Counting Votes with Formal Methods

This abstract provides some background information about the electronic voting experiment that is planned in the Netherlands for the European Elections of 2004, and about our own involvement in the infrastructure for this experiment. The talk will elaborate further about the computer security issues involved, especially with respect to the use of formal methods for vote counting software. Remote voting Since the late 1990s voting in the Netherlands proceeds largely via voting machines. These are dedicated computers that record and store votes. These machines are under control of local governments, who put them up in voting stations on election days. These voting machines (and all new versions of them) have undergone independent evaluation before being admitted. However the internal mechanics is secret. Also, the evaluation

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: AMAST
• Authors: Bart Jacobs
• Keywords: AMAST 2004, European Elections, Software Engineering, Vote Counting Software, Voting Machines