Open Data in Elections: Why It Is Needed and What Can Be Done to Make More Progress

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Open Data ◽  
Electronic Voting ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Voter Identification ◽  
Online Tools

The discussion on how technology can be applied to improve the integrity and transparency of elections often focuses on complex and expensive technologies such as biometrics, electronic voting and voter identification systems. Something unfortunately mentioned far less often is the potential to apply technology in a way that is not only much cheaper, but also arguably more efficient—the use of online tools that provide access to elections-related information based on open data principles. is indeed unfortunate as the absence of at least rudimentary open data approaches in elections can undo and even reverse the integrity gains brought about by other technologies and measures.

An Enhanced Computational Fusion Technique for Security of Authentication of Electronic Voting System

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-37
Author(s):  
Adewale Olumide Sunday ◽  
Boyinbode Olutayo ◽  
Salako E. Adekunle
Keyword(s):  
Acceptance Rate ◽  
Electronic Voting ◽  
Biometric System ◽  
Voter Identification ◽  
Voting System ◽  
Mathematical Equations ◽  
One Time Password ◽  
Authentication Security ◽  
Electronic Voting System ◽  
False Acceptance

The detection of a false individual who had not been enrolled as a genuine participant in an election could be potentially detected in electronic voting systems as against paper-based methods. In recent time, one-time password and biometrics have been used to curtail false acceptance of imposters. However, imposters had unlawfully stolen the credentials of genuine individuals, gained unauthorized access, and polled illegitimate votes due to poor authentication methodology. The accuracy of a multi-biometric system is a function of the data type used and fusion method adopted. This paper presented a computational fusion approach that involved the use of fingerprint and randomly generated voter identification number to effectively satisfy the authentication security requirement of the electronic voting system. New architectural and mathematical equations on the proposed approach were presented to tackle the problem of false acceptance rate and improve on the true acceptance rate of a biometric system. Algorithm to achieve the proposed approach was presented in this paper as well.

scholarly journals Live Scan Plebiscite System

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 135-137
Keyword(s):  
Electronic System ◽  
Electronic Voting ◽  
Biometric System ◽  
Traditional System ◽  
Voter Identification ◽  
Identification Card ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Election System ◽  
Voting System ◽  
Electronic Voting System

Live scan plebiscite system is an electronic system or device employed in any legal system to cast their votes rather than ballot papers and boxes which used earlier in conventional Election system. The traditional system may be a long, time-consuming process and there’s a clear stage of error and malpractices. Later the system was replaced by electronic voting machine. To overcome the disadvantages of the electronic voting system, biometric identifiers are included in the voting system. Our proposed system consists of a Ballot unit with biometric system. This system verifies the biometrics of the candidate with the already stored data in Aadhar or voter identification card. In the proposed system the voter should verify his/her finger print and only if it matches they can vote.The data of the voters are stored in the cloud and can be retrieved from anyplace, so the voter can vote from any place outside the constituency. In the Electronic voting system, there is a simple unit called ballot unit which is used to record the votes. In this electronic voting only, the votes are recorded and counted and there is no separate unit to verify the voter, so anybody can record the votes and any number of times.

scholarly journals Georeferenced Open Data and Augmented Interactive Geo-Visualizations as Catalysts for Citizen Engagement

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thore Fechner ◽  
Christian Kray
Keyword(s):  
Digital Divide ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Open Government ◽  
Citizen Engagement ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Online Tools ◽  
The World ◽  
Ict Tools ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Large Groups

Citizen engagement figures prominently on political agendas around the world. In this context, high hopes are pinned to open government, open data and ICT tools. At the same time, there are fears of a widening digital divide, where large groups of society are in danger of being excluded from societal processes, for example due to having difficulties in using the online tools provided. In this paper, we propose an approach that has the potential to address many key issues in this context (e.g. accessibility, complexity, engagement). It relies on space and time as common integrators, and uses interactive augmented geo-visualizations to facilitate citizen engagement. We report on key challenges that need to be overcome to realize this approach and on initial progress towards this goal. We describe a set of prototypical tools aimed at supporting citizen engagement in the envisioned way, and discuss the approach as well as its potentials, issues and challenges in detail. Initial experiences and results indicate that our approach is not only technically feasible but it can also empower citizens to more effectively engage with societal and governmental processes.

