Internet Voting in Estonia

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Internet Votingin Estonia

• Tarmo Milva
• Deputy project manager
• Estonian National Electoral Commitee

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E-stonia ?

• Population 1.35M
• Everyday Internet usage 54
• Internet banking 86
• Mobile penetration 95
• 1000 Free Internet Access points
• PKI penetration gt65
• Biggest national eID card roll-out in the Europe !

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Internet Voting?

• In October 2005 Estonia had first-ever
  pan-national Internet Voting with binding
  results
• 80 of voters had a chance to vote via Internet
  due to the ID-card
• 2 of participated voters used that possibility

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ID-card Project

• Started in 1997
• Law on personal identification documents Feb,
  1999
• Digital Signature Act March, 2000
• Government accepted plan for launching ID-card
  May, 2000
• First card issued Jan 28, 2002
• Apr 2006 910 000 cards have been issued

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The Card

• Compulsory for all residents
• Contains
• Personal data file
• Certificate for authentication (along with
  e-mail address Forename.Surname_at_eesti.ee)
• Certificate for digital signature

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Usage of the ID-card

• Major ID-document
• Replacement of
• (transportation) tickets
• library cards
• healt insurance card
• driver documents
• etc...
• Authentication token for all major e-services
• Digital signature tool

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Internet Voting ?

• Not a nuclear physics
• Just another application for ID-card
• ...with some special requirements measures...

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What it takes ?
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Legal foundation 2002

• 1) voter can use internet for voting
• 2) voter is authenticated using ID-card
• 3) voter confirms his selection with digital
  signature
• 4) e-voting takes place during absentee voting
  i.e. days 6.-4. before the Election Day

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Big Fight in 2005

• Amendments to the electoral law to reflect the
  reality
• Long discussions in the Parliament
• The President rejected the amended law twice
• National Court decided that the amendments are
  correspondant to the Constitutional Law
• Issue With Internet voting you can vote
  repeaditly

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I-voting Main Principles

• All major principles of paper-voting are followed
• I-voting is allowed during period before Voting
  Day
• The user uses ID-card
• System authenticates the user
• Voter confirms his choice with digital signature
• Repeated e-voting is allowed
• Only last e-ballot is counted
• Manual re-voting is allowed
• If vote is casted in paper during the Election
  Day, e-vote(s) will be revoked

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Voter registration

• Missing
• All citizen (residents) should register their
  place of living in central population register
• Only voters with registered addresses are
  eligible
• Population register is used

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• To vote via Internet voter needs
• An Estonian ID card with valid
  certificates and PIN-codes
• Computer used for voting must have
• A smart card reader
• A driver for ID card (free to download from page
  www.id.ee/installer)
• A Windows,Linux or MacOSX operating system

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I Website for voting
www.valimised.ee
www.valimised.ee
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II Authentication

• Put your card into card reader

• Insert PIN 1 for authentication

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III Ballot completion

• Choose a candidate

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IV Authentication

• Confirm your choice

• Insert PIN 2

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V Confirmation
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Envelope scheme
E-voters
E-votes
Results
Public key
Private key
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Architecture
Central System
List ofCandidates
List ofVoters
VoteForwardingServer
Voterapplication
VoteStoringServer
VoteCountingApplication
log
log
log
Audit
Key Management
Auditapplication
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Principles for selecting technology for I-voting

• Involve all major influencers and specialists
• Keep it as simple as possible
• Build it on securestable platforms (Debian)
• No
• Databases (engines)
• 9GL envirmonments use C Python
• 3rd party libraries too much

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Managing Procedures

• All fully documented
• Crash course for observers-politicians
  auditors
• All security-critical procedures
• Logged
• Audited observed
• Videotaped
• All major IS-specialists involved for
  network-monitoring 24/7 for dDOS or trojans

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Physical Security

• Governmental security hosting
• Two independant departement guarding the server
  room
• Strict requirements for entering the server
  premises
• Auditor(s), cam-man, operator, police officer
• Sealing of hardware

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Some statistics
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Lessons learned

• I-voting is not a killer-application. It is just
  another way for people to vote
• Peoples attitude and behavior change in decades
  and generations, not in seconds
• I-voting will be as natural as Internet-banking
  but even more secure
• Internet voting is there to stay

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More information

• http//www.vvk.ee/engindex.htmlval_at_riigikogu.ee
• tarmo_at_sk.ee