Accuracy, Integrity, and Security in Computerized Vote-Tallying

摘要

Recommendations are provided to promote accuracy, integrity, and security in computerized vote-tallying, and to improve confidence in the results produced. The recommendations respond to identified problems, and concern software, hardware, operational procedures, and institutional changes. It is proposed that the concept of internal control, almost universally used to protect operations that produce priced goods or services, be adapted to vote-tallying, a non-priced service. For software, recommendations concern certification, assurance of logical correctness, and protection against contamination by hidden code. For hardware, recommendations concern accuracy of ballot reading, and design and certification of vote-tallying systems that do not use ballots. Improved pre-election testing and partial manual recounting of ballots are recommended operational procedures.