The Impact of VAAs on (non-Voting) Aspects of Political Participation: Insights from Panel Data Collected During the 2017 German Federal Elections Campaign

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-134
Author(s):  
Vasilis Manavopoulos ◽  
Vasiliki Triga ◽  
Stefan Marschall ◽  
Lucas Constantin Wurthmann
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Online Tools ◽  
German Bundestag ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThus far, research on the effects of Voting Advice Applications has focused on some aspects of voting behavior, whether, for example, these online tools impact citizens’ likelihood to vote or their voting choices. Relatively under-researched remain questions concerning the relationship between using VAAs and other forms of engagement with politics, such as involvement in electoral campaigns and information seeking about politics and parties. This paper seeks to examine effects in these behaviors associated with VAA-use employing panel data generated during and after the period of the German Bundestag Federal Election in September, 2017. The data from roughly 1120 participants, sampled to be representative of the German internet users, were collected in four waves, 1 month before the election at the earliest and several weeks following at the latest. We find that VAA-use is positively associated with consuming information about politics through other media (e.g. TV) and other election-related information-seeking activities, such as reading party programmes. On the other hand, we find no statistically significant relationship between VAA-use and interpersonal talk about politics or more active engagement with electoral campaigns such as attending party rallies.

scholarly journals The Best Online Tools Based on Media Preference Reflected by Health Information Received on Social Media amongst Diabetic Patients in Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 118-128
Author(s):  
Siti Zuhaida Hussein ◽  
Chung Hong Chuo ◽  
Fawwaz Mohd Said ◽  
Khairunnisa Tumingan ◽  
Nurshalin Sahar Shah ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Diabetic Patients ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Online Tools ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Related ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Preference

Background: Diabetes mellitus has become a major public health problem globally. Social media could be useful in assisting clinical practice and sharing health-related information to improve self-management and to promote a positive behavioural change. This study aims to develop a guide on the best online tools by determining the media preference reflected by health- related information received from social media amongst diabetic patients in Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz (HCTM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. Methods: This study was conducted cross-sectional on 174 respondents, who were selected by using a simple random sampling method. Socio-demographic data and the use of the internet and media for health-related information were obtained via questionnaires. Results: The most preferred social media used for searching and sharing health-related information was WhatsApp (73.6%), followed by Facebook (67.8%), Instagram (18.4%) and Twitter (17.2%). The social media preference related to socio-demographic data of age was statistically significant (P < 0.002), which had a medium effect. Furthermore, the media preference was not significantly related to health-related information searched or shared on social media and the frequency of usage. Conclusion: Indeed, the social media have been an essential media platform to enhance public awareness concerning public health. This calls for evolution to further enhance the use of social media amongst healthcare practitioners to emphasise health promotion and empower the patients to play an active role in their healthcare. This study provides a guideline for the medical researchers, practitioners or healthcare providers in choosing WhatsApp as an online medium to communicate with diabetic patients in the future, specifically in Malaysia.

scholarly journals #Safe Mapping Platform: A GIS Mobile Crowd Sensing Platform for COVID-19 Self-Tracking and Self-Risk Managing

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-60
Keyword(s):  
Open Data ◽  
Location Based Services ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Mobile Crowd Sensing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Crowd Sensing ◽  
Sensing Platform ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mobile Crowd

Increases in the social sector of open data and online mapping technologies are starting new chances for interactive mapping in many research applications. Mobile crowd sensing is an application that gathers data from a network of conscientious volunteers and implements it for a public benefit which is very helpful for collecting related information during the COVID-19 situation. The paper aims to demonstrate the concept of #Safe Mapping Platform which followed a framework of opensource technology and implementation aspects. The #Safe Mapping Platform was established for self-tracking and self-risk managing by integrating GIS opensource technologies, location-based services, and LINE application. The developed platform can be adapted to the public for self-tracking and self-risk managing in any health issues in the future.

