Will
this scheme be welcomed by 3rd world governments?
A. Some will welcome it, some will not. But it could for example be made a condition
of IMF, World Bank and other Donor assistance.
And countries which adopt the system are conforming to good-governance
practices (e.g. as per the NEPAD Scheme), which should be beneficial to them
with respect to Donors. Finally, adopting
such a system means that governments can get the whole-hearted support of the
people, who will be in no doubt whatsoever that the elected government is 100%
legitimate.
Q. How does the West sell this concept to 3rd
world governments, both good and bad?
A. By adopting this system also themselves – UK
and USA can pledge to use this system themselves – best even if they adopt this
system for elections BEFORE they ask any 3rd world country to do so…
Q. What about Arabic and non-Arabic Islamic countries, which presently mostly have
pro-western and/or corrupt dictatorships?
A. They will almost certainly fall to opposition
parties, which may be moderate centrist non-religious parties or which may be
Islamic fundamentalists. The important
thing for the international community will be to ensure that even if Islamic
Fundamentalists get into power, they are bound to holding further democratic
elections every 4-5 years and cannot impose dictatorship. It is probable that after 5,10
or 15 years the pendulum will swing and moderates will accede to power, at
least for one term.
Q. What
about Saudi Arabia and China – strong
friends of the West - who never hold elections?
A. The
question answers itself.
Q. What about Cuba – darling of the radical chic – who also never hold meaningful
elections?
A. Again
the question answers itself….
Q. Will
this scheme be welcomed by the national Electoral Bodies throughout the world
(including developed countries) ?
A. Some will feel that SEEV is a threat to their
existing paper-based conventional systems.
Others will fully understand the positive impact on 3rd world
countries and will appreciate its huge advantages. Many will fear the employment-reduction
effects of SEEV on their organization.
Q. Will
this scheme be welcomed by existing international voting-related organizations
and existing international voting experts?
A. Based on empirical evidence during the period
2006/09 through 2007/01, the answer is largely no. Existing international voting experts seem to
be under the (false) impression that existing election observer missions are
effective. They are also under the
impression that their own stature will be diminished by the advent of systems
like SEEV. Additionally they are under
the (correct) impression that most existing electronic voting systems are
ineffective, error-prone, and easy to cheat.
In general, election industry experts do not
appreciate and/or accept the widespread vote tampering and count fraud which occur in almost every 3rd world election at the
moment using conventional paper techniques and technology. The complacency with which the international
community fails to address this problem is more than astounding. Any technology
which offers an improvement on this present situation should be judged innocent
until proven guilty, instead of being judged guilty until proven innocent....
But there seems to be an organized or a disorganized conspiracy against
solutions such as SEEV which offer a solution to a problem which disbenefits the populations of 3rd world
countries, but which benefits multinational corporations, which benefits the
incumbent leaders of 3rd world countries, and with which problem the
leaders of developed countries for reasons unstated seem to agree and concur.
Q. Will
this scheme be welcomed by politicians in the developed countries?
A. Those who understand the importance of global
development, justice and stability will welcome it; some who tend to regard 3rd
world governments as pawns to be manipulated may have negative sentiments.
Q. What would be the impact of widespread fair and free voting throughout the 3rd
world?
A. Frequent change of governments (many would last
only 1 term – 5 years, and most would not exceed 2 terms) – this would be
largely a good thing. It should curtail
corruption to a great extent although it would not eliminate it. In general there would be a great positive
economic effect throughout the 3rd world as well as a great
pro-democracy effect.
Q. Will
this scheme also work for developed countries?
A. Certainly – and given its convenience, then
it may be preferred by many voters. It
may also help to counter voter apathy among the young, who are already very
used to sms voting….
Q. Can this system be used in proportional representation elections, with
multiple choice candidates?
A. Of course – with only a few modifications to
the system.
Q. What
about the technical feasibility?
A.
The company Mobilearts of sweden (www.mobilearts.com)
have reviewed this project in principle and are reasonably convinced that it is
technically feasible. Moreover they have the technologies to implement this
project for an international client
Q. How do the economics of the system look?
A. Quite
good – the TAN-envelopes cost about US$ 0.04 each – and they are the one core
element to the system. It is probable
that the international (i.e. foreign) workers or volunteers to distribute these
envelopes may make up the largest cost – if we calculate that one such
worker/volunteer can effectively distribute 250 VE’s per day and log those
envelope numbers against the recipients’ National ID Cards on their laptop
computer, then we can probably cost the distribution cost of each VE at US$
0.20 (i.e. US$ 50-00 per day per volunteer to cover accommodation, meals
etc). The cost of commercial sms-to-web or sms-to-PC gateway
services seems to be US$ 0.05 per sms, i.e. US$ 0.10
per vote (receiving vote plus issuing confirmation). Internationally-run elections in troublespots like East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq cost
typically US$ 10 to US$ 30 per voter. I
do not at the moment have cost figures to hand for conventional paper
elections.
