Digital voting pen

A digital voting pen is a system in which a combination of a digital pen and digital paper is intended to be used to capture voting slips. It resembles a conventional pen with a built-in digital mini camera that films the area around the pen tip and can therefore register the position at which the pen is being used. Its use should be used for a simple and quick counting of votes when casting votes in elections. It was originally planned to be used in the Hamburg mayor elections on February 24, 2008.

Voting

As before, the voter receives his ballot and makes his crosses on the paper in the voting booth with the ink of the digital voting pen . The pen automatically registers the positions on the voting slip at which the pen was placed. After the voter has made his crosses, he throws his ballot into the ballot box as before , but also gives the digital voting pen to the electoral board. This connects the selection pen with a reading device, which reads the stored pen placement coordinates and stores them on the connected local personal computer (PC). The storage takes place without time and sequence information in order to protect voting secrecy . After the data has been transferred, the electoral committee electronically releases the voting pen for the next vote and the next voter can cast his or her vote.

If the voter has made a mistake while ticking the box, he can request a new voting slip. The old ballot paper is torn up, the voting pen reset and re-activated, and the voter can vote again with the new ballot paper.

Technology of digitization

Digital pen based on Anoto technology

The digitization of the writing or ticking process is possible because the paper of the voting slip is finely patterned, barely visible to humans. The pattern divides the voting slip into a grid with a grid spacing of 0.3 mm. Each field of this grid is in turn clearly coded by tiny dots. When the pen is put on, the pen detects this with the help of a built-in mine pressure sensor, and the digital camera in the voting pen uses the pattern on the voting slip to identify the coordinates at which the pen tip is put on and saves these coordinates in a memory in the pen. This technology is the so-called Anoto technology , which the Swedish company Anoto Group AB developed and established.

evaluation

The evaluation is done by software, but can be checked for correctness at any time by the electoral committee. Valid (checkboxes) and invalid (the rest of the ballot) coordinate areas of the ballot are defined in the evaluation software. Using defined rules (was only written in valid areas? Was written in a maximum of n valid areas? Were crosses made in the valid areas?) The software assigns the individual ballot data records to the categories "valid", "to be checked" or "invalid" to. The electoral committee now has the option of displaying every ballot record, especially the “to be checked” and the “invalid” ones. For this purpose, the coordinates at which the pen was placed are overlaid with a corresponding digital ballot graphic. The writing information is thus visualized: It can be seen at which positions on the voting slip the pen was placed. As before, the electoral committee will advise on the validity of the ballot and the apparent will of the voters and then finally assign it to the categories “valid” or “invalid”. Each valid coordinate area (= checkbox) is assigned to exactly one candidate. This results in the selection result from the coordinate areas that are validly checked.

Vote counting

The election result is available immediately after the evaluation process. There is no manual counting, but it is possible if required. Subsequent checking of the digital ballot data records and subsequent checking of the evaluation, which was carried out by the software with the support of the electoral committee, is also possible. In particular, random sample comparisons between results obtained by machine (pen / software) and manually (ballot from ballot box / polling officer) are possible by completely manually counting randomly selected polling stations. A direct assignment of individual paper voting slips to the corresponding digital voting slips is not possible, or only possible with great effort, since the voting slips are not individualized.

However, there is currently no legal regulation in the event that there is a difference between the digitally determined result and the manual counting of the ballot papers. It must be regulated which of the two is the binding election result. In an election in Belgium, where there was an eight percent difference due to the existing law, the manually counted result was assumed to be binding. However, experts ("official experts") considered the computer count to be more credible.

For the state election in Hamburg it was planned to use the digital voting pen system as a dialing device . This means the priority of the digitally determined result. Manual ballot counting should only be carried out in random samples. The alternative is to use the digital dial pen system as a counting device . This means the priority of manual ballot counting. Then manual counting of all votes would be done. The counting device is used for quick counting and confirmation of the manual counting - which is error-prone in Hamburg's case.