scholarly journals Electronic voting technologies

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Nedyak ◽  
Oleg Rudzeyt ◽  
Artem Zainetdinov ◽  
Sofia Suksova
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Electronic Voting ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Voter Identification ◽  
Election Process ◽  
The Will ◽  
Second Category ◽  
Modern Technologies

The article describes modern electronic voting technologies used in various countries of the world, such as Estonia, the United States, countries of the African continent, and others. The authors also consider the main technologies of electronic voting, which are currently widely used in Russia. With the development of digital technologies, there is a tendency for their ubiquity. Various democratic institutions, in turn, have excellent potential for digitalization. One of the results of this synergy was the emergence of such a phenomenon as electronic voting. Most often, electronic voting is classified according to the principle of their interaction with the voter. The first category is remote electronic voting, which includes online voting. This type of electronic voting is used for remote registration of the will of voters. Citizens, instead of visiting a polling station, vote using a home or work personal computer that is connected to the Internet. Can also use the computers installed in the booths in public places – in schools, libraries, etc. The second category in the above classification is voting using electronic means at polling stations. These include so-called «electronic» ballot boxes, electronic technical means for automating vote counting, and various automated systems for automating the election process as a whole and its various stages separately. In addition to considering the methods and technologies of electronic voting, the article also partially describes the methods and problems associated with the identification and formation of voter lists in electronic voting. The authors consider, among other things, the advantages and disadvantages of elective modern technologies. The main advantages of using electronic voting include automating the voting procedure, reducing financial and time costs, and improving the convenience of voting for certain categories of citizens. The disadvantages of the electronic voting technologies used are the lack of public confidence in electronic forms of voting, the likely violation of the principle of secrecy of voting, technical complexity, insufficient reliability compared to «traditional» methods of voting and summing up results, as well as problems with voter identification.

scholarly journals An efficient end to end verifiable voting system

2021 ◽  
Vol Volume 33 - 2020 - Special... ◽  
Author(s):  
Léonie Tamo Mamtio ◽  
Gilbert Tindo
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Fault Tolerant ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Electronic Voting ◽  
Bulletin Board ◽  
Voting Systems ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Voting System ◽  
End To End

Electronic voting systems have become a powerful technology for the improvement of democracy by reducing the cost of elections, increasing voter turnout and even allowing voters to directly check the entire electoral process. End-to-end (E2E) verifiability has been widely identified as a critical property for the adoption of such voting systems for electoral procedures. Moreover, one of the pillars of any vote, apart from the secret of the vote and the integrity of the result, lies in the transparency of the process, the possibility for the voters "to understand the underlying system" without resorting to the competences techniques. The end-to-end verifiable electronic voting systems proposed in the literature do not always guarantee it because they require additional configuration hypotheses, for example the existence of a trusted third party as a random source or the existence of a random beacon. Hence, building a reliable verifiable end-to-end voting system offering confidentiality and integrity remains an open research problem. In this work, we are presenting a new verifiable end-to-end electronic voting system requiring only the existence of a coherent voting board, fault-tolerant, which stores all election-related information and allows any party as well as voters to read and verify the entire election process. The property of our system is information guaranteed given the existence of the bulletin board, the involvement of the voters and the political parties in the process. This involvement does not compromise the confidentiality nor integrity of the elections and does not require cryptographic operations on the voters account. Les systèmes de vote électronique sont devenus une technologie puissante pour amé-liorer la démocratie en réduisant le coût des élections, en augmentant la participation des électeurs et en permettant même aux électeurs de vérifier directement l'ensemble de la procédure électorale. Cependant, la vérification de bout en bout (E2E) a été largement identifiée comme une propriété critique pour l'adoption de tels systèmes de vote en réel pour des procédures électorales. Par ailleurs, l'un des piliers de tout scrutin, outre le secret du vote et l'intégrité du résultat, réside dans la trans-parence du processus, la possibilité pour les électeurs "de comprendre le système sous-jacent" sans avoir recours aux compétences techniques. Les systèmes de vote électronique vérifiables de bout en bout proposés dans la littérature ne le garantissent pas toujours car ils nécessitent des hypothèses de configuration supplémentaires par exemple l'existence d'un tiers de confiance comme source de hasard, l'existence d'une balise aléatoire. Ainsi, construire un système de vote vérifiable de bout en bout fiable offrant la confidentialité et l'intégrité reste un problème de recherche ouvert. Dans ce tra-vail, nous présentons un nouveau système de vote électronique vérifiable de bout en bout nécessitant uniquement l'existence d'un babillard de vote cohérent, tolérant aux pannes, qui stocke toutes les in-formations relatives aux élections et permet à tout parti ainsi qu'aux électeurs de lire et vérifier le processus d'élection complet. La propriété de vérification de bout en bout de notre système est une information garantie compte tenu de l'existence du babillard, de l'implication des électeurs et des par-tis politique dans le processus. Cette implication ne compromet ni la confidentialité ni l'intégrité des élections et ne nécessite pas d'opérations cryptographiques pour le compte de l'électeur.