Note that the Q & A below comes from email
communication January 2007 between ourselves and IDEA of Sweden, the highly
respected international elections body…. – the Q comes from IDEA, the A from
SEEV….
Q. Who is the GEC, how will it be
set up, elected/selected, structured, financed and monitored?
A. The
GEC will be operated by the UN or under UN monitoring. Financing
will be by UN. But if the voting system is also used by
developed countries (and there is no reason why not)
then charges for the processing should enable the GEC to become a
self-financing body.
Q. When electoral processes are
discussed, one of the main concerns today is how to build local ownership of
the processes developed in order to ensure that the knowledge remains within
the country, ensure long term sustainability and legitimacy for the process. It
is unclear to me how this system would support local ownership of the electoral
process.
A. The electoral
roll would remain the property of the country concerned. All or most
other functions would be devolved upwards to the GEC. At this point it is
necessary to point out that national elections are the only international
process where is is deemed acceptable that the judge
is also a contestant, and a contestant is also the judge. Of course the
international community points out that the Electoral Commissions are
'Independent', but in the 3rd world such independence is highly questionable,
and would remain so.
Q. Voter
registration etc. is usually carried out by the national Electoral Management
Body (EMB); who are you suggesting would carry out these tasks when there is a
GEC? The GEC? The national governments?
A. As indicated in my document, voter
registration will continue to be carried out by the EMB (i.e. the national
governments).
Q - Even if an ID card is needed to get
the VE, no proof of identity is needed to actually cast the vote, is that
correct? Everything needed to cast a vote is inside the envelope (the PIN and
TAN numbers)? This would make the envelopes very valuable indeed, and if fraud
is a salient risk in the country, there is reason to believe that these
envelopes will be stolen/bought/destroyed. Under a paper ballot system, the
ballot papers could be stolen too, but the use of ID cards on election day in
the polling station reduces the negative impact such theft could have on the
process.
A. since voting is done using mobile phone and can
be done from home or even from anywhere inside or outside the country.
Yes - the envelopes are very valuable indeed.
My strategy to
counter theft, buying, etc of the envelopes is that voters are encouraged to
make paper and pen copies of their voter's envelope at the time they receive
it. They can make some good (exact) copies, and also some deliberately
false copies. If they are coerced to hand over a copy (for money or for
free) then they can hand over one of the false copies. There is no way of
telling which copies are false and which are real until the first day of voting.
When the copies are made, the original envelope can and probably should be
destroyed or shredded. By the way, the false copies can be false in that for
example each of the grid numbers is modified by the simple algorithm of adding
a fixed number (e.g. 3) to every grid number..... then
the false copies are also the good copies and the good copies are also the
false copies...
Q - We have found that the issue of legitimacy and trust is related to, but by
no means the same thing as the actual security of the system. Also, the issue
of trust and legitimacy is likely to be especially salient in developing
countries. My concern is thus, even if it is true that the system is “uncrackable”, how will people know? It may be difficult for
voters to visualise and trust the process because it
is done in a way which seems
susceptible to fraud (especially to those unfamiliar to SMS technology), and no
(international or domestic, NGOs, parties etc.) observers will be able to
observe the voting, counting or tabulation.
A. Auditors will be able to audit the
process after the end of voting (see the latest release at http://www.cd3wd.com/SEEV/
). One needs recognisable faces and voices on
TV and radio announcing that the system is uncrackable
(e.g. present and former heads of UN, present and former heads of state of USA,
UK, Germany, France, Canada, Japan).
Q - What if the confirmation never comes when a voter has cast his/her vote?
Can the voter launch a complaint? How will that complaint be followed up? By whom?
A. There will be an sms complaint submission procedure. The submitted
VEUIN (voter envelope unique identification number) will be searched and all
submissions and responses which were sent by the system will be published on webpage
and also will be sms'd to the phone from which the
complaint was submitted. Response should be immediate. If no record of that VEUIN was found that obviously will be
communicated. Of course we need that collections of brains sit
down and hammer this one out....
Q - You mention that the VEs could be distributed by the GEC if “the sitting
government is judged hostile to a fair process”. Who would make this judgement? Will the GEC be overruling decisions by
governments in sovereign states?
