Vote by Internet

The “vote by Internet” does not have vocation to replace in the short run the physical vote by the insulator and the vote by correspondence. It is a new possibility which is added to both others. This opportunity is offered to the Governments, the organizations and to the voters. The vote by the insulator is a vote of proximity which requires the physical presence of the voter in a polling station. The vote by correspondence and the “vote by Internet” are remote votes. The «vote by Internet” is an opportunity to modernize the democracy, but it carries risks that must be controlled.

Our goal is to support you throughout the design process and implementation of tools adapted to the needs of Internet voting to achieve a relevant, efficient and limit the risks to the minimum allowed by the state of the art.

Our solution has been specifically designed to ensure full functionality of a voting system in line with the capacity to satisfy the most stringent security and control.

"e-citizenpoll“ is especially able to:

1. propose an online voting system connectable/disconnectable quickly from the network to shorten the time to start operating and the exposure time of the system to the Internet to the strictly necessary to the successful completion of the ballot.
2. guarantee the independence of the Electoral Authority in relation to the Administration. The Electoral Commission should be able to ensure a smooth election in a transparency and respect of the law, using tools provided by the Administration. For example, the encryption / decryption key of the electronic ballot box (an HSM Hardware Security Module) are owned and controlled by the Electoral Commission, not by the Administration.
3. Allow registered voters / voters to be able to authenticate sites, services, programs, documents published by the Electoral Authority (asymmetric cryptography).
4. allow the system to authenticate the registered voter (strong authentication by NTX Research Authenticator) from a computer, a CD-Card, a USB key, a mobile phone or a smartphone…
5. provide a warning system to voters to enable them to report a vote under duress (NTX Research Authenticator).
6. to ensure voter secrecy of its vote: ensuring the anonymity of the vote while authenticating the voter. Confidentiality is ensured throughout by a sequential process involving three separate HSM functions.
7. to prevent that an access to the system can make it possible to establish a link between a vote and the name of the voter. The system limits the prerogatives of each person in charge so that none is able to cheat the system without large scales collusion. For example, the physical keys of access to the three HSM (with complementary but distinct functions) are divided between various persons in charge. Another example, the sequence of input-output of the numerical bulletins in the electronic ballot box is made random to make their statement unpredictable.
8. ensuring the integrity of ballots and numerical results published by the Electoral Commission.

This last point is not regulated at present by the vote by correspondence! As soon as the voter deposited his bulletin in a mailbox, it does not control anything any more. The syndrome of the "black box" becomes even more pronounced in the case of electronic voting, the voter does not knowing what’s going on in the machine. While traditional online voting solutions may display a vote confirmation on voter’s display, no one can guarantee at 100% technical and technological process that leads from an "act of voting" to the proper account of the vote in the election results. In the best case, transparency can be ensured but its readability is mainly based on expert, only able to verify the operation of complex technical processes (encryption).

The solution "e-citizenpoll" of NTX Research , for its part, offers the concrete possibility for citizens to check easily and anonymously that first, his/her vote has been taken into account, and second been recognized as proper in the appropriate choice. Our system does not verify a priori that everything goes well during the electoral process (very difficult to achieve in practice) but gives every citizen the means to verify a posteriori that everything went according to the rules regarding his/her vote.