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Democratic Technologies - Summary
This is the home of the DemTech Research Project, which was officially launched on July 1, 2011. Welcome!
Over the last four decades, information technology has begun to transform the electoral process---perhaps the most foundational process upon which democratic societies are built. Computers are gradually replacing manual parts of the democratic process by, for example, tallying results in Excel spreadsheets, predicting exit polls, or by computing seat assignments to parties in parliament (since 1962 in Denmark). With every such transformation, the overall process becomes more efficient, informative, and economical. However, there is a risk of the process becoming less trustworthy. The deployed technology tends to be complex and therefore prone to programming error and vulnerable to malicious attacks. These problems have an adverse effect on the very foundations of democracy. Voters are less likely to trust the electoral process, which inevitably leads to lower voter participation and cynicism.
The hypothesis of this research project is the following: It is possible to modernize the electoral process while balancing the trust of the people on the trustworthiness of the deployed technology? In order to provide evidence in support of this hypothesis, we propose first to design a rigorous software engineering principle, which we call trust by design that reproduces the trust-instilling elements of the conventional process in an electronic infrastructure. Second, we develop electronic election technology based on the trust by design principle. Third, the municipalities of Frederiksberg, Aarhus, and Copenhagen will help us evaluate the technology empirically in order to analyze the social, political and cultural implications inherent in digitally transforming the democratic process. The results of this project will provide KL and other decision makers important and invaluable insights into how to modernize the democratic process without jeopardizing the fundamental principles upon which democracies rest.
The DemTech project if financed through a generous grant from The Danish Council for Strategic Research by the Programme Commission on Strategic Growth Technologies.
News
External Advisory Board & Steering Committee
10. May 2012The DemTech External Advisory Board (EAB) and Steering Committee meetings took place on Thursday, the 10th of May. Our EAB consists of Prof. Jørgen Elklit, Nicoline Nyholm Miller (Head of Elections for Denmark), Prof. J. Alex Halderman, Prof. Kasper Møller Hansen, and Monica Løland (Danish Handicap Association).
Several talks were given and Alex gave a guest talk about the D.C. hack. The slides are presented in chronological order.
Researchers met with the KMD election team
27. April 2012DemTech researchers met with the KMD election team at the IT University. DemTech key researchers explained their vision behind DemTech, DemTech industry partners described the nature of teir partnership, and the leader of the KMD election team gave a talk about the role the KMD plays in the current Danish electoral system. DemTech welcomes site visits of interested stakeholders and encourages industry to take advantage of their findings and the open source software. DemTech is funded by den strategiske Forskningsrådet and the IT University of Copenhagen.
Joe Kiniry gave a talk today about Formal Methods in Software Engineering (Sensible Rigor) available here.
New PhD student
1. February 2012Daniel Gustafsson is joining the DemTech as a PhD student, starting February 1. He has received a Master degree from Chalmers University. Welcome Daniel.
Velux Visiting Professor
25. January 2012Prof. Gopalan Nadathur, a Velux Visiting Professor will be visiting the group from mid February for several months. He will also teach a PhD course. Stay tuned for more information.
IFES Report 6/11
9. January 2012In June 2011, IFES (International Foundation for Electoral Systems) published a report entitled: Electronic Voting & Counting Technologies: Guide to Conducting Feasibility Studies.
IDEA report 12/11
9. January 2012Here a link to an IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electroal Assistance) report: Introducing Electronic Voting: Essential Considerations.
Danish Technology Board E-elections Report
24. December 2011DemTech project members have written an unofficial English translation of the core of the Danish Technology Board’s report “E-elections - a choice for the future?”.
The public is welcome to comment upon this translation and the DTB's report contents itself.
DemTech is writing a critical technical response to this report. In short, some of the recommendations align with international best practices, but many do not.
Please see the following Google Document for the translation: E-elections - a choice for the future? The document is configured so that anyone can comment.
Two new post-doctoral researchers
24. December 2011We are very excited that two new post doctoral researcher will join the project. David Baelde will start on January 1, 2012, and Nicolas Pouillard on February 1, 2012.
Sweden
27. October 2011Inspired, in part, by Norway's recent trials, Sweden has proposed that they should experiment with e-voting as well.
An article from e-voting scientist David Bismark was published online today.