A. In fact, all countries will have the
VE's distributed by the GEC and/or foreign or international NGO's, utilising zero country nationals.
Q - How will the secrecy of the vote be ensured? Once the VEs have been distributed,
are there any mechanisms to ensure that voter isn’t intimidated into voting in
a certain way or paid to do so? Even though intimidation or other types of
coercion can occur in other systems, the key thing is that it should be
impossible (or at least very hard) to prove how a person voted (even if the
voter him-/herself wants to be able to prove it to collect his/her reward or
avoid punishment). It seems that under the SEEV, it would be very easy to show
somebody else that the vote was cast and for which candidate, and this makes me
think that the secrecy of the vote is very hard to ensure. I see that you say
you have excellent strategies for this, but I think that people would be
interested in what these strategies are before being convinced that this
problem has been addressed adequately.
A. Refer to the concept of making exact and false
paper copies as above. Note also that if there are 500 million VE's
then each VE is unique and different.....Even if the person has let us say 2 VE's,
then note that only the first VE to be registered against the national ID card
is logged by the system as legitimate. The second VE will be disregarded
by the system when an sms
with that number and codes is sent (what exactly the reply message says is
a matter for discussion at this stage). Therefore a clever person can use the first envelope for voting and effectively
sell a vote from the second envelope. We obviously need to discuss this
further as a group. Note also that if the the
envelope copying and destruction strategy is implemented then the authorities
will immediately realise that all intimidation and
buying is rendered useless...
Of course,
there is one further radical variation of SEEV which would solve the Voters
Envelope problem – conduct Trickle
Voting, where people vote immediately or almost immediately after receiving
their voters envelope, i.e. over a period of say 3-6
months before the election result is announced and the new president and/or
government is sworn in. The long time-period
is necessary because of the expense and logistical difficulties in placing
enough foreigners in enough locations to correctly and accurately distribute
the VE’s over a short time-period (even 7 days would be a logistical
nightmare). The only real problem of
course with Trickle Voting is that people’s sentiments towards one or several
parties might change during that period as news and revelations come to light,
and therefore the result is dependent possibly on which geographical areas are
covered in which sequence.
Q - Could the system handle even preferential voting and mixed systems such as
Mixed Member Proportional and Parallel systems?
A. YES - The VE can have multiple
grids - and sms can be sent which is structured say
as 263 999 999 999 * 1 *
234 567 789 234 for the first candidate,
263 999 999 999 * 2 * 345 789 345 263 for
the second candidate etc etc..
Q - Finally: Much effort goes into designing pedagogical ballots with clear
instructions and colours and pictures to make casting
the vote as logical, easy and self evident as possible. Even the simplest and
most visually accessible ballot paper runs the risk of being misinterpreted by
some voters, and this is something that EMBs try to minimize. Looking at your
examples, it seems that writing a long line of numbers and asterisks coded for
the voter and the candidate/party is not as self evident and logical as one
could hope for in an ideal voting system. Also, will the voter receive a notification if he/she has
made a mistake, with instructions how to rectify that mistake or will the vote
be counted as an invalid vote?
A. Yes - there will have to be a
significant training effort, especially the production of very clear and simple
voting instructions on video, DVD and on paper/graphics. And the reply sms message will have to be very very
clear to enable the voter to respond without confusion.
The following brilliant idea for visual aids comes from Guido Sohne (www.sohne.net )
from Ghana:
The Q and A below are
taken from comments by other election experts…
Q - How you apply
such technology in a country without wide cellphone
coverage and still maintain the secrecy
and equal access of the vote.
A . Secrecy is already discussed above and is
well taken care of. Regarding equal
access to the vote - use the 7-day voting period, use satellite phones, expand
infrastructure before election, apply organisation
and resources to solve the problem - do not judge the problem as insurmountable
Q. In this system, whoever guards the database table has the possibility of tampering with
the results
A. I fully understand
the importance of this area - the DBA (database administrator) and associated
persons - strategies for dealing with this include the auditing process but
also some additional very high security measures which will be taken - I have
in 2004 worked on a project for Rwandese Military Savings Bank which
specifically addressed and resolved the potential problem of`insider
tampering with database records.
Q. There's the question of access to mobile
phones - your system would concentrate
considerable power in the hands of those who own mobile phones, or who
distribute them during and around elections
A. A legitimate point – we have to consider
that and work out possible dangers and solutions… If we go for trickle-voting then the problem
would be largely eliminated.
