Open-source voting system

An open-source voting system (OSVS), also known as open-source voting (or OSV), is a voting system that uses open-source software (and/or hardware) that is completely transparent in its design in order to be checked by anyone for bugs or issues.[1] Free and open-source systems can be adapted and used by others without paying licensing fees, improving the odds they achieve the scale usually needed for long-term success.[2] The development of open-source voting technology has shown a small but steady trend towards increased adoption since the first system was put into practice in Choctaw County, Mississippi in 2019.[3]

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Significance

Security and trust
See also: Open-source software security and Security through obscurity

Systems where more people can understand more of the process and get insights into details serve a similar purpose to election observers who help to inspire trust with increased transparency and verification.[4] Additionally, when 90% of the market of election systems in the United States, for example, are run by 'murky' and 'inscrutable' private equity companies, conspiracy theories can flourish alongside serious vulnerabilities.[4] With quicker identification and correction of issues than under proprietary systems, organizations such as the U.S. Defense Department and NASA opt to incorporate open-source software.[5] Cities, for example, can have their own staff work on software with the vendors when out in the open, allowing for faster patches and enhancing their election security.[6] The consensus among the information security community is that a widely-used open-source system should be more secure than a closed one, as more people tend to be willing and able to check for vulnerabilities.[7]

Cost Savings

In addition to increased transparency creating more trust and security, open-source software can lower costs for elections. A VotingWorks bid in a Mississippi county, for example, was 50% less than the other vendors using proprietary software,[8] while its machines in 2021 were listed at 1/3 the price of the average machine.[4] Open-source software allows maintenance costs to be controlled via vendor competition (rather than dependence on just a couple vendors), and to be shared with other jurisdictions as they employ the software.[9]

Development milestones

In 2004, Open Voting Consortium demonstrated a "Dechert Design" GPL open source paper ballot printing and scanner voting system.[10] In 2008, Open Voting Consortium demonstrated the system at a mock election for LinuxWorld.[11][12] In 2019, Microsoft made its ElectionGuard software open-source, which the company claims is used by all major manufacturers of voting systems (in the United States),[13] however they have come under fire for obstructing the adoption of open-source election software.[14] In 2020, Los Angeles County became the first U.S. jurisdiction to implement its own publicly-owned election system.[15] The Los Angeles attempt at open source voting was dismissed by Open Source Initiative as a failed project when it did not meet accepted open source standards. A condition of the Secretary of State's approval was to open-source the code by October 1, 2021,[16] but had not met that commitment as of February 2022.[17] San Francisco applied to run a limited pilot in November 2022, but California's Secretary of State asked the City to resubmit their application when VotingWorks' ranked-choice voting module was closer to completion.[18]

Adoption

Mississippi was the first state to have local jurisdictions use open-source voting systems to cast and count ballots. In New Hampshire, the towns of Ashland, Newington and Woodstock piloted that same open-sourced software system in the fall of 2022 with an eye to possible statewide adoption of VotingWorks' open-source systems by 2024.[19]

Open-source election risk-limiting audit systems have been implemented statewide in the U.S. states of Georgia,[20] Michigan, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Virginia and in local jurisdictions in California, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington.[21]

See also

References
  1. "The threat to our voting system that's more likely than hacking". PBS NewsHour. 2016-10-05. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  2. "2017-2018 Civil Grand Jury Report on Open Source Voting in San Francisco" (PDF). Retrieved December 5, 2022.
  3. Huseman, Jessica. "The Way America Votes Is Broken. In One Rural County, a Nonprofit Showed a Way Forward". ProPublica. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  4. Wofford, Ben (June 25, 2021). "One Man's Quest to Break Open the Secretive World of American Voting Machines". POLITICO. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  5. Woolsey, R. James; Fox, Brian J. (2017-08-03). "Opinion | To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  6. Elder, Jeff (November 14, 2021). "How one company came to control San Francisco's elections". San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved 2022-12-04.
  7. "2017-2018 Civil Grand Jury Report on Open Source Voting in San Francisco" (PDF). Retrieved December 5, 2022.
  8. Guizerix, Anna (2021-08-18). "Warren County Supervisors approve purchase of new voting machines". The Vicksburg Post. Retrieved 2022-12-04.
  9. San Francisco Open Source Voting Technical Advisory Committee. May 14th 2019 Meeting. Committee Member Brandon Phillips. p. 39. https://osvtac.github.io/files/meetings/2020/2020-03-12/packet/DT_OSV_State_of_Art_Briefing_Feb_2020.pdf
  10. Schwartz (NYT), John (April 1, 2004). "Technology Briefing | Software: Voting Software To Be Demonstrated". The New York Times.
  11. Weiss, Todd R. (August 6, 2008). "Open-source e-voting gets LinuxWorld test run". Computerworld.
  12. Gage, Deborah (2008-08-02). "Voting machine gets LinuxWorld tryout". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2023-06-18.
  13. "Microsoft makes its open-source secure voting software available to all". Engadget. Retrieved 2022-12-04.
  14. "The Real Activist" 2021 Documentary. 15:45-20:55.
  15. "AP20:091 Los Angeles County VSAP 2.1 Voting System Certified :: California Secretary of State". www.sos.ca.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-05.
  16. "Conditional Approval of Los Angeles County's Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP) 2.1 Voting System" by Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State. October 1, 2020. Condition 28, p. 6. https://votingsystems.cdn.sos.ca.gov/vendors/LAC/vsap2-1/vsap21-cert.pdf
  17. "Voting Security and the Status of Open Source Software". KALW. February 23, 2022. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  18. "Update on Open-Source Pilot Program." Letter from Shirley N. Weber, California Secretary of State to John Arntz and the City and County of San Francisco. May 6, 2022. https://sfgov.org/electionscommission/sites/default/files/Documents/meetings/2022/2022-11-16-commission/Attachment%201.pdf
  19. "3 N.H. towns are testing out new ballot counting machines that use open source software". www.wbur.org. November 8, 2022. Retrieved 2022-11-25.
  20. "Georgia Sec. of State chooses own race for election audit". 11Alive.com. November 10, 2022. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  21. "VotingWorks FAQ". www.voting.works. Retrieved 2022-12-04.
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