A Secure, Transparent, Auditable, and Reliable Voting System
USENIX Journal of Election Technology and Systems (JETS) Volume 1, Number 1 • August 2013 STAR-Vote: A Secure, Transparent, Auditable, and Reliable Voting System Susan Bell, Office of the Travis County Clerk Josh Benaloh, Microsoft Research Michael D. Byrne, Rice University Dana DeBeauvoir, Office of the Travis County Clerk Bryce Eakin, independent researcher Gail Fisher, Office of the Travis County Clerk Philip Kortum, Rice University Neal McBurnett, ElectionAudits Julian Montoya, Office of the Travis County Clerk Michelle Parker, Office of the Travis County Clerk Olivier Pereira, Universite´ catholique de Louvain Philip B. Stark, University of California, Berkeley Dan S. Wallach, Rice University Michael Winn, Office of the Travis County Clerk STAR-Vote is a collaboration between a number of academics and the Travis County (Austin), Texas elections office, which currently uses a DRE voting system and previously used an optical scan voting system. STAR-Vote represents a rare oppor- tunity for a variety of sophisticated technologies, such as end-to-end cryptography and risk limiting audits, to be designed into a new voting system, from scratch, with a variety of real world constraints, such as election-day vote centers that must support thousands of ballot styles and run all day in the event of a power failure. This paper describes the current design of STAR-Vote which is now largely settled and whose development will soon begin. 1. INTRODUCTION A decade ago, DRE voting systems promised to improve many aspects of voting. By having a computer mediating the user’s voting experience, they could ostensibly improve usability through summary screens and a variety of accessibility features including enlarged text, audio output, and specialized input devices.
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