Online voting project – New developments in the voting system and consequently implemented improvement in the representation of legal principles

Abstract

For several years, T-Systems Enterprise Services GmbH has been researching the creation of a highly secure voting system that meets the latest cryptological standards. With exclusive responsibility for the W.I.E.N (Wählen in elektronischen Netzwerken, Voting in electronic networks) research project supported by the government since 2005, T-Systems are studying the implementation of online voting in non-parliamentary elections. The voting system previously designed in this project was subjected to a thorough review by a renowned cryptologist from a German university in the summer of 2005. Some encryption processes were then modified, resulting in a highly secure voting protocol with the provisional working title of t-voting, which is simpler and quicker to implement. By adding important new steps within the core architecture, the strenuously disputed claims to the publicness of voting and its transparency are demonstrated. A public notice displayed on the bulletin board gives voters an overview of votes cast. Considering that online voting is seen as an alternative to postal voting, this actually increases the element of being "public". The principle of universality is augmented in online voting as the access options are simplified, which means that more voters can participate in the election.