Page 132 - 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)

Electronic Elections: A Balancing Act
Pedro A.D. Rezende*
Department of Computer Science
University of Brasilia, Brazil
prezende@unb.br

Abstract. This article aims to share some major lessons learned from the pio-
neering experience in Brazil with the world’s first full national implementation
of universal electronic voting. Differing notions of security, and their “collateral
entanglements”, appear to play a key role and are contrasted in Brazil’s pioneer-
ing electronic voting saga. After an introduction, we puzzle through what elec-
tion security may mean. We elaborate on how technological innovations may
affect the underlying risks, their nature, corrections and balance. Then we de-
scribe some ways in which innovations have been deployed and validated, and
how the results are being perceived, before some closing remarks.

Keywords: Electronic Elections, Electronic Voting, Voting Auditability.

1 Introduction

Four times since 2000, until the writing of this article, more than one hundred million
1
voters in Brazil have been obliged to vote using direct-recording electronic voting
machines (DREs), which do not allow for recounts. This raises questions such as
whether, and if so how, electronic elections can be audited meaningfully. Such ques-
tions have been the subject of academic debate worldwide, and in Brazil the discus-
2
sions started even before DREs were fully deployed .
The real issue is auditability. That is to say, the nature of possible assurances re-
garding the correct tallying of the votes cast by entitled voters. This boils down to the
pertinence, or necessity, for a material representation of each vote to be held by the
voting system, to allow for credible audits. Credible, here, meaning worthy of trust by

*
Pedro Antonio Dourado de Rezende is a tenured professor at Computer Science Department,
University of Brasilia (UnB). Advanced to Candidacy for PhD in Applied Mathematics from
University of California at Berkeley in 1983, heads the UnB Cryptography and Info Security
Extension Program since 1997. Author of over one hundred articles on related topics, was a
member of Brazil's Public Key Infrastructure Steering Committee from 2003 to 2006, as rep-
resentative of civil society by presidential appointment.
1
Voting in official elections in Brazil is mandatory for eligible voters of ages 18 to 65, under
national electoral law.
2
In Brazil, electronic voting machines were introduced in 1996. However, debates on electronic
voting audit had already started in 1982, with the first reported case of electronic fraud in vote
tallying. This happened in the gubernatorial election at the state of Rio de Janeiro, also the first
to be tallied electronically, in what became known as the ProConsult case. [see ref. 1].

D. Chaum et al. (Eds.): Towards Trustworthy Elections, LNCS 6000, pp. 124–140, 2010.
© IAVOSS/ Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010