scholarly journals Barriers to Working With National Health Service England’s Open Data (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seb Bacon ◽  
Ben Goldacre
Keyword(s):  
National Health Service ◽  
Health Service ◽  
Patient Outcomes ◽  
National Health ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Online Tools ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Open Datasets ◽  
The Many ◽  
Improve Patient

UNSTRUCTURED Open data is information made freely available to third parties in structured formats without restrictive licensing conditions, permitting commercial and noncommercial organizations to innovate. In the context of National Health Service (NHS) data, this is intended to improve patient outcomes and efficiency. EBM DataLab is a research group with a focus on online tools which turn our research findings into actionable monthly outputs. We regularly import and process more than 15 different NHS open datasets to deliver OpenPrescribing.net, one of the most high-impact use cases for NHS England’s open data, with over 15,000 unique users each month. In this paper, we have described the many breaches of best practices around NHS open data that we have encountered. Examples include datasets that repeatedly change location without warning or forwarding; datasets that are needlessly behind a “CAPTCHA” and so cannot be automatically downloaded; longitudinal datasets that change their structure without warning or documentation; near-duplicate datasets with unexplained differences; datasets that are impossible to locate, and thus may or may not exist; poor or absent documentation; and withholding of data for dubious reasons. We propose new open ways of working that will support better analytics for all users of the NHS. These include better curation, better documentation, and systems for better dialogue with technical teams.

How “accessible” is open data?

2020 ◽  
Vol 121 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Engida H. Gebre ◽  
Esteban Morales
Keyword(s):  
Open Data ◽  
Comparison Method ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Related Information ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Open Coding ◽  
Data Provision ◽  
Continuous Support ◽  
To Come ◽  
Open Datasets

Purpose This paper aims to examine the nature and sufficiency of descriptive information included in open datasets and the nature of comments and questions users write in relation to specific datasets. Open datasets are provided to facilitate civic engagement and government transparency. However, making the data available does not guarantee usage. This paper examined the nature of context-related information provided together with the datasets and identified the challenges users encounter while using the resources. Design/methodology/approach The authors extracted descriptive text provided together with (often at the top of) datasets (N = 216) and the nature of questions and comments users post in relation to the dataset. They then segmented text descriptions and user comments into “idea units” and applied open-coding with constant comparison method. This allowed them to come up with thematic issues that descriptions focus on and the challenges users encounter. Findings Results of the analysis revealed that context-related descriptions are limited and normative. Users are expected to figure out how to use the data. Analysis of user comments/questions revealed four areas of challenge they encounter: organization and accessibility of the data, clarity and completeness, usefulness and accuracy and language (spelling and grammar). Data providers can do more to address these issues. Research limitations/implications The purpose of the study is to understand the nature of open data provision and suggest ways of making open data more accessible to “non expert users”. As such, it is not focused on generalizing about open data provision in various countries as such provision may be different based on jurisdiction. Practical implications The study provides insight about ways of organizing open dataset that the resource can be accessible by the general public. It also provides suggestions about how open data providers could consider users' perspectives including providing continuous support. Originality/value Research on open data often focuses on technological, policy and political perspectives. Arguably, this is the first study on analysis of context-related information in open-datasets. Datasets do not “speak for themselves” because they require context for analysis and interpretation. Understanding the nature of context-related information in open dataset is original idea.

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