Scantegrity Mock Election at Takoma Park (summary)

We report on our experiences and lessons learned using the Scantegrity II voting and audit system in a mock election held April 11, 2009, in Takoma Park Maryland with ninety-five voters. Introduction.On April 11, 2009, ninety-five voters cast ballots with the Scantegrity II voting system during a mock election held at the Community Center in Takoma Park, Maryland, coinciding with Takoma Park's celebration of Arbor Day.The purpose of this exercise, which we call Mock1, was to demonstrate Scantegrity II's readiness for the Takoma Park municipal election in November 2009, in which voters will cast ballots for mayor and ward council members.The November election will mark the first time any end-to-end (E2E) cryptographic voting system will be used in a binding governmental election.2 This overview summarizes our experiences using Scantegrity II (henceforth referred to as "Scantegrity").We present and interpret data collected through questionnaires, unobtrusive observations, and focus groups.For more details, see our full paper [She09] and website [Scan], which includes detailed supporting items (e.g., questionnaires, agreement with City, human subjects review documents).Scantegrity [Cha09, Cha08b, Cha08a] is a software-independent cryptographic audit system that augments a traditional optical-scan voting process.In Mock1, voters marked paper ballots with special pens that contained a revealing ink, exposing a randomly chosen codenumber in each marked oval, which the voter could write down on a detachable ballot chit.After polls closed, each voter had the option of checking her codenumbers on-line, to verify that her vote had been recorded as intended.Furthermore, Scantegrity is universally verifiable: anyone could verify on-line, using special software of his or her choice, that the tally was computed correctly from the official data.We tested Scantegrity because it shows promise for widespread adoption: the verification steps are optional and the voting experience is similar to that of traditional optical scan.Many have criticized E2E systems as being difficult to understand, use, and administer-yet there is little evidence to support or contradict this belief.Mock1 is part of a larger research project to measure how easy it is for voters to vote with Scantegrity, how easy it is for poll workers to administer Scantegrity, and how well voters and poll workers accept this revolutionary system.As a capabilities demonstration, Mock1 tested only the Scantegrity voting system and closely followed voting and verification procedures that will be used in November's binding election.In the binding election will we will survey voters and measure the impact of Scantegrity on poll workers.In April 2010, we plan to carry out Mock2, a controlled comparative field test and expert review comparing Scantegrity with a commercial optical scan voting system.Although the binding election and hence Mock1 constrain research methodologies, only through a binding election can one adequately measure the impact of Scantegrity on poll workers. Methods.At Mock1 we measured Scantegrity's performance through surveys, observations, and focus groups.To prevent well-known chain-voting attacks, ballots were locked onto clipboards (see Figure 1).Eighty voters and six of the seven Takoma Park poll workers filled out questionnaires about their experiences with Scantegrity, including questions about how easy the system was to use and administer and how well they understood and accepted the system.In the polling room, two unobtrusive observers watched and timed fifty-three of the voters as they voted, filling out voter observation sheets.As voters