Q. I can't see any way
of ensuring unique codes remain in the hands of those for whom they're
intended, or of knowing that the person who's used a particular code is
the person accredited to do so (candidates or their agents could
presumably buy or steal these codes in the same way they do ballot papers/votes
under current systems)
A. See the stuff above on copying
and destroying the Voters Envelopes….
[SEEV/Weir comment : So at last an election
expert admits that the present paper-based system is prone to tampering and
interference…..]
Q. My over-riding fear is that you underestimate the
tendency of non-western, non-liberal societies (elites and ordinary people) to subvert
and transform institutional transplants (like elections) in ingenious and
surprising ways... that confound our western, liberal expectations.
A. I think that having lived and operated in the
highly corrupt and tricky Zimbabwean economic, social and electoral milieux, then I can and have imagined just about every
possible electoral trick in the book – as detailed extensively above; but I
will keep an open mind for yet more con-tricks perpetrated by politicians,
presidents, secret service agents and intelligence personnel.
Q. There's the question of the technology - simple in our
eyes, not so simple in the eyes of many poor people.
A. Refer to stuff above about training videos and printed material,
which is essential to the success of a scheme like SEEV. But at the same time, do not be patronizing
or underestimate the capacity of ordinary uneducated or semi-educated people to
use their brains.
The
Q and A above are taken from comments by other
election experts…
Q.
Your system makes it very easy to buy people’s votes – how do you handle that
problem?
A. Make it a very serious offence
through legislation in the country concerned to buy votes – possibly with
10 year minimum jail sentence – but also decriminalize totally any selling
of votes. That way people will not
hesitate to report if anyone bought their vote, and, although getting people to
sell their votes might be very easy, most likely after doing so they will
report you and you will spend 10 years in jail!
Q.
What qualifications and/or
experience do you personally have which entitles or enables you to design a
voting system?
A.
I
worked 3 months in Baghdad 2005 for IFES – the prestigious Washington-based
International Foundation for Electoral Systems – as their Database Adviser,
alongside UN and Iraqi Staff. Also I
worked as a volunteer 2003 in Rwanda for USAID/IESC/Geekcorps
in Rwanda, developing a front-end for their electoral register database. Probably more important than either
experience is 17 years developing computerized business systems and Management
Information Systems, largely for International Blue-Chip Corporations – doing
that kind of thing you get pretty good at designing systems in general and at
predicting and avoiding problems of all kinds.
Q. How do you propose to make money from your
invention?
A. I waive all rights to royalty income from
elections held in the 3rd world, but hereby levy a royalty payment
of US$ 0.001 per vote cast using this system or a variation thereof in
developed countries. Additionally, I
preserve my intellectual rights over the project.
There
follows a short discussion of logistics as of 8 January 2007:
http://www.cd3wd.com/SEEV/index.htm
http://www.cd3wd.com/SEEV/seev.zip
- a word .doc version of this webpage
http://www.cd3wd.com/SEEV/SeevPPT.htm
- a power-point presentation of the SEEV System
Press Release
23 July 2006
Mr Alex
Weir
4 Brechin Drive
Marlborough
Harare
Zimbabwe
Africa
Email: Alexweir1949@gmail.com
Links and other
media coverage :
Google Searches on my Letters on the Voting System - Voting System Search I - Voting System Search II
BBC WorldService Radio covered this system Friday 29 September
2006 on their morning Network Africa Program. Unfortunately there is apparently
no electronic version of this on the BBC website… The interview was by David Amanor with Alex Weir, and lasted about 5 minutes.
http://home.developmentgateway.org/ict/rc/ItemDetail.do~1069514?itemId=1069514
- development gateway is THE web destination for all 3rd world
development related material
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/viewinfo.cfm?linkcategoryid=3&linkid=8&id=2317
http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/sep28a_2006.html#Z22
http://www.cd3wd.com/SEEV/thezimbabwesituation.htm#Z22
http://www.aceproject.org/ace-en/focus/e-voting/seevsmsvoting/
- ACE Project is THE global home of international election experts.
http://www.analogzone.com/grnrept33.htm - a highly positive and very
interesting article by a ‘technie’ online magazine,
whose main argument is that SEEV seems rather superior to e-voting systems
which are currently in use in the USA.
http://www.cd3wd.com/SEEV/index.htm
http://www.cd3wd.com/SEEV/seev.zip
- a word.doc
version of this webpage along with a powerpoint file
of the presentation as below
*** All Rights Reserved - Alex Weir 2006, 2007,
2008, 2009 ***