After uncertainties about security aspects, a constitutional committee meeting on November 9, 2007 suggested by Prof. Joachim Posegga to use the digital voting pen system as a counting device. In the days that followed, this proposal was viewed by the opposition groups as a suitable compromise, but it did not succeed in the further course.

application

On April 26, 2006, the Hamburg citizenship unanimously decided to use the digital voting pen across the board in the 2008 Hamburg elections and commissioned the Senate to implement it. The correspondence of the result of the paper ballot paper with the electronic result should be randomly checked the first time it is used. According to State Returning Officer Willi Beiß, the exclusive use of the digital voting pen in Hamburg would have been a world premiere. Interior Senator Udo Nagel (independent) as well as the regional returning officer Willi Beiß emphasized several times that the digital voting pen is safe. Reference was made to the various certifications.

After GAL MP Farid Müller expressed considerable concerns about the security of the digital voting pen in autumn 2007, an expert hearing was held in the Constitutional Committee on November 9, 2007. As a result of the hearing, the chairmen of the three parliamentary groups represented in the parliament decided on November 15 to completely refrain from participating in the 2008 parliamentary elections.

Legal and Security

The digital voting pen is not approved for use in federal elections . For such an approval, the Federal Voting Device Ordinance would first have to be adapted, as it is tailored to devices with buttons and screens.

In Hamburg, the state election law would have had to be adapted to introduce it. Because this has not happened so far and the parliamentary groups do not intend to do so, the campaign for the 2008 general election was no longer possible. For Hamburg, too, approval by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt was determined as a necessary requirement.

The dotVote is based on the security requirements of a protection profile according to the Common Criteria , which was specially certified for a digital voting pen system on March 14, 2007 by the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). The certification of the dotVote system on the basis of this protection profile was carried out by the BSI and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). The result of the evaluation could only be published four months after the state elections in Hamburg.

The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) criticized the protection profile as an unsuitable means for voting systems. In addition, the technology used has significant security gaps. Representatives of the CCC wanted to show these security gaps at a special meeting of the constitutional committee in Hamburg on November 9, 2007. The demonstration was surprisingly canceled and instead presented an alternative possibility of attack in which the digital paper could be manipulated. This representation of the manipulability was rejected by representatives of the manufacturer because security measures existed against such manipulation. Committee members reacted angrily, accusing CCC officials of failing to provide evidence of their tampering claims. The court proceedings initiated by the manufacturer were decided in November 2009 after two instances at the Hamm Higher Regional Court in favor of the CCC.

See also

• Voting computer
• Ballot box

literature

• Hamburg orders 12,000 digital voting pens for 2008 . In: Die Welt , January 23, 2007
• e-voting: the pen compromise . ( Memento of October 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: c't , c't 6/2006, p. 90.
• The urn bypass - an electronic voting pen as an alternative to voting machines . In: c't 26/2006, p. 93.
• Abendblatt - "Digital election pen unconstitutional". In: Hamburger Abendblatt , September 25, 2007

Web links

• Citizenship and district assemblies will be elected digitally in 2008 . City of Hamburg
• E-voting: Hamburg introduces the digital voting pen . Heise Online News, November 1, 2006
• Digital voting pen system for Hamburg
• Company Anoto Group AB

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Off for the digital pen . heise-online
2. ↑ Electronic Voting Paper Audit Trail ( Memento of the original from March 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ael.be  
3. ↑ Verbatim transcript of the public meeting of the constitutional committee on November 9, 2007  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF)  
4. ↑ Plenary minutes 18/55  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) p. 2856  
5. ↑ about massive concerns about the security of the digital voting pen. In: Hamburger Abendblatt
6. ↑ Digital voting pen system (DWS)
7. ↑ Security certificate for requirements for digital voting pen fhh.hamburg.de
8. ↑ BSI certification ( Memento of the original from January 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ Chaos Computer Club hacks Hamburger Wahlstift . ccc.de
10. ↑ Verbatim transcript of the public meeting of the constitutional committee on November 9, 2007  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF)  
11. ↑ Selector pen again on the test bench . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , November 10, 2007
12. ↑ CCC wins in court . golem.de