ДОСВІД ВПРОВАДЖЕННЯ ЕЛЕКТРОННОГО ГОЛОСУВАННЯ В ЗАКЛАДІ ВИЩОЇ ОСВІТИ

Abstract

An important problem on the way to the development of e-democracy is to ensure citizens' confidence in electronic voting systems. Although there are many cases of implementation of such systems, in all cases, voters must take it on faith that the personnel serving the system will honestly and accurately perform the work. In other words, none of these systems provide voters with sufficient and understandable evidence that the secret of their votes cannot be revealed and the results of the vote count cannot be falsified. It is known that the systems in which citizens perform audits of all those procedures where fraudulent manifestations are possible, enjoy the indisputable trust of voters. Now such systems exist, but they do not use electronic voting. The purpose of this work is to prove and practical confirmation of the possibility of building a system of secret electronic voting on the public Internet with means available to voters for auditing all those processes that may cause distrust during voting. The principles of constructing e-voting systems are analyzed from the point of view of the possibility of ensuring the trust of citizens through complete openness for auditing selected software and hardware solutions. It was with the use of such solutions that the system was built, which was implemented at the Kiev National University of Construction and Architecture for the election of student representatives to the Student Self-Government Council. Also, this system is used to conduct secret voting at meetings of the Academic Council of the University online. An important practical result of this implementation is the elimination of cumbersome manual counting procedures. In the case of the meeting that took place on October 16, 2020, where the number of ballots was 53, although 53 out of 85 members of the Academic Council took part in the vote (six voted with paper ballots), the relief was tangible, because there were 2,491 fewer ballots in the ballot box. In addition, computerized counting is instant and error-free, and the presence of automated auditing eliminates the possibility for any software tampering or unauthorized personnel interference with the server. The main advantage, of course, is that conditions are created to protect against the spread of a viral infection and there is no need to stop the activities of the Scientific Councils during quarantine.