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Synopsis

The purpose of this document is to present the user requirements from the test sites Kista, Bremen and ISSY.

File name

KISTA-WP2-D4V3-v1.0.doc

Amendment History

Version	Date	Description
0.1	01 Dec 2000	First draft Template for comment
0.2	06 Feb 2001	Second draft
0.3	20 Feb 2001	Third draft
0.4	02 mars 2001	Fourth draft
0.5	09 April 2001	Fifth draft
0.6	09 May 2001	Draft six
0.7	13 June 2001	7th draft prepared by PD according to decisions taken during Helsinki meeting. Includes first list of merged requirements and a list of review comments to be addressed by Bremen, Issy and Kista.
1.0	6 July 2001	Final version sent to the EC

Disclaimer

The information in this document is provided as is and no guarantee or warranty is given that the information is fit for any particular purpose. The user thereof uses the information at its sole risk and liability.

Scope of CyberVote

CyberVote, an innovative cyber voting system for internet terminals and mobile phones, is a research and development (RDT) programme being funded by the European Commission, with additional funding from the companies and organisations undertaking the work. It is part of the Information Society Technologies (IST) 1999 programme for research, technology development and demonstration under the fifth framework programme (5^th PCRD). It is attached to Key Action 1 "Systems and Services for the Citizens".

The objective of CyberVote is to demonstrate the first highly secure cyber-voting prototype using mobile and fixed internet technologies. The project will define and implement a CyberVote prototype embedding an innovative voting protocol relying upon the use of advanced cryptographic tools that will be developed to ensure integrity, privacy and authentication of the voters. The prototype will be demonstrated and evaluated on 3 trial applications.

The project is carried out by a consortium led by MATRA Systèmes & Information (FR) and grouping together: British Telecommunications (UK), NOKIA Research Centre (FI), K.U.Leuven Research & Development (BE), Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (NL), Freie Hansestadt Bremen (DE), Mairie d'Issy-les-Moulineaux (FR) and Kista Stadsdelsnämnd (SE).

The project officially started on 1 September 2000. It will end on 1 March 2003. The overall budget of the project is 3 243 629 and the total effort is 27.4 man-years.

Executive summary

This report presents a list of 55 requirements for an Internet voting system. This list results from discussions among the CyberVote consortium and from various discussions/interviews with voter representatives, election officials and experts of Germany, France and Sweden, the 3 nations represented in the CyberVote project.

These requirements are classified in 3 categories: legal requirements (LEG), technical requirements (TEC) and voters' requirements (VOT). They are all uniquely identified in order to check at the end of the project which requirements would have been addressed. This numbering also indicates the originator(s) of the requirements (B for Bremen, I for ISSY and K for KISTA). A distinction between SHALL requirements and SHOULD requirements have also been made. Only SHALL requirements have to be addressed.

This requirement analysis will be further investigated. The impact on the technical architecture will be considered and conflicting requirements will be prioritised. The list of requirements to address during the development of the CyberVote prototype will appear in deliverable "D8 - Report on mock-ups of architecture and overall system architecture".

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Introduction *

2 Context, Approach and Users *

2.1 The Context *

2.2 The Approach *

2.3 Definition of the Users *

3 List of Requirements *

3.1 Legal requirements *
3.1.1 Principles *
3.1.2 The voting period *
3.1.3 Suffrage, etc. *
3.1.4 Election register, etc. *
3.1.5 Voter identification *
3.1.6 Voting media *
3.1.7 Vote counting *
3.1.8 Audit *
3.1.9 Other *

3.2 Technical requirements *
3.2.1 Usability *
3.2.2 Security & compatibility *
3.2.3 Voting & vote counting *
3.2.4 Technical robustness *
3.2.5 Maintenance *

3.3 Voters' requirements *
3.3.1 Control of vote *
3.3.2 Added value for users *
3.3.3 Interactivity *
3.3.4 Languages *
3.3.5 Other *

4 Conclusion *

5 References *

6 Abbreviations and acronyms *

7 Points of Contact for further information *

1 INTRODUCTION

This document is Volume 3 of deliverable 4 of the CyberVote project. Deliverable 4 - Report on electronic democracy projects, legal issues of Internet voting and users (i.e. voters and authorities representatives) requirements analysis - was subdivided into 3 volumes:

1. D4 Volume 1 - Report on electronic democracy projects,

2. D4 Volume 2 - Report on legal issues of Internet voting,

3. D4 Volume 3 - Report on user (i.e. voters and authorities representatives) requirement analysis.

D4 Volume 3 lists the requirements that have been freely formulated by user representatives of the future CyberVote system. These requirements are uniquely numbered in order to be able to trace them during all the phases of the project.

At this stage of the project, it cannot be formally stated if the user requirements expressed in this document will be fulfilled or not by the CyberVote system. The reason for this is that these requirements have been expressed without analysing their technical feasibility. Subsequent technical analysis will be conducted later on in the project taking into account the findings of the reviews of authentication and security techniques, applicable Internet technologies and hardware platforms, mobile phones and Internet terminals. The technical implication of the requirements listed in this document will then be the subject on some experiments in order to determine their feasibility. By the end of Requirement Analysis phase, it will be clearly stated which of the requirements listed in this document will be addressed by the CyberVote project.

The main difficulty in the implementation of the CyberVote system consists in the fact that the action of voting is considered as the most important democratic action. For this reason, the CyberVote project needs to respond to the existing requirements for traditional elections and to new requirements specific to this new system.

The CyberVote project will be faced with several kinds of already existing constraints, particularly in a legal point of view. Actually, it will have to respond to all the existing laws regarding the Electoral Code. Moreover, these legal requirements will have an impact on the technical requirements : some of the legal requirements will generate technical requirements (for instance, for the question of secrecy of vote).

For this project, two kinds of requirements can be analysed : the voters' requirements and the authorities' requirements. In fact, the users of the CyberVote system will be the authorities who will implement it in their cities, regions or countries. Voters requirements can be given by political authorities considering the fact that they are the direct representatives of citizens.

 

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