An N-Version Electronic Voting System

Abstract

The ballot battles of the 2000 US Presidential Election clearly indicate that existing voting technologies and processes are not sufficient to guarantee that every eligible voter is granted their right to vote and implicitly to have that vote counted, as per the fifteenth, nineteenth, twenty fourth and twenty sixth amendments to the US constitution. Developing a voting system that is secure, correct, reliable and trustworthy is a significant challenge to current technology. The Secure Architecture for Voting Electronically (SAVE) demonstrates that N-version programming increases the reliability and security of its systems, and can be used to increase the trustworthiness of systems. Further, SAVE demonstrates how a viable practical approach to voting can be created using N-version programming. SAVE represents a significant contribution to voting technology research because of its design, and also because it demonstrates the benefits of N-version programming and introduces these benefits to the field of voting technology.