Page 110 - Towards Trustworthy Elections New Directions in Electronic Voting by Ed Gerck (auth.), David Chaum, Markus Jakobsson, Ronald L. Rivest, Peter Y. A. Ryan, Josh Benaloh, Miroslaw Kutylowski, Ben Adida ( (z-lib.org (1)

S. Bruck, D. Jefferson, and R.L. Rivest
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Paper Frogs
6.1
Hand-counted paper ballots most closely approximate the system we envision.
When a voter checks in, she is provided with a blank, official ballot. The voter
goes to a privacy booth and marks the ballot to correspond with her preferences
(vote capture). The voter can inspect and change the ballot if needed. When the
voter is satisfied with the ballot, she deposits the paper ballot in the ballot box.
Some ballot boxes date, time, and precinct stamp the ballot (vote casting).
This system lacks the authorization by the election official on the ballot itself.
6.2 Electronic Frogs in Precincts
When the voter checks in, she is given a memory card, containing the appropri-
ate information about the ballot, the precinct, and the election administrator.
The card is inserted into a slot in a PC. The PC’s screen then displays the al-
ternatives, and the voter makes her choices. The machine records the choices on
the memory card (vote capture). The voter then takes the memory card to a sta-
tion with a simple card reading device and screen. This is a completely separate
device. The screen displays the choices made by the voter. If the voter wishes to
change the ballot, she takes the memory card back to the vote-capture PC. If
the voter wishes to cast the ballot, she pushes the “CAST VOTE” button. The
memory card is then locked and kept as a physical audit trail. The vote-casting
machine records the votes electronically to be counted (vote casting).
Electronic voting today lacks a separate, physical audit trail, and the vote-
capture and vote-casting stages are in a single box, which can be both less secure
and more expensive.

6.3 Frogs from Anywhere
The Frog could also be a paper ballot that is printed from any computer, such as a
home PC. The paper shows a list of candidates chosen, the precinct number, and
other information such as the vendor’s name. The paper Frog also contains a two-
dimensional bar code (like in grocery stores) that contains the same information
as is printed, but in a format that is readily counted. The Frog is sealed and
brought to the polling place, verified, and submitted. The polling place would be
equipped with Frogs and with computers for capturing votes in case the voter
wanted to change the Frog prepared elsewhere.
One interesting aspect of this particular version of AMVA is, if we record the
vendor name on the Frog, then vendors could be compensated on a per ballot
basis. This would ensure that there was adequate money to stimulate innovation
in the development of software.

7 Discussion

We imagine that each county could purchase the vote-casting equipment. It
would consist of a very simple, very inexpensive box.