Title: How to compare and analyse risks of internet voting versus other modes of voting

Authors: Saggi Nevo, Henry Kim

Addresses: Operations Management and Information Systems, Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada. ' Operations Management and Information Systems, Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada

Abstract: Internet voting (I-voting) has been very topical and it has been used in elections in North America, Europe and elsewhere. The advantages of its use include increased participation from infirmed, elderly and itinerant voters and quicker vote tabulation. Its disadvantages stem from the inherent lack of control and transparency from allowing votes from homes and other locations rather than from controlled polling stations, which may lead to voter fraud or inadvertent spoilage of |virtual| ballots. Much of this balancing-off of pros and cons is done on a qualitative basis with little attempt at quantifying the risks using an established methodology. The application of a well-known risk analysis method, Operationally Critical Threat, Asset and Vulnerability Evaluation (OCTAVE) has merely been proposed. In this paper, we extend this general proposal and describe key constructs for applying OCTAVE to perform risk analysis for voting alternatives in general. Governments or other institutions can then use this methodology to perform quantitative risk analysis to compare different voting alternatives including I-voting, as well as poll, mail-in and telephone voting.

Keywords: internet voting; i-voting; e-government; electronic voting; online voting; risk analysis; risk assessment; voting alternatives; virtual ballots.

DOI: 10.1504/EG.2006.008495

Electronic Government, an International Journal, 2006 Vol.3 No.1, pp.105 - 112

Published online: 23 Dec 2005 *

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